What You Can Learn From My Recent Painting – Manly, Shimmering Light

Here’s a recent painting: Manly, Shimmering Light. It’s a simple subject with many tricky aspects.

Below are some key takeaways and notes from this painting:

– My big idea for this painting was to capture the play between the shimmering water and the broken color of the leaves.

– I also wanted to convey the brilliance of the midday sun on a clear day. The vague detail and specs of titanium white on the water play into this idea.

– I incorporated many different techniques. I started with palette knives to broadly lay down the composition. I then used brushes to refine and add a touch of finesse.

Note: I intended for this to be a 100% palette knife painting. But midway through I felt the need to introduce brushes. It’s important to be flexible with your painting process. Be willing to change it midway if that’s what the painting needs.

– I painted from dark to light for the most part, saving the brightest highlights until last. I have found that if you place your highlights too early, you spend the rest of the painting trying to preserve them, leading to timid brushwork.

– When painting the water, I tried to really feel the motion, back, forth, up, over. I let my brush follow these motions.

If you would like to paint it for yourself, you can download the reference photo here. It’s always interesting to see different interpretations of the same subject.

Happy painting!

Dan Scott

drawpaintacademy.com