Colorful Sunset Over Water | Oil Painting Process

All right, this one is going to be a fun one. I've got a reference of this beautiful sky. I think I took it one day, I was actually on a jog, and I was just kind of in town, and I'm going to use this sky to be the starting point for a wetland scene. And I think I'm eventually going to put some ducks coming down somewhere. And right now I'm just going to use this reference to get something sketched out on the panel here. The reference, as well as the full-time version of this video, are going to be on Patreon. So I'm going to just get some lines established. And I'm not going to follow it exactly. I'm really just wanting to take some of the colors from this. And below my horizon I'm going to put some water with a few peninsulas of some emerging grass or some kind of wetland plants. And it doesn't have to be anything special. I think I'm going keep the foreground primarily dark aside from the water. And the water is going to pick up that reflection and kind of give this area a glow. And I couldn't see the sun in this reference, but if I had to imagine it's just somewhere down here. And let's just say that we can just barely see it. All right, that's good. So I have my standard color palette today again. Titanium white, magenta, cad yellow, lemon, cad orange, cobalt teal, cad yellow deep, phthalo blue, titanium red oxide, and my black is magenta blue and the red oxide. And then using some liquid and pastel medium. And I'm going to grab some white and that yellow deep. And I'm just going to start right in the middle with some of the bright colors. A thin layer always to start. And I just want to get these blocks of color on and kind of secured. And right above that just dive right into some magenta. And I'm going to use the phthalo blue a little bit more in my I was using the cobalt teal. It makes for great violet, but it also is not as pungent as the phthalo blue. So you can dampen those colors down. Yellow will do that too. White, cobalt teal. I'm gonna try and find those blues. I think the brighter colors easier for me to focus on right now. It's kind of the negative space of this cloud. Yeah, close enough. Violet. Start up here. I'm going to try and spread this color out. It's a little bit thick for now. All right, that blue's on there. Now I want to tint that a bit by adding some violet. See that? Just kind of warmer blue. I'm just looking for all the areas that I can fit some blue in before I get to the rest of this cloud. I want to get some of the dark now. Something on the horizon. And I'm going to stick with the same color scheme as in the reference, but just some very distant something. Probably trees. About like that. And I'm gonna go into the orange and magenta. Let's start with that. Don't need to get a lot down. Just something. It's pretty close to what the base of this is. And this magenta that's right there. This violet. Just kind of mix the two together. And I don't need complete coverage. I just need to know what I'm doing. So some of this blue. And I suspect that these violets and grays are going to change some. But if I can just get most of it covered, get somewhere close. And I'm gonna... I want to get, before I get too far, you know, most of these colors on here. And I want to get some of this really bright orange right under the sun, just so I can see it. Yeah, it's good for now. All right, I'm going to jump right back into the yellows now. A little bold. Keep my strokes confident. I'm just trying to have patience with it, more than anything. Really thinking before I'm acting. I feel slow, but I can see some progress. Subtle distant sky. And it's going to feel like it's getting green, but I think that's the right move for down here. I think my cloud's too high right there, so I'm just going to drag through it. Get rid of it. And just basically very lightly scraping. Same thing up here. Some blue and some of these clouds feel transparent. Now I want to try and capture that. Something lighter, closer to the sky behind, and more blue. And lighten up these edges. That's going to leave something, an impression. I don't want this yellow anymore, so heavy on the magenta right there, here. And probably just start right there. It seems pretty good, actually. So I think I need to go down into the water now. Get some of that covered. And that's going to be reflecting those clouds about right there. Water back here on the right and the left. Just cover it. And I will add some detail to this down here, but I'd rather just get something covered now. I'm going to just clear this. And now just kind of go back into the clouds and look for color. What can be adjusted. Lift it up. All right, I'm going to just continue to try and nail down, I would say, both the color and the value. There's some changes that I can see I need to make. And this is where I always just figure that the best skill to have is being able to judge yourself, your own work. What is actually wrong with it in comparison. I mean, maybe it's in comparison to your reference. It's kind of your goal. But being able just to see in what direction am I off. Am I too light? Am I too dark? Am I too warm? Am I too cool? Well, never too cool, right? But just understanding what direction you should go with a particular color formation of cloud, whatever. Just being able to criticize the differences, critique the differences between your paint, your reference. And with time, you know, knowing what to do next, that just kind of comes with time. But first step, most important thing of all, too, is just being able to identify those differences from your reference to your surface of the painting. And just slowing down. And it's probably why I find myself sticking with oil paints. You know, it's funny, I did some live painting that was at the NWTF convention in Nashville. Gone there last couple years. And I paint a small piece like this from start to finish during each day. And the first year, two years ago, I had, I want to say it was five people throughout the weekend had, and I was using oil paint like I am now, had just decided they've got to touch it. And a lot of times it's always a wipe. And so they just completely wipe all the paint off on their finger, which it's fine. You know, I can, I can fix it. We can paint anything. I do that often with a Q-tip and I pull paint off and just redo it. But clearly we had signs up too, and it just didn't make a difference, grown adult. And so anyways, what I'm getting at is I learned this year to bring acrylics with. And so I did acrylic. That was probably the most acrylic painting I've done in several years. Did three paintings that weekend. And I used the Atelier Open acrylics, whatever the interactive, and I had a couple of their mediums. And I do think that's the acrylic that I would, if I were to switch back to, that's the one that I would switch to. But it definitely opens your eyes after working with oils for five years of just how little time you have, you know, regardless of what additives you add. It's, there's just really no comparison. You know, the open time with oils can be, for me, if I'm careful with the medium, I find myself working right into a section the following day with ease. And it's still plenty workable. So I, you know, I do enjoy, there are some things about the acrylics that I do enjoy, but I think that I find myself having just more patience through these years. And find myself understanding the importance of having those patients and being able to just, just slow down. And instead of just trying to do, you know, little by little, little by little, stand back, look at it, go, go, go. You know, at some point, every painting, and I do go fast in the beginning, but at some point, every painting slows way down. And I think of it more of like running a marathon in the, in the sense that I'm trying to pace myself rather than kind of overextending myself and my, my focus and feeling I need to take a break and step back. I focus more on just like, just keep going, but don't, don't overwork yourself during that time. Just, but just keep going, just do what you can to stay at the easel. I think the importance of that is just for my work, I've noticed I'm, I'm, that's the direction I'm heading with the way that I work. And oils is so conducive to that type of approach. Things I just love about doing these, these studies is I'm, you know, I'm trying to tell stories in my work and that, that's why I care about my, my artwork. And, and I think these studies just kind of helped me with, with, with playing with different, teaching me to play with different ways and how to tell those stories visually. Cause I find myself very unconcerned with the individual details when I work small like this, it's more about the overall composition. Does the color scheme, does that represent what I'm after? Is it accurate? Is the composition good? I'm less worried about, you know, the precision of, of how accurate things are. And I, I oftentimes just kind of forget about the reference and, and just get lost in the brushwork that I'm, that I'm seeing as it comes together and take, take shape. And I just try and see if I can't, well, just, it's just, I guess, just like practicing anything, just, just keep practicing on just kind of, you know, the reference becomes a guide of, of the, you know, the foundation of the scene that sets the scene as a whole. And then your imagination just sort of, I, I want my imagination just to sort of just take, take over from there. Once, once I've got things kind of set, I just want to see if like, if I can make up things that tell a certain story more in the way that I'm after, then, then the reference alone might be sharing. And so I really liked the, and that's why I think these studies are important is because I, I think it's the, the, the place where I grow the most, because I, and that's the, the same goes with plein, plein air. It's just something done quickly, trying to solve problems quickly, trying to, trying to solve problems on a larger scale rather than individual question, questions about individual spots on the painting. You know, when you're working large, you're focused on one area for longer periods of time. But when you're doing something small and fast and just kind of let go and you go through those bigger lessons faster. And so you're, you're going through obstacles at a faster pace when you're doing more paintings, but on a smaller scale, it really comes down to the number that you can finish total complete paintings. I think how many, how many challenges that you can put yourself as an artist in front of really comes down to, well, how many pieces have you completed? And that's why I work in small, fast, plein air. I'm going to get some orange and white, some medium. Get some white and think about these highlights again. As the paint gets thicker too, I start to have a steeper angle on my brush. Allows me to, I think it allows the paint to flow off of the brush hairs easier. Just kind of slides off. I'm going to try the yellow, lemon, a little bit of orange, maybe rotate my brush as I go through. And I'm going to start just going in with this brush now, and I'm probably going to finish it up using this brush. I really do use it a lot in the past as I'm sure you might know. The blade of a dagger, it's becoming popular. It really allows you to make some precise blends as well as details, and you can move quick with it, and you can rotate it to get some nice effects. Okay, I'm going to wash that brush off. What I want to do now, I'm going to take orange and magenta, and where that sun is going to be, we're going to have a lot of red. Defining more of the shoreline down here. Time to get out these q-tips and scrape away where I'm going to have this sun. Okay, I am going to go in for the sun now. I'm going to take some white over here, touch a magenta, not much though, fully. I'm going to go in and just touch that sun. I probably will use a second layer for this sun because I'm only going to be able to get so much out of this right now. And even try and get away with some highlights. Maybe I can brighten up. And while I'm in that bright color, keep the white and yellow going, a little orange. So this water, I'm just going to kind of drag across, focusing on the color, not really the specifics of the patterns. And then a darker purple and just tap on indication of some ripples in the water. Well, I don't know if there's anything more right now. For a one-session painting, I don't think I've gotten out of it what I'm hoping to achieve. And you know, at some point, you just got to walk away from it. And I end up always coming back and adjusting some things, but I'm pretty happy with it. So I am going to tentatively call it right there. I think I can poke around more with it, but I, it's almost, it's almost there. Now there's just subtle things that I want to do. And I do want, I'll wash the brush. I do want to add something more around the sun, but it's so delicate right now. And there's not a lot you can do without risking overworking it. So I want to do a lot to that sun right now. So I'm going to call it there. Hope you enjoyed this. Remember the long version of this video and reference are on Patreon. I appreciate you watching and that's it. We'll see you in the next one.