In The Studio: Just Paint 37 “Smokin”

This is a gray day in the fall and my friend is smoking some of the ocean’s bounty.  Now maybe that is a stretch but play along because the point is to learn to control the graying of the colors and to make that smoke lift.  The lift is a timing technique which is done with a damp paper towel when the paper is still damp but not wet.  Practice the technique on a test paper until you get it just right.  Remember to keep turning the towel to put a clean surface towards the colored paper.  The gray colors are all affected by adding complementary colors to the pure pigments.  This will help you in the future, grays are one of the essential things a landscape painter has to learn to mix well.  Just remember that bluish colors are greyed with colors that have an orange hue, burnt sienna is a safe choice.  Greenish hues work well with colors leaning towards red and yellow are grayed with purplish hues.  Now there is not need to be perfect just close and remember to vary the mixtures.

Run a series of cool grays in the sky area working light to dark and cut around the house and pull the wash through the area for the trees and bring it into the house, on the left side facing out.  The gray is ultramarine blue, burnt sienna and cobalt violet, vary the colors and control the amount of water on your brush.

The rocks are dark and murky with strong burnt sienna passages and dark cools heavy in ultramarine blue, Scrape when the area is still damp and not to wet.  Look at the sky and lift the smoke now.  Paint the building with a brown gray grading the color from warm to cool gray and drop in some dark accents of really powerful burnt sienna.  Lift the smoke from the building now, when it is damp, try not to go back into the sky smoke you will be unhappy.

Paint the trees with olive green, ultramarine blue, new gamboge, and burnt sienna overlapping the building and grading the trees towards burnt sienna on the left.

Put in some details and move on to the next painting this one really needs very few details if it is handled pretty loose.