 Hello friends, this is artist Susan Jenkins here again in my studio Monet cafe to bring you another little art tutorial I've got my studio all clean now. I shared a little video yesterday. I'm just so excited and It's time to create something and I thought I'd share with you the point of today's video or the main lesson is going to be how to do an underpainting that is a complementary underpainting with complementary colors using alcohol and I thought I'd go ahead. You know my lessons always have a goal But there ends up being all these other little tidbits of things I share with you at the same time so I thought I just go through my process of even how I pick out my reference photo and Get inspiration and choose my color palette. So we're just going to walk through this whole process together now I happen to have sometimes friends and family members that take some really great photographs and There are some that I know won't mind if I use them if it's someone that I'm questionable about I will approach them about it, but I happen to know this person won't mind She's a dear friend and I've actually done some commission work for her and her husband. So hi Martha This is her picture that she took in um, wyoming. They're on a trip and it is just gorgeous, but um The challenge with this right now. It's a beautiful photograph, but as far as um Painting it. Um, I already see that the horizon line is a little close to the center So I'd like to implement the rule of thirds To this and I have a couple of options here One is I can move it and keep it a horizontal. I've got to do something about that glare And um, and that's really lovely too. Do you see how the horizon line is more up in the upper third? Rather than right here in the middle like it was before And that's really beautiful So, you know, I have a decision to make on that because another crop that I played around with and tried was Was this one and this is a vertical Portrait layout it's called when it's up and down it's called portrait when it's sideways it's called landscape and um, of course We see the horizon line is in the upper third and now these flowers are the focus I like this one too because the height of these flowers, you know draws attention But you know, so that's just a couple of decisions that I have to make and But both of those would probably work out well for a good composition So I thought I'd show you real quick too a neat thing that you can do if you Want to work in standard sizes like I do I use a neat little app If I can find it Okay, here it is. It's called photo editor. I turned off some lights to get rid of that glare so you can see better And hi, you can see me And what I'm going to do here is kind of show you how I can convert My image now I did go ahead and crop the image To be a vertical So I cropped it and the way that I thought I would like it, okay And so here's my crop. I really once I crop it the way I like it. I'm not sure what those dimensions are So that's where this little app comes in handy and there's tons of things apps that have photo editing abilities So what I do here is I go to crop And it gives me all these standard sizes I like to work in standard sizes because it's easier to find frames that you can You don't have to get them custom framed, which is more expensive So a lot of times I'll just go ahead and make it a five by seven and eight by ten Or an 11 by 14. They actually don't even have the 11 by 14 option on here But this makes it um easy to go ahead and convert it So I look at my image here and I'm like, okay, what if I want to do a four by six? Okay, that's the dimensions for four by six And here's the dimensions for a five by seven not quite as tall An eight by ten is even dumpier, but they all look pretty good We still have that horizon line In a third or less than a third quadrant and here's a nine by 16 Now that to my knowledge is not a standard size that I know of I haven't been able to find a frame in that size So I'm not going to use that one, but I'm thinking I because I just want this to be a a lesson Mostly about doing a complimentary underpainting. I'm just going to pick one that's easy. So how about and small How about a five by seven so when I do that and I click apply All of a sudden and I say done I have my five by seven Format for that picture if I go back to my photos it will be there So that's just a really easy way to get your standard sizes ready and It makes it easy to work on now next step. I want to talk about is all right I've picked a photo. I want to make a quick point about that too. Have you ever searched for a photo for so long? That you almost lost your inspiration to paint because you're looking for the perfect photo or You get so into looking at the photos that you forget about painting I'm sharing that because I have done that and um, so From personal experience is best just to sometimes or if you have a time where you just want to go through photos Go ahead and save a whole bunch of them ones you like make that a time You know take an hour and pick out a lot of photos you like So when you're in the mood to paint you can go back to that little saved file of photos You've already pre-chosen then you can start to paint quickly rather than losing your creative inspiration So that's just my advice on picking out photos and again Be careful where you get reference photos from make sure it's someone you know make sure it's something either like Paint my photo that I've shared before or your own photography. So that's just some little tips where that goes Now once you've chosen your photo Okay, now that I have a lot of people who ask how do you get inspired for your color palette? What do you do? I mean so many times if you notice in my paintings I I punch up color quite a bit. I like color but I will veer away from what's in the scene slightly and I I usually use the scene as a source of value instead of a source of color And again, there's another neat little trick you can do With that is to just convert your photo to black and white and That is a bit able you're able to do that with just an iphone or whatever This one gives you a couple of different black and whites to choose from So I just want a basic black and white and that way I can focus on the value Rather than the color. So I often will convert it to black and white Then the next thing I do is I look at other people's artwork that I love I find artists that I love current artists that are alive Some of you know some of my favorites. Um, I love elizabeth mowry I love marla baguetta's work and karen margullis and rita kirkman And there's just too many to mention you guys have mentioned some that I'm like Oh, yeah, I love that artist work too, but I'll also look at some books that I have I like the real world as much as I do a lot online I like sometimes real books and so I have this wonderful book on monnais And of course, you know, my name of my channel is monnais cafe because I like that loose impressionistic style Um, I think sometimes my color is even a little bit more enhanced than some of monnais stuff But I love the impressionistic style So I'll just flip through some of that and and then I'll maybe get some other books Look at that gorgeous color in this painting. Now. This is I believe I believe in oil oil on linen. This is artist Kathleen Dunphy before the sun it's called and this will just inspire me. I love the use of color in this It's actually you can't see it as good now. Look at that. It's just gorgeous And um and her use of values is amazing. So I will often flip through books and and look at um This is a great book by the way and look at how color and value has been used by other artists to give me inspiration and then I'll go back and I'll look at my uh, my black and white photograph and I'll use both those looking at the black and white and what inspires me to go ahead and choose a color palette And I'll also use sometimes I look at the mood of this painting and it looks like a bright sunny day So I'm not going to veer too far away from that and make it a night scene or anything like that But um, it's going to allow me to choose the color palette based on um, kind of what's already there in the photo and What I read as far as time of day and the season too as well All right, so then the next thing I do I'm going to put my phone down So I can actually draw now is uh typically not always um and sometimes for a painting this small I won't do this but I typically will do a little I believe it's called a notan notan where you just do a quick little value sketch of your um composition to get an idea of How you're going to approach the painting and often you can work out any issues right then Before you commit it to painting it. So now I'm going to work on the little quick value sketch All right, so I have my little sketch pad here And I've got it already in a five by seven format and these don't have to be perfect But again, it's for working out any issues with your composition. So get it pretty close at least Now what I have is I just have a little hard pastel right here You can do this with a pencil if you like, but I just find it it's faster for me All I'm doing is a value study and getting my composition and I can use the wider part of this to get broad shapes in so it's just a little bit faster So basically what I start doing is I just kind of start looking at my composition and just quickly sketching in what I see and um Going from there. So I'll just work a little bit and then I'll talk about what I've done Anyway, I actually have um Probably even too much of a sketch here You don't need that much because this is all just about doing an under painting And I'm going to be doing it like I said in complementary colors And what does that mean complementary colors? Well, if you notice on the color wheel It's laid out in such a way that if you look right across from a particular color You're going to see its complement and if you have a scene that has a lot of trees in it that are like green Even blue greens and blues. You notice what's directly across from that It's reds and violets and oranges and yellows The complement to purple is going to be yellow. So that's why when you have a lot of scenes that have um Landscapes or nature you're going to get a lot of your complementary colors that are in this range right here So that's why I have picked out some complementary colors to do the under painting. So I thought I'd go ahead and show you um, here's my little color palette I picked for my scene and notice the scene is um a kind of like I said a summary scene don't need that and But I don't want to do it totally summary. I wish all my things would quit popping up I want to give it a little bit of a in between spring and summer. I see in there In my mind just like some springtime colors and flowers and things in there as well Now I've got my little sketch up here that I did just a quick little value sketch and an idea of a composition So I can keep referring back to that But um, but that spring summer feel is how I picked out this color palette with my warmer greens I've got some warmer. I've got some cooler greens and I've got um, Of course some blues for the water and just for the distant trees and mountains and things And these are going to be my complementary colors Of course, I need a good dark dark for some of those darker trees and darker foliage in there But uh, other than that, we're just going to use some of those complementary colors to block in Um, quickly, uh, just an under painting that is complimentary and then we will do a wash with alcohol So let me get started with that now you can see my palette And my complementary colors. I'm going to do the under painting. All right time to go get started Okay, so now that the complementary under painting is laid in with pastels I'm basically I'm showing this because I've had a few people ask what type of alcohol I use It's just regular alcohol that you get at any Walgreens or wherever and um, It works just fine. The difference between the alcohol and water is that alcohol just dries faster So what I do this is a small painting. So I don't need a whole lot of this I want to give enough so that um, I don't have to stop and reapply So usually, you know, that's enough and this is going to dry up Um, so don't overdo it because once you've contaminated it with your colors and stuff like that You don't want to pour it back in the bottle and it will dry up before the next time you use it So be conservative, but don't overdo it at the same time. All right So now after I have my alcohol like this, I got a couple of brushes I like working with these flat brushes because this is not about detail. This is about shapes Really just shapes and value is all we're working on at the beginning stages. Okay So I use the biggest the biggest brush possible until I find a spot. I can't use it anymore So I'm going to start with this big one and I work top to bottom because I'm going to sit this down and move this so that I don't um Get my colors all blended too much I work top to bottom and in sections and it really helps and I also keep a paper towel handy Because I wipe off a lot like if I get a lot of dark on my brush Um, I don't want that dark to get into the yellow So I'll I'll wipe the brush off pretty good before I go to that area. So you'll kind of see how I work here So again, this is more just about laying it in and um, I like the drip some people may not that's why I keep my um My uh paper up. See how I'm wiping off so that I don't get um that Lavender is not blending like it normally does Um, so I'm just getting it in there and this will dry lighter than you see it looks dark here But it will dry a lot lighter So messy is okay at this stage It's just about getting that color underneath it. Nothing has to be perfect It's just general if you get a runaway drip. You can kind of blot it off So I'm I'm now I've got my brush kind of working sideways And I'm just kind of giving an idea of where these trees are A bit of my dark purple up there in that area, but that's okay Because these trees are like the darkest thing in the scene other than the foreground grasses I think I might need that smaller brush now I'm getting kind of a lot of alcohol up there So this now is going to get those reflections And this is more of a the trees in the background Kind of have more of a warm red going. I'm sorry a cool red than a warm red, but that's okay Okay, now I'm going to go back to my big brush for this bigger area of the water Again, I'm rinsing off pretty good and see how that floor was coming off so much of that color Now it's a little bit cleaner You could change your angle of your brush If you like And pastel is going to cover this I have people ask sometimes why do you do an underpainting if you cover up the whole thing? Well, it looks like you cover up the whole thing and some people maybe they actually do But for the most part you're giving yourself a base and a lot of times those colors do peek through And so that's just really makes it more interesting I've got me a little area that's going to be that little path right there And now I'm going to work kind of up from here Laying down some dirt as Karen Margolis says getting the dark values in that front area and notice I did not put in those White flowers because I'm just going to add those on top of all this All right, so that's pretty much all you do right there. I've got just complementary colors underneath My painting and that's all you need And kind of um More impressionistic at this stage is better than detail. You don't want a lot of detail Big shapes keep thinking big shapes All right, and there you have it. That's pretty much it doesn't look very great But at this stage it's not supposed to all right So now we let this dry you can get a blow dryer if you want or you can just wait a few minutes Because it is going to dry rather quickly or you can just fan it But um notice already how this is drying back here lighter And um, then we're ready to get started. So All right, so now it's pretty much dry and I typically work from the sky down And I think that's because I like to establish my lightest values and um Getting in again your your values so that things stay consistent and you don't get stuck on any one area I love to get the light sky in first. Okay, and I think I'm actually going to do the sky a little bit of a purpley pink sky And um, let me see here. Yeah, and I know I did not do like a complementary color on the sky here but sometimes a lavender is nice in the sky and um, I might even add a little bit of this blue. I've got a that's too dark. Where's that blue that I had? Aha, here it is Yeah, like that. So it's a combination of a lavender and a blue in the sky here And I'm going to have my light source here um for a couple of reasons I think uh, I actually always love to have the light source In the far distant area that you can see sometimes I'll put it behind the trees But in this case, I want to put it here because I think it's going to balance things out more Notice the painting is a little heavy on this side already with the trees here and the flowers here And you know, I am going to put a few more flowers here in this further grouping But um, if I put the light over here too, the whole thing's going to be balanced too much on this side At least that's my plan anyway All right, I'd like to uh mention a couple of things here Actually, I wanted to give a lot more commentary during the process, but you know life gets in the way sometimes I had dogs barking people coming to the door My son asking me a question and so I just decided to paint But anyway, um, some of the things I wanted to mention was obviously in reflections We do the mirror image Um, like I'm doing here with these trees and with these trees And keeping it soft, but at the very end I'm going to be able to just take a One of the values that will work going into this area that's similar to the value of the color of the water here And brush over it a bit But you want to finish these reflections before you do that because you can't really go back and do it afterwards So anyway, so I'm just trying to get um the general idea of a believable reflection And the reason I'm doing this a little bit more detailed right now Before I move on to here is one, you know We want to have this done before I do the water and two I'm working in layers here because I know that this flower is going to be up in this reflection area and in the water So I want to get some of this taken care of before I lay that flower down I also want to make sure I have enough tooth in the paper to lay it down I think I will I should if not I'll spray some workable fixative and would be will be good to go So anyway, you can see how those dark dark trees Um really got covered up mostly by some warmer greens again These are cooler in the background. They're further away. These are warmer and these can be brighter Darker and warmer still in the foreground. So, you know while sometimes you may feel like man, that's too dark Just keep in mind that you are going to be laying down some value Or some warmer values on top of that and some lighter values And so now I wanted to point out that back in here. I know it's far away We can't see a lot of detail which is why these trees are more subdued However, sometimes it's nice to throw in a trunk or two in the darker areas If you if I'm looking at my reference photo right now I see there are some various little trunk showing and again like everything We don't want them consistent like trunk trunk trunk then it's just going to look Not believable nature doesn't work that way So, um, it's probably uh, I'm going to check the value a little bit here. This might be too light Let's see here, but maybe not. I'm looking at where some of these are They're kind of this is like a grouping of a bunch of bushes kind of in the front of the trees and um Back in here. There's a couple little spots in here. I'm using just the side of this Yeah, see how I got a little bit of that there. Um, it's so so subtle and um, maybe I can Get it a little bit better here. Let's see here That's okay. Again, we're just doing some here there and everywhere We don't want them. You don't want too many and you don't want it too consistent And sometimes the trunks are dark Um, so you want to uh keep in mind Usually if the foliage is light the trunk is dark if the foliage is dark the trunk is light So now the hard part is trying to recreate these little marks Down in the reflection because I'm telling you I am working from a teeny little Blade of this pastel And it's just just in general, you know, it doesn't have to be absolutely perfect But you just want it believable that was a little long, but I can brush that out Okay, so again, we're just emulating or Giving a suggestion of where those trunks are. Okay, so I'm gonna Lighten them up a tad and they're gonna lighten up when I do that Brush of water across there as well. All right, so we're getting that kind of going there And I think before getting too fussy. I'm just going to go ahead and give that That water reflection going across there And um, then I'll get going on the other flowers Notice I am I'm wiping this off each time. This is a little bit of a harder pastel You see how it got dirty right there? I'm using my paper that I have on my Table here and cleaning it off So that I get a clean stroke of this Each time I go across Because otherwise you're just going to be Muddying it up. All right, you see how that just gave a little Indication and you can occasionally do a couple of little darker strokes in there But um, you want to be careful not to do that Too much or it gets just Kitch Kitch means tacky All right, so we got a little idea of the water going across there. I think I do need to um Clean this up a bit over here. Some of my reflections Don't look right. It's a little darker over here towards the edges Maybe you can go all the way off there Right that looks better See, this is what I deal with Yep, my little art helpers