Paint Nite 30: Conch shell on the beach
I saw this once before, but when it cropped up again, I decided to take the plunge. Getting me in the mood for Hawaii. :D
Here's the model:
I only signed up for this class about 3 hours before it happened - I've taken to registering kind of last minute because my life is so nuts, I don't always know if I will, for sure, have time to paint. Anyway, given my last-minute signup, it was a surprisingly small class - only two other people, besides me (well, three others - one Zoom connection was for two people painting together in the same house).
First we made light brown (or in my case, I had light brown already) and added a tiny bit of red to give it a slightly peachy tone (which doesn't really show up well in this pic). We added some streaks of white as we were going along, using diagonal strokes. We then took a dark brown, made it watery, and added spatter texture on the sand (including also some white spatter). I got a little brown spatter into the water, oops.
Next we mixed up a teal-ish color (although, again, I already had some), and added some regular blue in the corner. We learned Bob Ross-style X strokes to create the loose texture of the waves.
We added some white swoops to the water to create movement, then a narrow brown shadow under the edge of the waves. Next we outlined the shell in white, drawing a triangle shape for the base of the shell, then the segmented end that goes out to the left. Then the sort of elephant ear shape on top, and colored it in in white, to block out the space over the sand.
Coloring in the shell was a lengthy process, involving creating a dark pink for the "elephant ear" and then blending it to lighter colors as you went up, then adding a little yellow to the lighter pink (on the palette) to make a peach, which lined the top of the "triangle" part, and then mixing in a lot of yellow to the darker pink (on the palette) to create the main shell color, and using the lighter peach on the segments. We also used the brown from the wave shadows to make more shadows under the shell.
When we went to outline around the edge of the shell in a deep purple, I realized my right edge was WAY too straight, so I outlined a more varigated shape, and had to re-color some of that, including some of the sand area around it. There were a lot of finishing details, including some orange accents, purple shadows, white highlights, "sparkle" marks, adding a bit of dark purple to the brown shadow under the shell and, using a technique I saw
spiffikins use to simulate foam at the edge of the water, a dabbed scrunched paper towel with white paint on it. I feel, in retrospect, that I should have had a bit more texture in the deep pink part of the shell (as per the model) but otherwise, I'm pretty satisfied with this. I thought the teacher was decent, too.
In a hopefully-soon upcoming post: I found a place for my dad on Wednesday, but getting my ducks in a row so he can come out is proving more complicated. Mask mandates were removed at school this past week for reasons that involved very vague pronouncements from the governor. Am not happy about this. Neighborhood car break-in attempts. Won a scholarship. Tomorrow I'm getting Two his first professional (and not mom-fessional) haircut in about two years, in anticipation of his senior portraits being done in 10 days. New grand-nephew. Rollercoaster day at school a week ago. Weeds are trying to take over my veggies, especially seeing as a lot of my veggies didn't sprout and thus have left a lot more room for the weeds. Finished reading Only Mostly Devastated and will soon finish the next in my Lady Hardcastle mystery series. Also just finished the read-aloud of Becky Albertelli's Kate In Waiting with Two. Oh, and we've started watching Love, Victor (S2) and MCU's Loki.
Right. So - details will be forthcoming. Eventually. Someday.
Here's the model:
I only signed up for this class about 3 hours before it happened - I've taken to registering kind of last minute because my life is so nuts, I don't always know if I will, for sure, have time to paint. Anyway, given my last-minute signup, it was a surprisingly small class - only two other people, besides me (well, three others - one Zoom connection was for two people painting together in the same house).
First we made light brown (or in my case, I had light brown already) and added a tiny bit of red to give it a slightly peachy tone (which doesn't really show up well in this pic). We added some streaks of white as we were going along, using diagonal strokes. We then took a dark brown, made it watery, and added spatter texture on the sand (including also some white spatter). I got a little brown spatter into the water, oops.
Next we mixed up a teal-ish color (although, again, I already had some), and added some regular blue in the corner. We learned Bob Ross-style X strokes to create the loose texture of the waves.
We added some white swoops to the water to create movement, then a narrow brown shadow under the edge of the waves. Next we outlined the shell in white, drawing a triangle shape for the base of the shell, then the segmented end that goes out to the left. Then the sort of elephant ear shape on top, and colored it in in white, to block out the space over the sand.
Coloring in the shell was a lengthy process, involving creating a dark pink for the "elephant ear" and then blending it to lighter colors as you went up, then adding a little yellow to the lighter pink (on the palette) to make a peach, which lined the top of the "triangle" part, and then mixing in a lot of yellow to the darker pink (on the palette) to create the main shell color, and using the lighter peach on the segments. We also used the brown from the wave shadows to make more shadows under the shell.
When we went to outline around the edge of the shell in a deep purple, I realized my right edge was WAY too straight, so I outlined a more varigated shape, and had to re-color some of that, including some of the sand area around it. There were a lot of finishing details, including some orange accents, purple shadows, white highlights, "sparkle" marks, adding a bit of dark purple to the brown shadow under the shell and, using a technique I saw
spiffikins use to simulate foam at the edge of the water, a dabbed scrunched paper towel with white paint on it. I feel, in retrospect, that I should have had a bit more texture in the deep pink part of the shell (as per the model) but otherwise, I'm pretty satisfied with this. I thought the teacher was decent, too.In a hopefully-soon upcoming post: I found a place for my dad on Wednesday, but getting my ducks in a row so he can come out is proving more complicated. Mask mandates were removed at school this past week for reasons that involved very vague pronouncements from the governor. Am not happy about this. Neighborhood car break-in attempts. Won a scholarship. Tomorrow I'm getting Two his first professional (and not mom-fessional) haircut in about two years, in anticipation of his senior portraits being done in 10 days. New grand-nephew. Rollercoaster day at school a week ago. Weeds are trying to take over my veggies, especially seeing as a lot of my veggies didn't sprout and thus have left a lot more room for the weeds. Finished reading Only Mostly Devastated and will soon finish the next in my Lady Hardcastle mystery series. Also just finished the read-aloud of Becky Albertelli's Kate In Waiting with Two. Oh, and we've started watching Love, Victor (S2) and MCU's Loki.
Right. So - details will be forthcoming. Eventually. Someday.