Step by Step Demo-Back in Black

Fast Food 8x10

not for sale

private collection

a train dining car on the Orient Express

Here's step one- drawn on with a magenta oil pastel and then a wash of magenta acrylic over it to get rid of the stark white. then i put straight magenta on the very dark shapes (later adding cobalt violet) and a little lighter magenta (lots of Liquin) to the medium darks. yellow ochre to the light warm ground and turquoise and ultramarine with lots of white for the sky


here ive added the lavender blues to the shade side of the boats and darkened the dark sailboat along with adding the white so i can set my value range. nothing can be darker than the boat on the bottom and nothing can be as light as the top of the cabin. now i compare every other shape to these that i ive got right, value wise.

Here's a shot of the nearly completed 16x20 and the 8x10 plein air study i based it on. as you can see i added a third boat to the bigger piece to give it an even greater sense of aerial perspective and a more diagonal composition, which adds tension and impact. notice how everything moves back in space as it goes right to left and the elements get smaller (the piece of a boat, the dark boat next and then that grouping of pylons making a strong diagonal recession)

this is the point of doing bigger pieces from smaller studies. the little ones can stand on their own and you can use them for color, but you may want to change the composition and let the bigger one have a life of its own as an entirely different entity. or you can choose to keep some of the really cool parts that you like on the small one and change the parts you dont. i usually change something because i dont like doing an exact replica of the studies. to me thats too boring and i end up frustrated because you can never exactly reproduce in the studio something done outside in two hours, in searing heat, and with all the distractions of plein air painting. changing it up keeps me happy. and a happy painter makes happy paintings!