PAINTING BACKGROUND AND BOAT PART 2

 

You'll see I've spattered some miskit in addition to the other main sections I've masked. After masking off the parts you see in gray, check to be sure you don't have miskit on places you don't want. Now, before applying paint, is the time to remove unwanted miskit by gently rubbing it with your finger or a rubber cement eraser.The masking fluid allows you to make broad washes without having to carefully avoid small places. 

SKY

 I usually use cerulean for a sky, but you can use any blue: cobalt or French ultramarine are fine.

Make a puddle on your palette of the blue you choose. Then wet the top portion of the paper down to about an inch below the horizon line. Avoid the boat itself. Then with a large brush, beginning at the top, make a broad wash of blue. I kept it light on mine. 

GRASSY AREA

Mix a puddle of green on your palette and a puddle of raw sienna or ochre. Starting at the bottom of the paper (I usually work upside down at this point), wet the grass area and apply a wash of green, dropping in sienna here and there. I overlap the horizon line. I like to watch the paint dry, and as it loses its sheen, spatter blues and greens and sienna into the grash to give it texture. 

Dry the washes completely.

BEGIN THE BOAT

Keep the masking fluid on the painting for now.

I've only used a few colors on the boat. I used alizarin crimson, french ultramarine, raw sienna, burnt umber, and burnt sienna.

Starting with the blue, I've put a wash on the blue part of the boat, dropping in burnt sienna in places where I want it to look peeling and aging. I also have burnt sienna in the shadow underneath the top of the boat.

After the blue is dry, I washed in some red on the bottom. While wet I added some dark blue in the shadow areas. Before the paint dries you can add texture by sprinkling on table salt or by spattering water on the almost-dry paint (not shiny).

To paint the edge of wood along the top, paint in with raw sienna on the right side, burnt sienna on the left.(where it is darker.) Drop in darker paint in short rough brush strokes where the wood is very broken and decayed.

When the boat is dry, you will likely have to add layers to get the colors and volume that you want.

This last photo looks like the boat is floating on air. You have to anchor it to the ground with shadow.

I used a dark green (green apatite genuine) to create the shadow beneath the boat and added some purple to the green to darken it before I removed the masking fluid. I allowed the purple and the green to mix in places where the shadow seems to blend into the boat, and continued with purple to darken the red shadows.

RAILING

I used French ultramarne and burnt sienna on the railing. Basically I wet the railing, a few inches at a time, with a #2 brush, and dotted the shadow part with ultramarine and dropped in burnt sienna. This creates a rust effect.

I mixed french ultramarine with a little burnt sienna to create a dark color for the lines on the planks of the boat.

NEXT WEEK: fnishing up the details.

COLOR MIXING NOTES:

if you don't have burnt umber, mix alizarin crimson with a green until you get a dark brown color. Any two opposite colors (red/green; orange/blue; violet/yellow) will create a brown and/or gray, depending on the strength of the mixture.