Perhaps you are one of the lucky ones who has found a particular style you admire, emulate, and have mastered. If not, don’t worry you aren’t alone.

More often an artist goes through a period of experimentation, and even those who have found their signature painting style must make an effort to step outside of their comfort zone and grow their skills as an artist.

For those of us that struggle to find their signature style, there is hope…

Today I’m sharing the struggles you encounter along the way, and the journey to finding yourself as an artist.

Do I Really Need a Signature Style?

Moving from the animation industry into fine arts has had its challenges. In animation you are commissioned to execute a specific style, a scene, and a mood. You don’t get to choose what that is, your job is to be so fluid you could execute any style your client/company requires.

In the world of fine arts it is opposite.  Even if it is a commissioned piece you are required to have one signature style that brands you in the eye of the public. When a client buys one of your pieces, they are a fan because they love your style and execution in the piece. They commission you because they see a consistent style they gravitate toward, so they want a unique original piece that follows your signature style.

Observe some of the most successful artists…those who no longer struggle for every sale. They typically have something, or a set of somethings that are similar throughout their entire collection. Whether that is a subject matter, a color palette, or a style of painting.

This is called branding. You don’t find successful artists painting abstract art one day and renaissance another. Instead of broadening your audience by carrying a variety of styles, you make it harder to market yourself to the right niche of people. Even galleries know to niche their market.

Would you follow someone on social media who only produced things in the style or philosophy you enjoy once in a blue moon? Or do you follow people who more consistently speak to your taste?

As frustrating as it might be for some of us to limit ourselves to a particular style. Finding your look as an artist will help your client niche find you. It is pivotal to the success of your business.

The Effects of Marketing & Trends On Your Style

In my attempts to discover myself as an artist, I realize I naturally fall into a certain look. My painting style tends to lean tighter, more representational and less impressionistic.

But what happens when the market is trending opposite of where you lean as an artist? Do we need to adjust to meet the current trend in the market? And where does your signature style fall into this?

Whether you have already discovered your signature style, or you are in the process of discovering it, this can be a frustrating paradox for the artist. While there are trends that will be here today and gone tomorrow, there are also overarching trends that can last for decades. Most of us would rather not be successful after our deaths in the future but be able to keep a roof over our heads today.

The question of will our artwork sell if our signature style isn’t trending, can motivate us to pivot into whatever IS trending. The real question is whether we are being true to who we are as an artist while pivoting. This is a question we can only answer individually…

So my question to you as you consider your signature style is this:

1. Is there room for small changes you can embrace as an artist, and a certain amount of wiggle room to incorporate more popular elements out there without sacrificing your signature style?
2. Is the current overarching market trend affecting your taste and things you gravitate towards when seeking your signature style?
3. Can you leverage your own uniqueness to become a trend within a smaller niche?

Learning What You Like Vs. Who You Are

I have met artists who have a strong sense of what they like and who they desire to emulate. One talented artist I met at Masters of American West art exhibition was thrilled when I said his artwork reminded me of the work of Dean Cornwell.

It turns out this was his favorite artist, one he desired to emulate…and yet while accomplishing that goal he managed to maintain his own distinct look. He had a strong sense of the style he wanted to capture in all of his artwork.

I’m not one of those people. I can look at one artist within a niche and love it, then another in an opposite niche and love their work too. Sometimes the biggest battle in finding your signature style as an artist is having broad and inclusive taste. Other times, it is the struggle not to be swayed by another artists work at the abandonment of our own distinct look. We want to emulate, not be an exact replica.

Designers have a fantastic little trick to help clients hone in on what their style should be. They create a set of boards on Pinterest and ask clients to pin several images they love. Then they have to choose only the top 10 pins they love most from among all of their pins. They have to select the images they want to describe who they are as a person. That becomes the board they are to reference for inspiration when they feel distracted by other styles.

In the journey to discover what we like versus who we are as artists we can carefully consider the artwork of those we admire, but ask ourselves these questions along the way as we hone in on what we love , why we love it, and whether it can be part of what makes our own signature style:

1. What draws you about this artist or particular piece of artwork? Is it the style, the mood, the color palette? Is it possible to include some of those elements into your own signature look or does it define your signature look?
2. Is it their style you love, or their craftsmanship in a particular technique you admire? Perhaps you can incorporate that technique and skill set but within your own style of choice. Or is this someone whose overall look you can actually emulate?
3. Do you love this artists entire collection, and would you want it in your home on all your walls long term? Sometimes we like a piece in the gallery, but realize it’s not for us when it doesn’t fit into the style of our home. The same principles apply when considering an artist to emulate.
4. Does this person have similar painting style/traits to your own? If someone is dramatically different from the way or what you already paint, they may not be someone to emulate. Perhaps borrow the subject matter or painting techniques you admire.

Is Your Signature Style Already There, In Plain Sight?

Sometimes others around us already have a sense of our signature style while we think we are floundering to find it. Consider leveraging your audience, friends and family. Ask them what they think your signature style is, and how they would describe you as an artist. If you start to see a trend, they might be on to something.

Sometimes we have a sense of our own signature style without even realizing it. Is there a look you naturally gravitate toward in your painting?

I have experimented with a wide variety of painting styles. I like to challenge myself as an artist and push the limits of what I can do. However, every time I try to step out of my box, I feel like I find myself right back within that very box. No matter how hard I try to accomplish a particular look or feel in a painting, my best work always seems to gravitate back to a particular look. At the end of the day, each painting is just what it becomes.

Here the question is; is this a lack of skill, or is this my unique area of strength? This might be my signature style. Obviously skill must be honed over time, but there is a difference between skill in technique and painting style.

You Won’t Always Get It Just Right, And That’s Okay

Don’t mistake the difference between execution of technique and style of painting.

My good friend Thomas is an incredibly talented and skillful artist. He has found wonderful success as a fine artist. Even he has struggled with the execution of a painting from time-to-time. He once told me about a painting he struggled to get right. He put it aside, and didn’t pull it out for 30 years. Looking at it, most of us wouldn’t see a single flaw in that painting…we would have thought it was great. However there was something about it that bothered him personally.

This is what becomes the distinction of what makes you who you are as an artist. That inner struggle, that particular thing you were going for in that painting that causes you to put it aside for a few years.

Whether you get it 100% right or not, just by seeking to execute that particular ‘thing’ is you infusing your painting with that signature style.

Embracing The Battle, It’s A Process…

It’s okay, struggling is not a negative, it’s just a process. Everybody is trying to find where they belong. To discover how to express yourself in a world with so many people doing the same thing you are doing.

The battle to discover yourself and what makes you special as an individual, as an artist. No one has my exact story, my exact strengths and weaknesses, and all of it contributes to what makes us unique.

Animation may have given me my greatest strengths, but learning how to pivot and grow my business has given me a whole new set of challenges. Ultimately it will become a whole new set of strengths.

What about you? Have you begun to discover what distinguishes you as an artist? What are some of your struggles?

My group, the Tehchapi Plein Air Painters spent a day in our quaint little town to see what fascinating subjects we could find to paint.

The Gallinger House

Walking down the street, a bright yellow home caught my eye. How could I resist? That yellow seemed to call out “paint me!” Turns out the house is a historic home built in 1880 by a gentleman named Joe Gallinger. The plaque near the front of the house gave us a few more details about what our town was like in the 1800’s.

My wife, always the social butterfly, went to knock on the door of the current owner and mentioned how much I would like to do a painting of her historic home. She was happy to oblige, and thus the “Gallinger House” painting came into being.

The Artistic Eye

It was just the right time of day, and the shadows danced across the wooden fence. But it was the warm glow surrounding the yellow house that really captured my imagination. The challenge would be to approach this painting in a way that captures the light and emphasizes the shadows.

Artists often see things through different eyes… we notice how light and dark, nuances of color, what something could be, etc.

What Makes for Great Art?

Have you ever stopped to enjoy a beautiful sight in nature and just taken in the details of the moment? What did it look like, how did it feel? What were all the elements that came together to make it beautiful? You may have snapped a picture in that moment to capture the beauty…but often that photo falls short of capturing what your eye was taking in and your senses were experiencing. Even professional photographers often edit their pictures in order to best depict what their eye captured that the lens could not.

An artist does much of the same thing. Our paintings attempt to capture the beauty and nuance of something the common eye (or the lens) may not quite be adequate to convey. We see things with an artistic eye. An imagination and senses that take in details that make a subject or a moment beautiful.

So the next time you are out looking for inspiration for art, spend a moment absorbing the beauty found in unique details. The way the light hits the subject, the warmth or vibrance of something, the intricate patterns or fun details. Then push the envelope when depicting those things…and don’t be afraid to push the limits past what the naked eye can take in. Go ahead and emphasize the beauty you see.

Plein Air Painting In Public

Painting in town is always an interesting experience. People would walk by and stop and look, and one young women on her way from school stopped to ask questions and chat about art.

As I was painting the kind owner came out several times to take a look and view my progress. Her grandchildren came out once and gathered around asking “is it done yet, is it done yet?” Then they would excitedly go back and report to the grandmother.

They all seemed to love the process of the painting. However, ultimately it took two trips back to the Gallinger house and some time in the studio to finalize it.

I still haven’t shared the final results with the home’s owner. The one downside of plein air painting? The people who take such an interest don’t always see the end results. It is my hope that what they do see inspires their creativity!

Getting An Opinion

I ask my children which one of my paintings they thought would be most interesting to do a digital art alteration on. The answer was, either Encroaching Falls or Favorite End. I did both. In this post I’ll give some general pointers to my digital approach to “Favorite End”.

First here’s a glance at the “Encroaching Fall” painting image which I made a digital art alteration to for a “Happy Thanksgiving” post I shared with friends and family on my social media pages.

The Required Challenge In These Digital Art Alterations

The concept given was to bring a minimalist approach to the painting “Favorite End”.  The challenge being, make it foggy to drop out more details, remove the tree branches on the left hand side, remove the flowers to simplify the look, show as little information as possible and still allow it to be a working painting.

Removing The Tree Branches

• Removing The Unwanted

  I started the process by isolating out the tree branches and using “Content Aware” as I deleted them. “Content Aware” replaces deleted material with surrounding color information. In this case, some of the sky area that is in the painting itself.

• Repairing Replacement Info

  Then I used the “Healing Brush Tool” to clean up patches of the sky that “Content Aware” filled in that did not work quite as well for me. There are times I use the brush tool to paint over areas for a better look. Content Aware and Healing Brush are wonderful tools for digital art alterations.

Adding The Fog

• Finding My Way With Layer Mask

  Because I’m not quite sure where I want to take this. I’m simply experimenting with different possibilities, using different “Layer Masks”. Of course, I use “Levels Layer Mask” to give it a foggy look. I’m using “Photo Filters” to try and get a feeling of color I may want. “Selective Color” as well, and “Hue Saturation” to desaturate the color in certain areas to aid the fogginess.

• Gaining Some Clarity As I Go

  I decided to play off a bit of the warm against cools to help give a certain look. Because the fog lessen some cloud detail, I’m painting a white edge to the clouds to help with some of the form lost. I painted in extra fog creeping over the mountains to help solidify the foggy look. 

• One Method To Approach Painting

  Digital painting lends itself to positive and negative painting. When using a “Layer Mask” I will generally fill an area with the mask, then erase out a certain unwanted percentage of it. Because of the fog effect, I approach most of this painting in that manner.

Removing the Flowers?

• Playing It Safe

  Now rather than painting out the flowers, I simply try to turn them more greenish and yellow in flavor by using a “Selective Color” layer mask to help me do that. This way I can determine whether I really want to get rid of the flowers or not. After doing this, I decided to leave the flower colors to maintain a certain color balance to the picture. But I keep them toned down (or desaturate in color) by the foggy effect.

• Visual Balance

  Without the tree branches, the picture falls visually heavy to the right side to me. Because of this I felt it was important to put the tree branches back in to give it balance. I played around with it to push it more towards the left, not quite as far into the picture as I had it before, and kept it tone down as well. I copied and pasted branches from the original image, which means I had to erase out the old sky color around the branches in order for the new sky color to show through. Then did similar digital art alterations to shift the color to fit the new environment.

• Finalizing The Look

  I continue to play back and forth with various “Photo Filter” layer masks both warm and cool filters, to help me determine what range of color I wanted in this picture.

  
  Once I finalize me decision, I cleaned up my Chinese name stamp to fit the new environment.

Here’s a comparison of the old and the new. Send me a note, tell me what you think, and happy painting.

You might find “The Painting Advantages of Digital vs Traditional”, “How To Paint Digitally With Photoshop”, or “How To Paint Digitally With Photoshop”

So often I hear my wife or kids say “why in the world would you want to paint that“?

It’s funny the way the mind of an artist works. Whether a photographer or painter, I suppose we see things as they could be. We look through a lens of inspiration all around us, as seen in everyday life.

Artistic Photo Reference

As many artists do, I spent a lot of time throughout my life taking photos for artistic reference. You never know what shot will become the next painting inspiration.

Like this photo, taken on a hike through the Angeles National Forest.

Long after that hike was over and had become a distant memory, I ran across this reference photo in my quest to find an interesting subject for a limited palette painting.

If you are an artist, you should read my article about how and why artists should paint with a limited  to challenge themselves.

So Why This Photo?

Something about the composition of the rocks in relation to each other, and the trees behind it drew my eye. The manner in which the rocks intersected would make for a visually interesting waterfall painting.

The texture of the moss and even the leaves would also serve as an artful emphasis. Granted, this would take a little imagination…of what could be rather than simply the reality of what the eye sees.

For example: the manner in which rocks came down in a slant and intersect each other could create a visually dynamic waterfall. The reality is somewhat underwhelming. Now take a look at what I did with the falls in this close up of the painting.

By accentuating the waterfall as it spills over the unique rock formation, it gave me an opportunity to play with light as an accent in this piece.

The water doesn’t end in a foamy mass, but rather a visually stunning highlight and pop of color. I wanted to keep the eye focused on where the water would come down and be the focal point culminating in the reflective pool below.

You’ll note that in the actual photo the reflection is a mirror image. I wanted to keep the painting more impressionistic rather than detail oriented, so it became prudent to leave that mirror image out.

Artistic Challenges With This Painting

Because I used a limited palette for this painting, the challenge would be in the highlights. I wanted the painting to have a sunset flavor to it. So amid the green of the forest, the hues of sunset break through the trees.

This is actually tricky, and as an artist I had to “cheat” the light to do it. In the real world, this kind of light isn’t going to give you a green shadowing. It would produce more of a dark grayish blue, or subtle purple haze. Since I am limiting my palette to see how far I can go with two main hues, it stretches the imagination to how you can achieve a visually stunning highlight and shadow interplay with just those colors…even if it breaks the rules.

Adding An Element For Interest

I felt the painting looked a little plain when it was completed. Even as I worked the lighting, it wasn’t enough to sustain the piece on it’s own. So to visually help it out, I added a tree that is not in the photograph.

The tree would be as if it was bending into the picture… it couldn’t come from the bottom because there is water there, so I had to curve it into the picture.

Artist gotta figure out how to cheat to make things work better.

The lighting is what I was hoping for. To get that sense of the sunset flavor in the painting. Creativity includes finding ways of pushing color into different possibilities. I’ll look at the color wheel and say what color do I want to play with. And that will be my main color to do a haze over everything…or the under color coming through to effect the look. That’s one of the ways I approach limited palettes.

The advantage of digital painting gives quicker adjustments to your artwork.

Learn these digital advantages and discover new tools to help with painting.

General Explanation To Digital Painting.

This post will be a general explanation, the next post will be the specific how too of the advantage of digital painting. Usually I start with a line drawing when I paint on computer, but this time I thought I would approach it as I do my plein air painting with loose brush work then tighten it down as I get closer to the finish of the painting. This is a deviation from what I would normally do as far as computer painting.

• Lay In Basic Structure

  I laying in the basic structure of this candle painting. By starting with the background, then I rough in the candle on it’s own separate layer.

• Building from The Basics

  It get it’s lights, darks, and medium tones or values. Which helps me build the structure of what I’m painting. The candle will have it’s dark area at the bottom and it’s light area at the top to give the glow and luminosity of the candle.

• Making Adjustments

  I make computer changes which I will give how to explanation to on the next post. These are examples of the advantage of digital painting, which allow changes such as the size of the candle glow on the background.

Adjusting the size of the candle base.

Stretching the width of the candle stalk.

Adjusting the size and shape of the handle. These adjustments would require more time to make with traditional paint than when done on a computer.

• Approach to Adjustments

  The basic approach for me, is to duplicate the part of the artwork I want to adjust, then resize them to the look I want, and marry it the existing art. It will completely cover what does not work or you may need to remove parts of the unwanted elements that are not cover up by the duplicate areas. There are adjustment layers for altering values, colors, light exposure, vibrancy and a few other effects to work with.

• Finalizing Visual Interest

  I slowly build more detail into the candle, making it more believable. I make sure I’m attentive to volume or roundness when building the values.

Even as I apply reflectiveness into the candle holder. I must remember the principal of light direction. I add more light into the flame to increase the glow effect. I’ll also add a designed smoke effect and light speckles for visual interest then warp the image to a shape that work better visually.

Another adjustment I could never do in traditional paint. It’s important put additional imagery on a separate layer which will allow for the adjustments without effecting the other parts of the art.

The Advantage of Digital

The advantage of digital painting adds benefit to my traditional painting when I run into difficulties of thing not working as I want. I can make digital adjustment from a photo of my artwork to resolve painting issues. Even make digital changes to the images including color corrections before final prints are made of the art.

Here’s my final of this digital candle painting.

Catch my next post so you can take full advantage of digital painting adjustments to make your painting dreams a bit easier.

You can get additional insights on digital painting from the post, “How to Paint Digitally With Photoshop” and “Painting With Photoshop On Computer”.

This quick tip will help you paint volume in tree foliage for more roundness in your work.

From Flat to Rounded Fullness

There are times when viewing my paintings that I think the trees appear more flat than round. So I need to remember while I’m painting, to think in a way that will help me convey fullness in the canopy of trees. Today I want to share a simple tip of how we can get fullness in a tree canopy.

• Envisioning The Round

  A method that can help us have fullness in our trees is to think of trees as broken up into leaf clusters of large, medium and small size irregular domes.

• Think Large Dome:

  Think of the entire tree canopy first of all as a dome. Even as we brake the tree down into smaller clusters, we want the total tree to have the look of roundness. This is why we start with one large dome.

• Values To The Domes :

  That dome would have a light side, a medium side, and a shadow side, even though we can see light breaking through various areas. But if we think of it in the dome form, it will make it simpler for us. See the whole tree as having light, middle, and dark sides.

• Think Medium Domes:

  We also want to recognize that the tree has clusters of leaves that are medium-size domes which branch out of the large dome, such as the three shown in the image below. When we think of it that way, we still want to have a light side, middle side, and shadow side. This will help us paint fullness at this scale of the tree.

  

• Think Small Domes:

  We have to go down to the next size of domes, as well, to realize that there are smaller clusters of leaves. These branch out of the medium size clusters. I’ll only show a few here, for the smaller clusters can be many. Each of these small dome cluster of leaves must also have a light side, a medium side, and a dark side. If we envision the tree in this manner, we’ll have a better chance of painting fullness in the total, overall tree.

  

• The Tree Trunk and Branches
:

  Let’s also view the trunk of the tree as being a cylinder that has a light side, a medium side, and a dark side. And all the branches that go out into the leaf clusters as cylinders of various sizes that have a light side, a medium side, and a dark side.

  

Quick Recap to Paint Fullness

Envision the entire tree canopy as a big dome with three values to give a sense of roundness. Then out of the big dome are medium size leaf clusters that become domes with their values. Out of the medium size domes are the small cluster domes that catch the light, the medium, and the dark. Now we can paint fullness in our trees by keeping this simple concept in mind.

• Group the Leaves:

  Try not to paint leaf after leaf after leaf, but do them as blocks of shapes; groupings that will give the light, medium, and dark values. Then have a few individual leaves appear at the edge of the groupings. This simulates the look of lots of leaves without drawing or painting every one of them.

• Irregularity:

  Be careful not to get a dome shape appearance in the artwork. We still want irregularity in the look of the tree canopy.

The dome concept is to help us remember how we can give values of light, middle, and shadow tones, to paint fullness in the tree canopy. Check out my related video post “How To Paint Roundness In Even Light” for additional tips and tutorials.

Hope it works for you! Try it out and let me know how you did!

Roundness An Important Principle

There are times when we’re painting nature scenes and the details may get in our way and we forget a very important principle: to paint roundness, or volume. Perhaps the lighting is of such that there is no strong sense of direction of light coming from any given side with an obvious shadow being cast. That happens on days that it may be cloudy or, for example, when the sun goes down behind a hill and it makes the area fully in shadow, but there’s still a lot of light that makes the subject matter evenly lit. Some forget to paint roundness in these situations.

On these trees, it may be difficult to tell which direction the light is coming from. You can get a sense of shadowing in some spots. But in others, it feels flat. When this happens, there’s a tendency to paint details without volume, fullness, or roundness.

The Simple Solution

So how do you resolve issues like this when you’re painting? Even though an area may be in the shadow and you want the appearance of even lighting, you can still give it roundness by having a lighter side and a darker side.

• Accentuate The Shadow
  You accentuate the shadow slightly, not a lot, just a little to aid the roundness. I’ll give an example of that here so you can get a visual to what I’m talking about.
  I’m using the computer to demonstrate, therefore I’ll darken this tree with the layer mask. Then I’ll take the right side of the shadow out. Now it has a darker side and the lighter side is its original value, which you can see here. This helps it feels a bit rounder.

• Add A Reflective Light
  To give it more interest, I’ll add warmth to the left, which is now the shadow side, as a reflective light. See what it looked like before? Now it has more dimension.
  Think this way when you’re painting. Think to paint roundness, not just textured detail. The sense of light has not gotten stronger as I made the change, but there’s more core shadow and reflective light.

Painting Demo to Make The Point

Now I want to demonstrate this from a painting standpoint using the computer. So I will cover the left side of this picture with white to paint in my example.

• Texture, Detail Needs Roundness
  All too often I see paintings with lots of texture and no sense of roundness or volume to the subject that they are painting. So here’s my illustration of a textured or detailed tree trunk. 
This is missing the volume, the roundness, the fullness, that it should have – the shadow and light side to help it feel round. We don’t want just texture to describe the tree for us. We want to paint roundness as well. So how do we do that?

Remembering The Principle: Paint Roundness

The solution is the same concept as you saw with the photograph. As you’re painting, remember to paint roundness. So I paint a dark side that helps it feel rounder. See the before above and the after below. If you want to accentuate some of the texture, you can do that. Just paint in more detail.

Then I’ll give a warm reflective touch for color interest. This tree has come from a just-texture-look with no volume, to having more roundness.
 Now it has a core shadow and a reflective back end. It’s not as flat as it was before.

So don’t just think about texture; see the texture but think about roundness, about volume. Then remember to paint roundness while painting texture also.

Hope this was helpful. Do check out my blog/video Creating Dimensions with Core Shadow and Improve Your Artwork With Direction of Light as they share additional concepts connected with this topic.

Let’s keep those paintings coming!

The Takeaway: Direction Of Light

Today we are going to look at one simple rule that can make our paintings better. That’s simply making sure of where the direction of light is. My intent is to help you remember from the outset of your painting to become aware of this basic rule.

This Demo’s Tool Of Use

My method of showing you is by correcting an existing painting: as you see the difference in the before and after, you will grasp the importance of keeping the direction of light in the forefront of your mind when you make your next painting. Therefore, I will paint digitally with Photoshop to help you see the difference, as well as preserve my wife’s original painting. My language in this article will involve both the painting I’m correcting and using Photoshop. By the way Photoshop is a good tool for solving painting problems. I use it when I’m having issues with a painting and am not sure which way to correct it.

Making The Change

Here’s the painting my wife did – and for someone who’s not an artist I thought this was an excellent job. Wonderful painting! However, more emphasis on direction of light can make this a better painting. There is some light there, just not enough for enhanced quality.

• Determine Direction of Light
  Let’s have light come from the upper right hand corner of the picture.

I’m going to take the middle section of this painting, the area inside the flowers, and accentuate these petals with light to improve it. This gives more dimension to the flowers in the painting. Then I enhance color more so it’s not too pale. I turn the Photoshop layer off and then on again for a comparison look. I’ve already gained more dimension because we have a sense of direction of light. Lets make the inside of the flower at the bottom lighter. This will help the front petals look more forward.

• Accentuate The Shadows
  I want to accentuate dimension even more by making it a little darker and with a touch of violet for color variance under and behind the flowers. This increases the shadows, which helps us have a better sense of the direction of light. I’ll make the buds and stems darker on the left side and also underneath, for their dimensionality and direction of light as well.

• Accent Spots of Color
  I want to accentuate more color into the stems here and there for more form, or roundness. But not everywhere – just a few hinted spots so it doesn’t become busy.
  Once again, I make a before and after comparison to see how the painting is coming together (the wonder of painting by computer!). I’d like the green on the buds and stems to go redder, not quite so green. Then add some highlights to catch the eye more.

At this point I would consider the painting done. But we can showcase the flower more by making adjustments to the background.

• Showcase The Center of Interest
  Since the flowers are our center of interest, we can make them stand out more by adjusting the background behind them. I decided to cool down the background color slightly in a couple of spots to the left of the painting. Then darken the entire background a little. Now the flower stands out more.

• Extra Accents for Final Enhancement
  To make the painting more appealing, I’ll add a warm reflective color beneath the buds and to the left of the stem shadows. Just hints here and there, not all over. That brings more color interest to them (check out Creating Dimension with Core Shadows for more color action).

The flower at the bottom would work better if I curved the petals upward and close it off. This helps it look more like a round, completed flower. I’ll give more of a lighted edge accent on the top of the petals which helps give it more form or dimension.

I’ll add more shadowing underneath the upper right side flower. Then add a shadow side, slightly redder, to the stigma; then brighten its light side to give more roundness.

So now you see how giving more direction of light can improve dimensionality. I’ve chosen to give a sense of luminosity to the upper right flower by putting a slightly warm, light color in its front shadow side (it’s bottom right) to give an appearance of light inside of the flower. Also did the same on the top right edges of the middle and bottom flowers. Here is the before and after.

So keep these tips in mind as you’re working on your paintings. Make sure you determine the direction of where your light is coming from, especially before you bring it to a close. And be consistent with the direction of light on lit surfaces.

You might find Painting with Photoshop On Computer or How to Paint Digitally With Photoshop helpful to learn how some adjustments to my wife’s painting were made.

Now let’s go paint!

We’ll review the importance of a quick lay-in when doing plein air paintings.

Hello all you art lovers out there. Today I’m going to give you an example of how I start some of my plein air pieces. This particular painting was done at Caesar Chavez National Monument.

It represents several of the plein air paintings I actually start. So check out my starting process (watch the video), maybe there’s something you can learn from it. Mainly I want you to focus on how my lay-in is very quick.

I have a tendency to work from back to front with things that are furthest distance then come closer. There are time where as you may have seen on some of my demos, I tend to put the brighter colors in and then the darker colors. For this plein air painting I’m doing the sky first.

I’m going to build up some of the foliage to help give me depth of field as I go. As I lay more information in, I can determine whether I have enough depth or too much depth in some situations. But I start sky, build some foliage in front, lay-in the lighter color greens,

I get the shadowed area on the right hand side then go to the foreground elements to help me begin to build the basic foundation of values that I’m seeing.

That’s how I want to think of it. Laying in roughly, not fine detail, just quick elements so that I can build my plein air painting as I go. Putting the color that I think will help me establish the final colors that will come together eventually.

It will change as I began to fill in more and more of the details. But the basic background, middle ground, foreground elements that’s going to establish what I need as I move into the detail aspects of the plein air  painting.

Here I’m trying to get more of the middle and foreground area colors developed as close to what I’m visually interpreting as possible.

Then putting in the lighter tree foliage now and building the values around it.

When completed you see how roughly layed in this is. You can still see the loose brushstrokes. This is a good foundation for me to carry over. Good loose tree information.

Now I build the middle ground trees in the painting. Putting in additional branches, structure for trees on the left side.

Here is more leafy shapes building over top of the first lay-in. The rocks more detailed.

This is how the final looks.

This is how I would approach my first lay-in and build from there.

I hope you found this helpful. In the future I’ll show you the full plein air painting approach from beginning to completion. But my focus was the lay-in today. Happy painting.

In this tutorial I am going to utilize acetate to create wall texture for a sample painting. I hope you’ll find it an interesting technique to add to your painting skills. In each series we are going to do something very simple, like a wall or ground or grass. Then by the end of the series, you’ll be prepared to do a full painting!

This technique for creating wall texture applies when using gouache, which is an opaque water color paint. Gouache is very water soluble, which means it can be easily damaged if you drop water on it, so you want to be careful.  You can use acrylics with this same technique. We start by wetting our board, making sure to get it as evenly wet as possible. When the board is first wet it has a highly glossy appearance.

You can see it’s shiny and bit reflective on the surface. Do not put paint on at this stage! Wait for it to dry to a low sheen, where you can tell it’s damp, but not sopping wet. While that is drying, you can start mixing the paint colors you want.  Make sure you have enough pigment because it’s going to be dispersed when you lay the paint onto the board.

Once you begin to lay in the color, try to be as even as you can and work fast – you don’t want your board to dry before you finish laying on paint. I’m putting in my lightest shade first, then I work towards darker shades to maintain the richness of color and the cleanest color early on. You don’t want to dirty your nice, clean, lighter areas right? Paint should be thin enough to allow light to hit the white board and let color bounce back up. If it gets too thick than you loose the vibrancy of your color because light can’t pass through well.

My board is beginning to dry so I’ll use an airbrush, which gives an even amount of water across the surface. This way I can continue working on a moist surface. I can lay in additional colors and a variety of information into that board and it still represents my first pass, or lay-in of paint. The airbrush will prevent paint from building up too heavily and still keep that bounce light coming through. Try to keep a balance between not getting too opaque nor too transparent with the paint. This is called a translucent effect: that’s what we want to achieve with the amount of paint we lay on the surface. Now we are going to use a badger brush.

A badger brush helps blend colors together, soften brush strokes, and smooth out some of the rough lay-in areas.

Every once in a while, hairs may come out of the badger brush and you have to pick them up by pushing the brush forward. This takes a little practice but you can get used to it. If it drys into the paint it will leave a line there. So if you can pick it up while it’s still damp, you’re better off.  Now I’m checking to make sure that the paint is dry.

You want it to be completely dry before the next stage. We can begin using a piece of acetate to give texture to our wall. We have established the light and shadows.

As you give texture you are going to loose some of the lightness and cleanness of your surface. Add another layer of paint that’s fairly thin–it’s a more transparent lay-in of pigment. We are just rubbing onto the acetate the colors that we want. You can vary how light or dark it becomes based on the amount of water to pigment. If you want it to be less apparent, than use more water; if you want it to show up stronger, than use more pigment.

What I’m doing is dabbing it down and letting it have random “accidents” as I lay it onto the surface. This will become wall texture that I’ll work with when I structure the wall. Creating random texture with this method is better than painting it in, which can look too contrived. It’s purposefully accidental! Now we can begin painting the stone work.

I’m painting my lines just a bit darker so it can show up in the shadow areas. The paint is more like watercolor in transparency. Since it dries lighter, I can go a little darker with my line work. I’ve built the basic structure of my stone wall, and can move on to the details. I want to put some shadows in as if light from above has cast shadows on the stone wall. To do so, I’ll take slightly darker paint (not quite as dark as my lines), add a little color to it, then build the shadowing using a thicker brush.

Keep it transparent to allow texture and color to come through. Where the light is, some of the yellow will show through; where the shadow is, some of the violet shows through. You can also add warmth to the color, as if there’s  warmer light reflecting below. That creates contrast with the cooler areas in the painting. Here’s what it looks like so far:

To give it dimension, I want to add more shadowing to this. Afterward I’ll use dark paint to define the cracks in the wall more. It helps clarify stone separation. Now the definition between the stones is more apparent. Since gouache drys lighter there still room to go darker without becoming totally black. I try not to make every line equally dark.

Pick out little spots where you accentuate the darkness. You don’t want it everywhere. Some things should only be suggested. I’m going to start painting in light as if it’s coming from above. I’ll define where light hits the top of the stone. The fun part is, as you do that, you can pick little areas to make crevices within the stone that catches the light as well. This will give us even more dimensionality.

I like to play up warm, reflective lights in my shadow area, which brings some interesting color to the piece. I’ll add a few more highlights from the top in the light area. Then put some cool light in my shadow areas. Keep highlights in the shady area dimmer than the light area. This will help define the stonework in the shadows.

My last few touches are redoing shadows in the crevices. I’ll get my darkest possible color, almost black, and give those final accents where the crevices are extra deep. This will bring out the final details that we would need for the piece to come together. It’ll look complete. So these are subtle steps to take when painting a stone wall, a brick wall, stone work on the ground, the side of buildings with texture, or anything like that. You can use the acetate to make the texture. It’s just a matter of pulling out the light and dark from the texture to get the overall structure of what you’re drawing or painting.

The next time we will use the acetate to make ground texture. Keep an eye out for it and happy painting!