The Clock Tower

I thought it would be fun if I did a step-by-step process again. It's been a while. 

This is the clock tower at Bay Front Park in Petoskey. It's beautiful in all seasons but I chose to paint it in autumn because in mid winter like this I'm CRAVING color! 

To begin I looked at my pictures of the clock tower, brought the trees in a bit closer and sketched it out. Then I darkened the outlines with my handy-dandy Micron pen. I let it sit for a bit so the pen can dry. It's supposed to be waterproof but I've had a few irritating accidents before so I let it dry just in case.

Then I start in a random place and begin adding color. In this case I painted the bright red clock tower first. Then I go on to paint areas that are NOT touching something I just painted because I don't want the colors to bleed into each other. In this case, by choosing something in the middle of the picture I severely limited my options, but who cares.  

After my first layers of paint dry I add depth in some places by adding another layer or two and then it's on to shadows. One of the most useful things I have ever learned concerning painting is that shadows are hardly ever black! If you look closely at the world around you, you'll notice that depending on what makes the shadow and the light source, the shadow itself may take on different shades. 

Outside I've tended to notice that most shadows appear as a dark blue or a purple(ish) shade. It's not always correct and I try to pay attention to that while painting because shadows can be quite interesting. They can even be the subject of the painting. 

So there you have it. A step by step insiders view of my painting process. 

HAVE A GREAT WEEKEND!