Fall Pastel Class

Project: Alaskan Fishing Village Week 4

In our last class we finally worked on the reflection. I left this for last mostly so I wasn't dragging my arm over it all the time.

Basically I used the same colors as I used above with the exception of the highlight colors. Reflections are a value or so darker than what they reflect and they are not mirror reflections. Water is moving all the time either from currents, tides, wind or something swimming or moving through it so there will be no straight lines or hard lines, everything will be slightly distorted. Also, you will be seeing some of the underside because water reflects what is above it and it is flat looking up, if you have any doubts, lay a mirror on the floor near a table, stand back and look in the mirror. What to you see? Same goes for the water, it is going to see what is above it like the underside of the front building and a bit more of the underside of the roof eves.

The other thing to keep in mind - and this goes along with the whole moving water thing - is to paint a reflection your strokes go in one of 2 directions: either straight down or straight across. You can make  an angle, like the roof line or the rust patterns on the roof, by using a series of vertical lines. Most of the lines I used to create the reflections were vertical with a few horizontal ones usually because I was working on something small.

Now that you have the basics, I started with the green in the water, using my darkest greens along with my dark indigo blue to start, then adding some of the mid-value green for the shore grasses and a darker tone brown for the little bit of mud that shows. I put that all in before lightly blending, again my blending was straight down. When I had it blended I went gently straight across to blur the straight lines. I then added some lighter greens for lighter trees but not the real light color from above but one just a bit darker. Again, straight lines putting this color in, straight lines blending and lightly across.

The building color was added the same way, what you don't need to worry about is making it perfect especially the pilings it is standing on. If you miss a post or a board, that's okay, just blur the area a bit more. If the reflection is too detailed it will look wrong. Don't forget to blend straight down and lightly across.

Last but not least, I used my lightest blue and made a series of little marks all along the shore where the water and mud meet. There are usually rocks and sticks and whatever along the shore that can cause a sparkle as the water splashes over them, this also defines the edge of the water. Don't make it a solid line, think dots and dashes as you just skip along the shore line.

I then took the same light blue - take the paper off if your's still has paper - and on its side I very lightly went over the reflections just barely skimming the surface of my paper and I only did this once across, working my way down the reflection. This becomes the sheen on the water.

Check your house and trees to see if you need to  do any more like put the rails in for the walkway in front of the red house, or add people or the boats. Highlights on the deciduous tree behind the red house, remember to follow the way the branches grow, it is not a pine tree.

This was the last day for me on this project. If you are still working on yours we still have 3 classes before the end of the semester so there is plenty of time to finish. If you have finished, bring something in that you want to work on and I can help you get started before we break for the holidays.

So keep painting and I will see you all in class.