I am very excited to see how these all come out, so I am going to continue with this painting and I will post my progress here for the class to see. I haven't given up all hope of the college letting non-credit classes go online, but most hope 😂
So for those of you who missed class the last couple of weeks, we are working on the Belle Isle conservatory. There are a ton of images available, but I will warn you, you will not find one that is exactly like mine as I am making up my lighting and adding in foliage from several images that I think work well.
This picture is essentially a 1-point perspective layout, with the domes and curves being drawn in to look correct. The vanishing point is in the green tree under the small glass dome in the back left.
My view is elongated so I had more foreground to play with, but have not yet decided what exactly I plan for the water. I have also exaggerated the effects of the light on the glass (?) domes to show more shine.
I have just started adding in the rocks along the edges of the pond, using essentially what is negative painting, painting the shadow around the rocks rather than the rocks themselves.
The building in the foreground was painted wet on wet to give the impression of steamed windows through which you can see some plantings with not too much detail added in.
I used my ruling pen and resist to give me the white lines in the domes, the rest of the white areas are just not painted.
Feel free to ask questions :)
This picture is essentially a 1-point perspective layout, with the domes and curves being drawn in to look correct. The vanishing point is in the green tree under the small glass dome in the back left.
My view is elongated so I had more foreground to play with, but have not yet decided what exactly I plan for the water. I have also exaggerated the effects of the light on the glass (?) domes to show more shine.
I have just started adding in the rocks along the edges of the pond, using essentially what is negative painting, painting the shadow around the rocks rather than the rocks themselves.
The building in the foreground was painted wet on wet to give the impression of steamed windows through which you can see some plantings with not too much detail added in.
I used my ruling pen and resist to give me the white lines in the domes, the rest of the white areas are just not painted.
Feel free to ask questions :)
I finally got back to painting, what I've done here is add in preliminary shadows under the rocks at the waters edge. Not very far out yet, just enough to begin to define my edge. I also added just a hint of shadow under the reeds in the water.
I forgot to mention that as I put in the fence on the right I was making sure that it was not too deep a value. I do not want to draw that much attention to it - remember contrast will draw your eye.
My decision now is how to represent the water. If I do a mirror image reflection it could become the focal point or just distracting. I don't feel I can go as dark as our reference photo since I have lightened up all my values and I am not really fond of the photo that has a blurred out foreground.
Since I want the domes to be the major focal point I will probably do an understated reflection consistent with my values.
I was asked about negative painting the rocks, and have included a close-up below.
I forgot to mention that as I put in the fence on the right I was making sure that it was not too deep a value. I do not want to draw that much attention to it - remember contrast will draw your eye.
My decision now is how to represent the water. If I do a mirror image reflection it could become the focal point or just distracting. I don't feel I can go as dark as our reference photo since I have lightened up all my values and I am not really fond of the photo that has a blurred out foreground.
Since I want the domes to be the major focal point I will probably do an understated reflection consistent with my values.
I was asked about negative painting the rocks, and have included a close-up below.
I did a mostly negative technique on my rocks, using the shadows between rocks to show their shape, the shadows on a rock to show a different plane and the pathway behind them to show the top. It is perhaps a bit clearer how I use the values/hues around the rocks to form them if you look at the plantings on the other side of the path. There you can see how the tops of the rocks are show by where the green stops.
I did add texture as I finished them off by dry-brushing over them a bit to give them a rougher surface appearance.
It may look like I put a lot into these, but I really did not. Often all I do is drag the brush over the paper holding it sideways to see what shapes turn up then use those shapes to form rocks. It helps to look at pictures of rocks to have a feel for how you can form them out of random brush strokes.
I did add texture as I finished them off by dry-brushing over them a bit to give them a rougher surface appearance.
It may look like I put a lot into these, but I really did not. Often all I do is drag the brush over the paper holding it sideways to see what shapes turn up then use those shapes to form rocks. It helps to look at pictures of rocks to have a feel for how you can form them out of random brush strokes.
I've added a first wash to my water. I kept it pretty light mainly because I am still not sure how much detail I want to add in.
The entire water area was dampened, it took a fair amount of water and brushing, and I was careful that the area was evenly wet with no puddles or dry spots. From there I worked quickly to add in the blues of the sky, more shadows for the rocks on the water, some greens for the foliage that I thought would show and some quick strokes of the building reflections.
While everything was still wet I took a rough cheap brush and stroked horizontally over my reflections to move them just a bit so it was not a perfect (loosely speaking 😂) reflection. I then took a damp brush that held a point and stroked it horizontally across my paint to further the movement in the reflections.
You may notice in the foreground on the left a bit of yellow color, that is masking fluid. I had decided that I needed something that was even closer to the viewer so I added in a tree branch that is coming into the picture plane from the lower to mid left. I intend to add flowers to it so I guess it is going to be a plum tree as I also want it to have leaves and that is the only one I can think off🧐that may be in flower when everything is leafed out.
The entire water area was dampened, it took a fair amount of water and brushing, and I was careful that the area was evenly wet with no puddles or dry spots. From there I worked quickly to add in the blues of the sky, more shadows for the rocks on the water, some greens for the foliage that I thought would show and some quick strokes of the building reflections.
While everything was still wet I took a rough cheap brush and stroked horizontally over my reflections to move them just a bit so it was not a perfect (loosely speaking 😂) reflection. I then took a damp brush that held a point and stroked it horizontally across my paint to further the movement in the reflections.
You may notice in the foreground on the left a bit of yellow color, that is masking fluid. I had decided that I needed something that was even closer to the viewer so I added in a tree branch that is coming into the picture plane from the lower to mid left. I intend to add flowers to it so I guess it is going to be a plum tree as I also want it to have leaves and that is the only one I can think off🧐that may be in flower when everything is leafed out.
At this time I've done some more work on the reflections, wetting the entire area and adding in more reflections of the trees and rocks. I added the reeds in the water and painted reflections of them, then added a few swipes of blue, wet on dry just a little darker value/hue than I had used to the rest of the water to show a slight movement in it
I worked a bit on the reflection of the observatory, adding in a few more lines then adding in the fence reflection after I put in the smaller railings on the fence to the right. For that I used a grey brown and my ruling pen to get an easy thin line. At this point I've taken the masking off everything but the "possible" branch I might put in the front lower edge. I went over the resulting white areas (what was I thinking😩) and they turned out ok - whew.
Notice that I made the reeds in the back a duller hue than the ones in the foreground right, so they did not stand out too much, and I think I mentioned this but the railing was deliberately not made too dark so that it does not draw your attention too much.
I worked a bit on the reflection of the observatory, adding in a few more lines then adding in the fence reflection after I put in the smaller railings on the fence to the right. For that I used a grey brown and my ruling pen to get an easy thin line. At this point I've taken the masking off everything but the "possible" branch I might put in the front lower edge. I went over the resulting white areas (what was I thinking😩) and they turned out ok - whew.
Notice that I made the reeds in the back a duller hue than the ones in the foreground right, so they did not stand out too much, and I think I mentioned this but the railing was deliberately not made too dark so that it does not draw your attention too much.