Guide to layer paint to build shadow and form.



click images below for larger versions. Digitals are not great so don't rely on their color.

I first stretched cotton duck canvas. Its medium weight, but weight doesnt really matter for a painting like this. Working from a two digitals I decided on the layout of objects and what type of wall I wanted. Its fairly close to reality, but its not so important as this technique can be applied to anything really.

In the first step I quickly painted in some lines showing the forms with some brown paint - I don't remember the specific brown, but its not important. I then mixed a background warm color that consisted of mostly Raw Sienna and Burnt Umber and washed it onto the rest of the canvas with a lot of thinner. I just wanted to get something wet down and wasn't worried about forms, shadow, etc.
After the wash I then built in my shadows with burnt umber and then used a little black for the deepest shadow areas. Any dark color could be used instead of black, but the burnt umber under the windows will build a nice warm shadow. Hazardly I left some stroke marks and also blended the shadows a bit. I filled in the windows and moldings with a wash of black.
To show some variation in color I washed over the bottom part of the wall with a slightly more grey color and using a crusty paper towel removed some of the paint in the middle area where the story is told about this wall.
With a clean brush I dipped it into my thinner and randomly painted the lighter marks on the wall and instantly soaked up the paint onto a paper towel. This sucked out the paint is areas and left what you can see in the picture.
To give the white areas some definition I painted a very thin squiggly above them with a dark color; I chose violet and blended it a little right after this picture. After done here I let the painting dry for 6 hours (or more if wanted); this will allow the colors to get solid and the washes won't wear off with pressure from a brush.
Very carefully I mixed a mostly white color that consisted of white, naples yellow, burnt umber, orange, and purple. With a wide semi soft brush I applied the white completely dry (no thinner) over the canvas carefully adjusting the application amount. Less on shadow areas and more on open areas. I didnt paint this new white over those yellowish worn areas as heavily as the rest - basically the same as the shadows.
With a different white (olive/mud white) I did the same thing with the other stone parts of the painting as seen. I painted in the dark parts of the windows and left the moldings the wash color. With the window moldings I ran a blue over them to give some shape, but nothing real exciting as I want the attention on the wall to compete with the windows.




There it is all done.



If you have any questions please ask via email or you can call me on skype. I hope that some of this info is useful and I'll add more demos in the future.