Two Shores: Step 9
Now things start to get fun. I love painting lights. The day I get to add lights to my buildings and bridges is like the day your secret decoder ring finally comes in the mail. With the burnt umber base completely dry at this point, I can apply the colors for the lights without worrying about the dark base color dirtying them. I use titanium, cadmium red, cad yellow, and a combination of cerulean and ultramarine blue to create a variety of lights.
To create a nice, soft “melting” effect for my lights, I first mix a very thin (lots of linseed oil), inky mixture of each color, which is very transparent. I use this to create a hazy areola beneath some of the lights, and then go back with the thicker paint and add a fleck of opaque light color to the center. I then very carefully blend this slightly into the hazy area to make the lights bleed nicely. I also add some direct flecks of light without the hazy under-paint, just for variety and to accentuate the sense of distant atmosphere.
I should mention here that I’m thinning the colors of my lights with linseed oil instead of turpentine at this stage. You might remember that earlier, when I was sketching the painting design onto the canvas, I added turpentine to my umber instead of linseed oil to achieve the same inky effect. The reason I’m switching to oil is to obey the rich-on-lean rule. Oil dries more slowly than turpentine, so by using oil at this stage to thin my paint, I’m painting a slower-drying layer on top of a faster-drying layer and ensuring that the future owner of this painting doesn’t curse my name as he writes ghastly checks to conservation laboratories.
So why am I essentially icing the cake while leaving the interior of the bridge bare? Don’t the lights seem like something that should be done last?
Well, sometimes, yes. But I need to be able to see how much contrast is going to exist between the lights and their environment before I can go ahead and paint the foreground elements. At the moment, the foreground is as dark as can be. I’ll be painting over it to give it more detail, but before I do that I want to know how light or dark to make those accents so I don’t drown out my lovely little lights with a crop of over-bright grass in the foreground. And I know the side of the bridge is going to need some highlights on its curve, catching the light of the sky at an angle, so that region is also staying unpainted until I know how light or dark I need to make it. I can tell the sky itself (remember I decided to paint it brighter than it would actually appear at this time of day to give a more cheerful impression) is going to give the lights plenty of competition already, so it’s obvious that I’m going to need to keep the foreground quite dark in the final painting if I don’t want to lose them entirely into the mix of the composition.
December 11th, 2004 at 7:00 pm
Damon,
No, I did not think that you were snowboarding all day. I spotted the difference between steps 7 & 8 right away. My mom is an artist and I have seen her paint the same stroke for several days… Great job so far and thank you so much for your work and commentary.
December 13th, 2004 at 3:15 pm
Thanks Aparna, it sounds like your mother is a very focused and patient painter. You’re obviously familiar with what goes into producing carefully painted works, which I like. It’s amazing how many people seem to be under the impression that accurate, detailed paintings just fall out of the sky, or are the natural byproduct of a “talented and inspired” individual. As you probably know, high realism demands a huge amount of practice and dedication, just as any refined skill or science. It doesn’t just happen, and no one is “just born with it”. It’s very refreshing to meet people who know and appreciate that fact. I’m glad you’ve enjoyed the artist’s studio so far. Thanks for your comment.