"The Dugouts" - continued

The Dugout - WIP#2 - Establishing the darks

Early in a painting I like to establish some dark colors so I have a range of comparison between the white of the paper and the darkest darks. While I am adding light and medium value passages, this range prevents me from being too dark or too light in other areas of the painting. Before I started to add the darks early I found much of my work ended up mid-range to dark in value with few lighter passages.  Basically, I got dark everywhere since I didn't know where I was headed.  By adding the shadows early they provide the reference point that I need.  At this stage the shadows under the boats appear almost too dark since they are adjacent to white paper, but as the painting develops they will appear much lighter.

You can see I have also added dark colors in the interior of the 3rd boat.  Since these areas are surrounded by some mid-value shades they don't seem as harsh as the shadows, but they are actually about the same in value. I've also added some color to the lake and some of the other dugouts.  It is always interesting to me to see how just a pale color (as in the lake) is enough to make the bow of some of the more distant dugouts stand out.  John Salminen commented in a workshop I took on how using a variety of pale colors in an area can be more effective than using wider value ranges.  I was surprised when he said this, but have found it to be very true.

In my last post, the 3rd dugout only had the rough edges of the pale green acrylic paint on the side.  I've now added tan and pale blues where the paint had worn off with use and time. Next time I'll post the completed painting.