Quick Tip 304 - After the Block In

sometimes a quick tip brings up another question as it does in this request this person was watching quick tip 276 called why block in and she asked would you consider doing a quick tip of the very next step here in other words the intermediary step before details we can do that [Music] you might want to watch our full-length video which is free on youtube called no 10 how and why which sort of goes through all the steps but let me pick up now where the quick tip what was it 276 yes where that quick tip leaves off it's why block in but i have to do a little something extra first your first step is always after you after you have done the preliminary stuff is placement a placement with a preliminary drawing which is here and my preference is to then switch gears totally switch gears away from what it is to what is happening on it what is the light doing that is your first question so what is light doing where is the light located and where are the light rays hitting and where are they not hitting and where they're not hitting a shadow where they are hitting is light and that's what this is this is a division of light in shadow as we see here somewhat if you squint you can kind of see the little pattern of shadow here that is representing where you see shadow strongly following falling in kind of an average here it's simply shadow it doesn't tell you anything about the degrees of values in those shadow so that's what this is now i'm going to pick up and do the block in part that you saw in quick tip 276 but i'm not going to do the whole thing i'm going to just do a portion that way you'll be able to see these three or four steps together so to block in shadow i'll just work right here in this area which is represented by this area right in here uh so we'll i always like to start with shadow and i always like to start with a single value that represents the shadow when doing that block in part so if i'm if i'm working right in here then i would simply work right in here and i might vary the value just a little bit on the block in so we wouldn't be real careful and in when we're just um blocking in shadow the main thing is that we're keeping the value as a shallow value very dark now sometimes we can do this step in the next one i'm going to show you together but if if i break it down for you like this perhaps that will make it a little bit clearer so my values on my palette i always like to put it put my colors out in a value line according to what i'm seeing right here and always think about this side as being the shadow side of the paint and this side is being the light side of the paint and this being the transition between shadow and light so that then when i'm working in shadow i'm working right over here when i'm working in the areas in light or not in shadow i'm working right over there now that's just a preliminary oh that's just the way i set up my palette makes it easier to work and it gives you a little bit more freedom so that you can get creative with the work so just put these in just as a block in very loosely not not being trying to be meticulous at all but referring to this as i'm putting it in so i'll just do this part right in here like that and you can see that is just very loosely blocked in this shadow all right now i'm going to rinse the brush and block in the areas nut and shell now i like to block in those areas not in shallow a little bit darker or in other words block them in kind of low light so get that brush rinse really well and dry it really well get all that solvent out we don't need solvent in our paint so i'll go into this area nut and shell and we see here this is area where the light rays are heading so very generally i'm not trying to define the whole thing i'm not trying to define anything about leaves or trees or or bowels or none of that stuff yet i'm simply looking at where the lights hitting and indicating that here on the canvas i'm doing it in a darker value than i'm really seeing so i'm going to just do something like this to indicate where the light rays are hitting that's all that's all this does just says this is where light is heading and i pay attention to that pattern and those light rays sometimes might be kind of inching down into the shadow areas like they are right in here as i just pay attention to that this is where the light rays hit this all this is saying this is not saying anything else this is where the light rays are hitting so that's all this is so that is about that is a very simple approach to block in so i can just and loosely just very loosely i don't have to be i don't have to be meticulous about this just very loosely this is where the light rays are hitting that's all this is saying now this would be the step that uh is blocking and i can keep going but i'm not going to because i want you to see the process as it happens here now this is where the person who made that request this is where we pick up and put a little bit more about where the light rays are heading right down in here that'll be this little section right in there and so we'll just do a little bit more of that take just a little bit further now what do we do what will you do when you get it blocked in then you begin to think or not think observe what's going on within the shadow areas and then what's going on with the light areas now when we think only in terms of value we're missing out we don't see value without light and shadow in the shadow areas there's going to be a certain range of values and that's what we do next that is that next step before details so in here i the photographs don't always show them when you're out in plein air painting you will see them but right in here we have variations of values there are at the edge of those lights we're going to see even though the light rays are not hitting we'll see some reflected light going down and we might have three degrees of shadow all right so what we might do there is i'll move from the transition value to slide very slightly over into the shadow value get that just about one step darker and i might want to cool it just a little bit since since it's in the shallow area i might want to neutralize it a little bit more since it's in the shadow area and i'll begin to work smaller i'm working with smaller part of the brush this time and just different differentiate that is a lighter shadow in this area that is a lighter shadow that is the next step past block in now you can do this step while you're doing block in you could do the block the the block in and the differentiation of values at the same time but i wanted to break it down into um this kind of step-by-step process so you can see that you can actually see it happening and here we begin some see some shadows moving in you can see them within those little light areas so we can indicate that but we indicate that not with the darkest dark but we indicate that with the transition that dark that value which is just between shadow and light you might call it so i'm not going to call it by any value number this is left to your observation to do that so we'll make that differentiation we still have here the darkest dark which we always reserve for those deep deep deep shadows all right so i would continue i would continue working these all through the shallow areas it's a good idea i like you you may have your own way of working but i find that the more organized you are in your pattern of working the better work you do where you know what you're doing i know what i'm doing now i'm defining different i'm defining the variations of value within shadow areas and so i'm focusing right over in here to see those variations and i can see some very shallow shadow areas popping out of the light there and then i would do that get those and watch the angle at which those are turned very shallow shallow areas popping out of the light and this is when the theme begins to fall into places again when it will begin to look like if you will what you're painting so i can go up in here and i look for those shallow shallower areas it's going that next step from general to a little bit more specific so i get this shallow shallow shadow areas right in here now i do have a quick tip uh 250 called the anatomy of light that you can go to where i break down the whole the whole anatomy of light and shadow and show you those varying degrees of how what happens to values when the lights are hitting directly and when the lights are not hitting quite so strong and what happens in shadows in uh when they are moving deeper away from the light and when they're closer to the lights so this i would carry forward now once i have defined or indicated let's say it that way once i have indicated variations of value in shadow variations i see and also those shallow shadows that will pop through light you won't always see those it depends upon the subject you're working with but this principle could apply to any subject you're working with then i go into the areas of light and i do the same process where now i'm trying to find those very variations of values within the light where the lights hitting the strongest is the lightest where the light is not hitting quite so strong uh is darker so let's see how we would do that now move on my value scale i move over into this section now i'm seeing that may be just a little bit intense for that particular area in that case well i'm going to do something here i'm going to pick up a little bit of of a complement in this case this is a transparent oxide red i'm going to add just enough white into it to get it closer to this value right here and a little bit more and now normally i would build a value line of that too so that i have the same value here but this is an alternate way to do it but whenever you're going to add a color another color into a light color you need to value correct it first that means you need to change this value to be the same value or a similar value as the value you're working with so i don't need cool there i just need it to be a little less intense and so i will now load the brush of this in more intense color output just to the edge so i can control it and let's get a little bit lighter a little bit less intense and let's see what happens now we're in the light area this is in this and i i'm just building this towards where the light would be shining or i'm going to pull a little bit more let's put a little bit more white right over here we'll just put that white down right here so that we can control that so we're defining light now defining what light is doing we see the light is moving let's moving in this direction and we see kind of a counter movement there so i will go right up in here and begin to apply that light get a little lighter and even a little lighter and you can see it's easier to lighten a dark than it is to darken the light so that's the reason i like to put the darker version of that where that light area is i like to put that on first so i can work into it and by working into it then i can change the value as well so let's make that realistic as the sun sun's hitting we can tell this the brightest part is about right up in here so on this particular bow the brightest part is right in here right next to that shadow area let's get that even lighter how light can we get that and still represent and so the lighter the small and on this particular tree what i'm seeing the lighter portions are are smaller the light is not hitting the same degree of strength on the whole tree all right now let's see it's coming down we've got another set of vowels right here now we can hit that light a little stronger so all we're doing there is defining light that's all the degree of light that we're seeing and what is that they don't want to overdo that because we can see we those really light lights are in our smaller amounts do we see any of that real light light right over here not much at all so i'm going to lower the value and do just a little bit of differentiation here you see that's just a little bit darker this is away from the bright light the scent the center light is not really hitting here that may be one or two little little leaves popping out that there we go something like that that would show that but that's that's all we need so we don't want to overdo uh in other words you don't do the same amount of value differences in any one area you use your subject as your guide and where you see the the values later you make them lighter where you see them a little darker you make them a little darker so that's pretty much what you do it as that second step now i might move back here now that i've done the light i might see a little bit more variation right here in this shadow so you can move back and forth and distinguish variations like right in here that's really deep right there as the photograph shows it but as i'm seeing it i might see it yeah i might see those shadows just a little bit more well have more variation than now this is what the the viewer asked for is this intermediate step in this intermediate step you are finding differences in values within the shadow areas within light years which i just showed you nine times out of ten that's going to be also showing you details but if it's not this is the place where you then go in and refine your little details now the person didn't ask for that but what you start looking for now are other textures texture variations where where there might be little tiny bits of light there that are very showing more variation than we showed right here for example so the details always come last if you try to start out with details you're going to find yourself pretty baffled because those details need something to be detailed upon and uh and you're not going to have something to detail them upon if you don't have that foundation first this is the way nature appears to us when the light when lights and shadows are when when well let's say this one is a direct light source like there is here we see them more pronounced those lights and shadows when there's an indirect light source we see them less pronounced but we still have lights and shadows and we see the details in there because of those lights and shadows and then we just keep getting it smaller and smaller within little then larger areas we find smaller areas of value of variation and that helps to create textures when you need it you see kind of see what i'm doing here only here would i begin to add limbs well i say only here this would be a good place to begin to add limbs and trunks but that's details so i think i hope i answered that question of that next step okay i see another little kind of um another little variation in here you never get them all at the same at the first time first the more you look the more you're going to see little value variations the main thing is to get them the value they would be if they're in shadow and the value they would be if they're in light and you get your information from that right there so i hope that answers uh answers that question and then lets you know a process that you can use to make painting logical at the same time creative be sure and view all of our quick tips while you're doing so subscribe to the channel click on the bell so you'll always get a notice when we produce a new quick tip which is every week if you have a question leave it in the comments section and we'll make a quick tip for you also take a trip over to dynamize.com where i have full length lessons downloads dvds lots of other stuff there some free stuff for you and while you're there you can subscribe to the newsletter and that way you'll always be informed every time we do something new [Music] you

Channel: In the Studio Art Instruction

Views: 12,153

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Keywords: in, the, studio, art, instruction, in the studio, art instruction, Dianne Mize, SauteeLive, online art lessons, online art classes, online art instruction, how to paint, how to draw, fine art, easel, palette, canvas, brush, painting, oil painting, watercolor, gouache, quick tip, pastels, pastel, 304, After the Block In, blocking in

Id: gRZp6ahUNPs

Length: 18min 25sec (1105 seconds)

Published: Wed Jan 13 2021