Depth and Light Bring a Painting to Life

Creating Depth and Highlights can be a simple matter. The aim is to create a contrast with the blurry distance and to change the feel of the detail. 

With very little talking in the video I have written some comments on the action.
You’ll find them below the video, together with the miniscule transcript.

Video – 3 minutes 37 secs

This video is short at a little over three and a half minutes. I hope that makes up for the longer ones!

Touching the field with very light and sparse strokes gives a feeling that the sun is low on the horizon and beginning to shine through.
Bright paint on the tops of distant hills and the trees on both sides create a similar effect.

Some crimson and a hint of white rubbed in to the bottom of the canvas helps to make it feel as though we’re standing at the entrance to the field, perhaps with a small turn in the path (behind us).
Well, I hope that’s the effect!

I then pay attention to the trees and bushes on the right
where it’s looking as if they are all at the front.

Here I rub using a dry stiff brush with very varying amounts of paint, which adds a smoother layer of darker colour in the foregound.
I quickly scratch into the paint with that same old brush handle (remember the one?).

I’m hoping to make it look more of a tangled mess nearby,
creating a contrast with the blurry distance and changing the feel of the detail.

Once that is dry I’ll take another look to assess what the painting needs.
It still lacks a certain “je ne sais quoi” (I don’t know what).

Well our demo is nearly done! I’ll complete the final touches soon, and express some concluding thoughts.

Transcript of this video

Sun at the top – more here.
Catch a bit of sun, same along there.

(No speaking for a while, painting noises, I think it was pouring with rain outside!)

It seems to be coming more towards us now.

Let’s get some shadow in here.

Smoothes it up – Lets take (this) and scrape again.
Bit of a tangle around, in there a bit.