Happy Landscape & Playful Shadows
As lockdown keeps us close to home base, there’s been many natural gems to discover. Like this scene along the beach strip where we live. We spent a glorious afternoon here last week and returned on the weekend with the fam. to gaze at the brilliant blue sea and lap up the sunshine.
Is there a spot in nature that you’ve discovered (or re-discovered) during lockdown? Somewhere you knew was beautiful but now you’ve made a Covid connection with?
- Maybe you’ve taken the kids to play there after home schooling?
- A spot where you run as the sun comes up?
- Finding a hidden place because you made yourself and your dog walk a bit further (and being really glad you did)?
This exercise can be done outside if you wish to gather up your supplies and paint on location. Or take a photo and paint from your phone when you get home.
In this happy artwork we simplify the scene, by breaking down into plains and then exaggerate the shadows so they crisscross over the painting.
Materials:
- Medium weight paper stock
- Acrylics
- Pencil
- Your phone set next to you to look at your scene.
Step 1: Sketch in your foreground, mid-ground and background so you know where land meets sea, and sea meets sky. You can also roughly sketch blobs for the tree branches.
Step 2: Using acrylic paints start to block in your colours.
Lighter greens for the foreground, darker greens for mid ground and a different tone for the strip of land in the distance. Remember warmer colours will ‘pop’ and draw your eye in – and darker/ cooler shades will make your eyes recede.
Step 3: Block in the blue for the water. And a different tone of blue for the sky – I mixed lots of water for the sky but you may want to have a bold blue.
Step 4: Once the background is dry, use black paint to paint in branches and outline the leaves.
Step 5: I really loved the shadows in my original photo so wanted this to become a feature. I exaggerated over the foreground and painted lines to distinguish the bushes.
Using black to highlight areas steers this towards an illustration style and gives this simple painting a lift.
