In The Studio: Number 48 of 90 Paintings in 90 Days, “Shadows”

Pretty simple painting with lots of shadows and light, which is the goal here or else it is just a painting about some buildings and that is really not the plan.  Use Buildings to catch and present the quality of the light.  Put color in your shadows with some reflected warm bounce tones and they will come alive.

Paint a light valued sky using cobalt violet and cobalt blue, try to leave the paint off the building but if some does run onto the roofs, then lift it later with a flat brush.  Paint the foreground heavy on all of your yellows, and a sequential wash of  cobalt blue over top of it.While the foreground is still damp make a few scrapes to indicate weed.  Paint the light shadows on the middle building with a wash heavy on cobalt violet, and raw sienna, this will give you a nice feel of light.  Paint the orange brown building on the right with a wash of burnt sienna, raw sienna, alizirin, and enough water to make it dry light, a shadow will be painted on it later.Paint in some details like the windows and doors, a simple way to handle these is to make them about the color of the shadows but just a little darker.  Paint them as a brief slip of paint not an architectural feature.  paint the shadows on the orange building use the same colors as before just make them darker.  I painted a shadow across the front of the building to indicate a tree casting a shadow, this adds a nice feature to the painting.detail notice the warm paint, raw sienna in the shadows.detail keep the shadows lively.