CHESTERTOWN FOUNTAIN

We are starting a painting of a fountain that many are familiar with in Chestertown, MD.  The photo came out very blue so we are going to change it a bit.

We started painting the initial washes laying in general mid value colors.  At the top I added some ultramarine for the little patches of sky.  There are a lot of sky holes in the photo and I didnt want to add all those.  Then I added some greens for the trees with some raw sienna and sap green, making sure more of the raw sienna was used around the fountain and more of the sap on the outer sides of the paper.  I used some winsor yellow with the raw sienna near the bottom of the fountain.  I used some perinone orange a little further down towards the base of the fountain also.  I put some dark greens in also near the edges of the paper with sap green and ultramarine.  The foreground I used raw sienna + quinacridone rose for the lighter areas and then ultramarine blue for the shadowed areas.  All this done wet on dry but all the colors were put in at once letting them blend together.  I painted the fountain in the shadowed areas only and leaving the highlights white.  I used ultramarine blue and ultramarine turquoise.  I used a little raw sienna at the base.  For the man I used ultramarine blue + winsor red and painted him mostly in shadow except for a few areas on the top of his arm and back of his head.

I have added the tree trunks using ultramarine blue + maroon perylene + raw sienna.  After mixing these colors I first put a wash of raw sienna on the tree and then dropped in the darker tree color.  As the trees get closer to you they are darker.  The ones that are receding I used a lighter wash.  Leave some leaf room by skipping the trunks in a few places.  You can see it here.  Don't get too detailed with the branches....you don't have to tell the viewer everything!  I continued the color of the tree trunk on the left through the shadow on the ground.  I also added in the bench on the right.  I used burnt sienna + ultramarine blue being careful to leave a little highlight on the top of the bench.

I started to work on the man scooping debris out of the fountain.  He already had a shadow wash of violet on him so I just mixed a skin color of raw sienna + quinacridone rose and put that on his face and hands.  I gave him a gray sweatshirt just by swirling colors on my palette together.  I put a little thalo blue on his shoulders as a bit of reflection from the sky which I actually noticed in the photo.  I continued to do his pants while his sweatshirt was still wet to blend them together a bit.  I used burnt sienna + ultramarine for his pants.  I added his hair with this color also, leaving a bit of highlight on the top of his head.  I then did the bucket with the same color only I added neutral tint to it to do the interior.  I did his scoop with ultramarine at the bottom portion because the upper part is metal.  After the man's clothing dried a bit, I added some shadows to his shirt with some violet dark that I had on my palette.

I started then to add the third value to the fountain using the same colors except with some raw sienna in the mix of ultramine + ultramarine turquoise.  By just looking at the photo and squinting I pulled out the darkest darks and painted those but exaggerating them a bit since the photo isn't very good.  Try not to get too detailed since your eye will tell it is a fountain and unless you are doing a photo realistic painting, don't put yourself through the torture!!  You are just giving the impression of a statue/fountain.

I also added some darks and light leaf areas to the trees.  I kept the dark leaves to the left and added lighter ones to the right.  For the dark I used hookers green + ultramarine.  I used sap + winsor yellow for the lighter areas.