Daylight Lighthouse
OBJECT: Watch and see how things unfold as Greg paints his way through a nautical theme.


Step One: Whatcha drawing?
















Start out by knowing what you are going to paint, and drawing the shapes necessary to have a framework to hang your painting on. Do some visual research on the elements you'll be using in your painting beforehand.I used digital reference photos of the Lorain Lighthouse on Lake Erie to draw and cut a cardboard template to size so I could move it around and play with the composition.Once I decided where to draw it, I added the sky and sea areas, and then masked the lighthouse area with liquid frisket.As the frisket dried I played with scribbling in a few sail boats on the horizon to mix things up a bit.



Step Two: Head in the clouds
















Using the Round #8 red sable, I mixed up a medium wash of cerulean blue and after I wet some areas of the sky with clean water I proceeded to paint the sky, varying the intensity and shaping the clouds edges flowing in and out of each other as the wash softened.While this was still damp I added a touch of ivory black to the cerulean to get a silvery gray for the cloud bottoms and added more shape the base of the clouds.I remoistened the lower horizon and flowed in a light wash of Indian yellow which glazed and faded into the underlying blue. I intensified the upper sky color with a deeper blue while it was still moist.



Step Three: Oops, what's this?
















This is when I realize the paper I'm using is the paper I allowed to become moldy when it sat partially explose in basement storage. You couldn't see the mold or the damage until you added paint and then you saw areas had the sizing eliminated from them. The blotchy damaged areas soaked up paint like blotter paper. Interesting. Unintended texture.Using the same cerulean blue mixed for the sky I painted the first wash of the water area looking for a reflective effect. Then I let everything dry.Next, using Sap Green, Hooker's Green and Burnt Umber I mixed several variations of greens for the lake water. I moistened some areas of the water before I started working a rhythmic design with the waves in the foreground. I paid some attention to the reflecting version of the lighthouse in the water anticipating a red roof with an Alizarin/Permanent Rose mix.


Step Four: I wanna rock
















For some reason the foreground area annoyed me so I hastily used my #5 brush to draw some near-shore rocks using a mix of Hooker's Green, Cerulean Blue, and Burnt Umber. I'll spend the rest of the painting trying to make this addition work in some way.As the rocks dried I mixed a bluish-gray for the small strips of land masses on either side of the bay and loosely painted them.Grabbing some loose cerulean I lightened it up with a touch of water and took a swipe at the largest sail on the right to add form to it's motion.I then went back over the now dry rocks with some grayed and cooled down greens left over from the first few lake water washes.

Step Five: Pause for refinement

I overlayed some more cerulean washes on the lake waves, defining the patterns a little more.As a last touch before removing the frisket I used Alizarin crimson and Permanent Rose to add some color on distant sails. I let the piece dry thoroughly before removing the frisket.When the frisket was removed I had to redraw the details of the building and rocks, the pencil drawing had lifted off the paper with the frisket.