Share to XI’m working on another painting featuring the Upper Portals of Mount Barney. I wanted to share a quick lesson from the painting so far.
I needed to make the light parts of the mountain a bit lighter and crisper. I tried the obvious solution of going over the top with a lighter and cleaner color. But for whatever reason, that didn’t look right.
After some trial and error, the solution I stumbled upon was to use the tip of a palette knife to hatch lines into the wet paint. This partially revealed the white surface below, leaving lines of a pale, transparent yellow color. You can see what I mean here.
This made the overall area appear lighter, which was my original goal. But it also had two other benefits. It gave the area an interesting, rustic finish which works well for the background in a landscape. And the hatched lines play into the idea of tree trunks and branches. Three birds, one stone.
I thought it was quite a unique solution to a simple problem.
Also, this is partly what makes painting so interesting and challenging. Every problem can have numerous solutions. It’s not linear.
If you need to make an area appear lighter, you could:
- Paint over it with a lighter color.
- Paint the surrounding colors darker.
- Glaze or gently scumble a darker color over the top.
Or, as I found out, you could even use a palette knife to scrape away some of the paint and partially reveal the white surface below.
Anyway, back to it! I’ll let you know how the painting turns out.
Regards
Dan Scott
Draw Paint Academy
