PLEIN AIR oil painting BRUSHWORK coastal california

All right, so here is the inspiration. I'm not exactly sure how I'm gonna compose this scene. I have painted this scene in the past. It was a long time ago and the painting did not work out. So I'm just gonna experiment and see what happens. I'll be painting over an old 14 by 18 inch painting and I've got my usual split primary palette here, but I have squeezed out a little bit of Viridian just cause I'm trying to use it up. The first step when painting over an old painting is to eliminate the old design or the old painting. So I am just blocking in simple shapes. I've been working for maybe 10 minutes, also paying attention to shadows because I will be losing these shadows within the next half hour. So I wanna establish the shadow pattern before it's gone. And then I've just broken down the scene into maybe six or seven simple shapes. We've got the sky shape, distant mountains, this water here, wet sand, dry sand, land in the foreground. And then this landmass I have broken up a little bit and the most detail will be in this landmass here. I've got some titanium white tinted with cadmium yellow lemon. I wanna establish my lightest lights. I am going to key the painting to the lightest lights. And once again, the white water is the lightest value in the scene. I did thin the paint a bit to cover the panel, but from here on out, I will be using thick paint. In other words, paint straight out of the tube. I will not be thinning at all. Driving to this location, I was thinking, maybe I can make a video about brushwork. First things first, choose a panel or a canvas that actually allows you to have visible brushwork. This panel's actually too small. It's 14 by 18. I've got a number four synthetic flat here. And these little shapes are really small. For the distant mountains, I've got a mixture here of titanium white, ultramarine blue, and alizarin crimson. And I'm loading the brush. Tried to mix up quite a bit of paint here, keeping the brush loaded. Load up again. When you're painting with thick paint and you've got visible brushstrokes, you have to decide which direction you want the strokes to go. So I am trying to use the brushstrokes to define the contours of these hills here, or these mountains. I've added a little more ultramarine to the mix because I'm noticing these mountains have a bit more blue in them. I've switched over to a number six natural bristle flat, and I've got a mixture of titanium white with phthalo blue. I'm gonna lighten up the sky here. And the sky is the second lightest value in the painting. The sky is at its lightest value directly over these distant mountains. And it's more of a cerulean color, and then it moves more towards an ultramarine color higher up in the sky. I've switched over to a brand new number six natural bristle flat because I feel like the other brushes just didn't hold enough paint. So I can load this with quite a bit of paint. It can be somewhat difficult painting skies using visible brushstrokes. Visible brushstrokes or texture tend to bring whatever you're painting forward in the picture plane. And obviously with the sky, what we're looking for is for the sky to have a feeling of space and depth. And so we do not want the brush work to eliminate that airy and open feeling. And I've found that having vertical strokes in the sky allows you to have brush work, but also maintain that airy feel. Now that I've lightened the sky, I'm realizing that I can lighten these distant mountains. I'm still getting separation here. I do want the mountains to feel like they're off in the distance. Liking the effects I'm getting with this brush a bit better. Adding some ultramarine to the mix. Noticing some darker areas here. And I'm trying to keep the value shift between the lighter and darker portions of the mountains. I'm trying to keep that shift very delicate. Now that I've lightened the distant mountains, I realize that I need to darken and increase the saturation on the distant water here. As the water gets closer to shore here, it's got a little more green in it. So I've added a bit of viridian and also some cadmium yellow lemon. And I realize I'm painting over my whitewater, but that's okay. I'll just reinforce that towards the end of the painting. The main reason to establish the whitewater pattern early on, like I said, was to be able to judge my values. Get some viridian here. Viridian and cadmium yellow lemon. And I think this color is a bit too saturated. I do want my colors to be punchy, but I do not want them to feel artificial. One thing to keep in mind when painting outdoors is that even if you're painting in the shade, the colors will seem darker and less saturated once you get your painting indoors. So I always push the saturation and I try to keep the values a little lighter. There's a trail right here. So I'm thinking of including it. Got a warm gray here for the trail. And I am seeing some darker greens. Still trying to keep the brush loaded and make strokes with intention. Once the big shapes are established, then I just work into those shapes with variations in color and value. But I'm trying to be careful because I do not wanna break up the overall design. I'm noticing some areas of yellow in the foreground. I feel like getting some variation and maybe some bright saturated colors in the foreground will help create a sense of depth. All right, so here's what I finished up with. I spent about two hours on this painting. It was finished on site. I was hoping to create a sense of depth in this painting by separating the different land masses using atmospheric perspective. I do think that the separation between the two distant land masses worked out pretty well. But I do think that the land masses in the foreground sort of run one into the other, which is actually how it appeared in real life. But I think that by boosting the saturation and contrast in the foreground here, and then maybe reducing the contrast and saturation in the midground could help to create a little bit of separation there. So I might experiment with that. It also would have been nice to possibly get some more red into the painting. And so these cliffs out here were mostly yellow, but I might experiment with putting a bit of red into those cliffs. All right, I hope you guys enjoyed this video. Let me know what you think in the comments. If you'd like to see some extra videos and help support the channel, there's a Patreon link down below. There's also a PayPal tip jar down below. I'm gonna be traveling for the next couple of weeks, so I will not be posting videos, but I will be back soon. Until then, stay creative, and I'll see you guys in the next video.