Painting Demonstration - Boston Cityscape

Here is a demonstration of one of the different stages of a painting process showed to me by Charles Sovek. The benefits of each stage of this process are described below. This is certainly not the only way to produce a painting, but it is a useful one. Using it can increase your chances for a successful painting by automatically steering you around some common painting challenges...

Boston Photo This is a photo of the Boston scene I will paint for the demonstration.

Stage 1 Stage 1.

I start by priming a piece of illustration board with an intense wash of cadmium orange. The reason this is done is that I would rather have a color like orange, instead of the stark white illustration board, showing through in the little areas that my brush may miss while painting the scene.

Stage 2 Stage 2.

The second and most important stage is to paint in the shadow pattern in cerulean blue paint. Everything in the scene that is in shadow is painted in blue. Everything in the scene that is being hit by sunlight is left orange.

I like to just leap into painting the shadow shapes without any preliminary pencil drawing. I find that drawing with the brush helps my painting to have more spontaneous looking brushwork than if I did a pencil drawing and then was concerned with carefully filling in the lines with color.

One reason that this is the most important stage in the process is because it contains the most crucial decisions you will make while doing the painting - what to paint and which part of the scene to include. Additionally, it captures the light and shadow pattern of the scene. As this pattern will change quickly when you are painting outside, it is important to nail it down early in the painting process.

After putting in the light and shadow pattern I can often tell if the painting has a good chance of being successful. If the light and shadow pattern is interesting, even without any other colors, the painting has a chance of coming out well. If the light and shadow pattern is not interesting itself, however, no amount of further work, including clever brushwork, pretty colors or detail, will be likely to save it and turn it into a good painting.

Stage 3 Stage 3.

The next stage is to put in the actual colors of the shadow areas. It is important while doing this to break the shadow into its main color areas. Each of these areas is not painted in detail, but is painted in one average, flat color. The idea is to paint in large, flat puzzle pieces of color, comparing each shadow color to the ones next to it to determine its correct hue, value and intensity.

Stage 4 Stage 4.

Next, flat areas of color are similarly filled in for the light areas. The light area colors are compared to one another to determine their correct hue, value and intensity. They are also compared to the shadow colors to judge the level of contrast they need with the shadow colors to give the entire painting the illusion of light and shade.

Notice that the entire board has now been covered with paint. No details have been put in yet. The reason is that this stage of the painting process gives you, as Charles Sovek said, a preview of what the finished painting will look like. If you happen to have made some errors in determining the correct hue, value or intensity of any of your colors, they will stick out at this stage. Because every area of color has no detail, repainting any that are off is a simple process.

Stage 5 Stage 5.

In the next stage the large color areas are broken down into medium-sized areas of color that more accurately reflect the colors in the actual scene. For example, the area of trees along the bottom of the painting now has a darker area of shadow that helps define the form of the trees. The sunlight was so strong in this scene that it bleached out the colors of the parts of the buildings that were being hit by the light. As a result, the edge between the light parts of the buildings and the sky is nonexistant. (This effect is most easily seen in stage 2.) I like this effect of intense sunlight; here I paint over some of the yellow parts of the buildings in light with the color of the sky. The tops of the window openings in the foreground building get a darker shadow value for more contrast.

Stage 6 Stage 6.

In the final stage, any necessary details of my background building, which happens to be the focal point of this painting, are put in. Although I could have put in a lot more detail, I decided to stop at this point. That is because I wanted to stay with my original inspiration for the picture. In this case my original inspiration was the effect of bright sunlight on the city, not the many windows that exist in the actual scene.

	This is a photo of the Boston scene I will paint for the demonstration.
	Stage 1. I start by priming a piece of illustration board with an intense wash of cadmium orange. The reason this is done is that I would rather have a color like orange, instead of the stark white illustration board, showing through in the little areas that my brush may miss while painting the scene.
	Stage 2. The second and most important stage is to paint in the shadow pattern in cerulean blue paint. Everything in the scene that is in shadow is painted in blue. Everything in the scene that is being hit by sunlight is left orange. I like to just leap into painting the shadow shapes without any preliminary pencil drawing. I find that drawing with the brush helps my painting to have more spontaneous looking brushwork than if I did a pencil drawing and then was concerned with carefully filling in the lines with color. One reason that this is the most important stage in the process is because it contains the most crucial decisions you will make while doing the painting - what to paint and which part of the scene to include. Additionally, it captures the light and shadow pattern of the scene. As this pattern will change quickly when you are painting outside, it is important to nail it down early in the painting process. After putting in the light and shadow pattern I can often tell if the painting has a good chance of being successful. If the light and shadow pattern is interesting, even without any other colors, the painting has a chance of coming out well. If the light and shadow pattern is not interesting itself, however, no amount of further work, including clever brushwork, pretty colors or detail, will be likely to save it and turn it into a good painting.
	Stage 3. The next stage is to put in the actual colors of the shadow areas. It is important while doing this to break the shadow into its main color areas. Each of these areas is not painted in detail, but is painted in one average, flat color. The idea is to paint in large, flat puzzle pieces of color, comparing each shadow color to the ones next to it to determine its correct hue, value and intensity.
	Stage 4. Next, flat areas of color are similarly filled in for the light areas. The light area colors are compared to one another to determine their correct hue, value and intensity. They are also compared to the shadow colors to judge the level of contrast they need with the shadow colors to give the entire painting the illusion of light and shade. Notice that the entire board has now been covered with paint. No details have been put in yet. The reason is that this stage of the painting process gives you, as Charles Sovek said, a preview of what the finished painting will look like. If you happen to have made some errors in determining the correct hue, value or intensity of any of your colors, they will stick out at this stage. Because every area of color has no detail, repainting any that are off is a simple process.
	Stage 5. In the next stage the large color areas are broken down into medium-sized areas of color that more accurately reflect the colors in the actual scene. For example, the area of trees along the bottom of the painting now has a darker area of shadow that helps define the form of the trees. The sunlight was so strong in this scene that it bleached out the colors of the parts of the buildings that were being hit by the light. As a result, the edge between the light parts of the buildings and the sky is nonexistant. (This effect is most easily seen in stage 2.) I like this effect of intense sunlight; here I paint over some of the yellow parts of the buildings in light with the color of the sky. The tops of the window openings in the foreground building get a darker shadow value for more contrast.
	Stage 6. In the final stage, any necessary details of my background building, which happens to be the focal point of this painting, are put in. Although I could have put in a lot more detail, I decided to stop at this point. That is because I wanted to stay with my original inspiration for the picture. In this case my original inspiration was the effect of bright sunlight on the city, not the many windows that exist in the actual scene.