Paint Along With Nancy Kominsky; 122; Storm on the Adriatic

Hello, I'm Nancy Kamensky. Today we're going to paint storm over the Adriatic. I'm braille pines are very characteristic of Italy and we're going to try to paint them today in the wind. It's a lovely painting. Stay in your canus as usual like this with the umber wash wipe it off not too too hard please. I have quite a lot of fuzz on mine sounds like sandpaper some of mark light rough. There we are. Now we're going to put in our drawing so we start with the grids

as per usual in quarters first like this. Now extremes in nature are very exciting to paint and also give you a little leeway if it gets too stormy or whatever it doesn't matter. This way. Now the important thing to remember in a landscape or seascape or whatever is the horizon line. It shouldn't be in the center it should be less than center or above whichever is more dominant either the foreground or the sky. In this case we have a very dominant or exciting

sky so the foreground is not as large or as wide so the line here would be on the first line from the center like this. Incidentally this is an uneven shoreline for the sake of the painting we would anyway. Now we also have a bit of sea and I was very cagey and having a wee bit for you for the first time around in the wild sea. So we just have a suggestion of a sea here like this a wee bit like that. You start from the bottom you see all we start from the bottom and then start working your objects in on either the ground or the sea whichever the case may be like that fine. Now because you have a marvellous cloud formation and we don't want to get lost there I should say in this storm but there we are we're going to have a beautiful cloud bank

right up here like this. I put that in very lightly like that we have another one in the center of the canvas like this like that it's quite large on this side and rather fades out here like this now we will shade those but for just a moment we will just put the outline and like that fine now we have umbrella pines about three of them here the position of them is rather important they are blowing in the breeze and then we have a young one over here young tree let's start here let's have one tree like this start right about here like that please uh well maybe I will put the foliage in because you don't know what they look like and then as per usual we will paint them out let's have the other tree going this way because they're by the sea they tend to lose their shape

actually they're quite straight but along the sea they take on peculiar shapes because of the wind and that's pretty much anyplace even if there isn't a storm how this one going like this like that now the branches are blowing in the breeze like this they are actually a little gnarled they're not straight like that they're very interesting by the way and I love painting them the foliage is at the top in a cluster giving the appearance of an umbrella that's why they're called umbrella pines and near room there's a whole grove of them it's incidentally it was used in one of Felini's movies and it's quite interesting it's also a little eerie I think that's why he used it seems to like that kind of film to make that kind of film now remember they're blowing in the breeze oh this is such fun I love to paint extremes in nature

now we have a small one here like this and it's getting a bit of buffeting also like this not too heavy now I'm going to shade them in very lightly with my brush because I want to show you the characteristics of these trees but as you know we will paint them out that's not a very nice trunk so I'm going to paint that out like that okay now we've got the drawing in we're going to shade it in this case actually the light is coming again from the left if there is any light but there is some there's always some light coming from someplace so we're going to shade the clouds but again as I said it's not a question that the lights and darks are not extreme in this painting because of the conditions

now you may not be able to see the the modeling of the trees so I may have to leave that because I really would I'm interested in getting the clouds in which go behind the trees and since they are first they are much more important so we will do this much later I'm not going to do it right now actually I should have shaded those but I like to shade everything at one time there we are now the water is here like this it has little white caps I was very surprised in England when they call them white horses this is the water and again it's rather rough but no waves please you'll bless me for that when you go to paint it we're going to shade the foreground it's quite dark at the top like this this is a very interesting foreground by the way

I'm going to reaffirm our trees make them a little darker because we have lost them now you will paint the trucks out except in the very lower parts so you'll still know where they will go don't fasten you won't lose it they're a little different don't worry about it I think I will make a little darker like this and you know there we are like that there this is our drawing now we're finished drawing let's start with the painting this is the fun part we'll always start with the light tone at the horizon in this case we're going to put the light

tone here and between the clouds we'll do that first this is the extra light tone there again we have four tones don't worry about the tree we will paint that in later go through it you can see why we would if we had to worry about going between a foliage what it would look like it would certainly be very strange looking and difficult actually let's get the light tone on first like that of course please in a rather uneven fashion this way after all they are storm clouds we're going to use the medium tone on that now the fun part about doing something like this you may do it differently but as long as it looks

like a storm fine let's have a streak of medium tone going right through here like this up into the clouds and through the top like that I think that I'm going to add a little bit of orange or lavender excuse me a lavender right there at the base there's an interesting tone here like that fine let's start with the dark tone now we're going to build the clouds as we go along medium and dark and this is the stroke we use generally the clouds are round the cumulus clouds are especially that way

this is a bit of dark red in green to that because I want to create a little darker feeling it's not quite dark enough so I want to create a little darker feeling I'm adding a little green and a little purple to give a very brooding threatening feeling to the sky but don't lose a tonal values now let's go back with the light tone like this

now this is the most important thing in this painting and you must give it your full attention alternative fantastic skies and water now this may be too threatening I would like to get a little light tone in between there like that all right let's leave that for the moment now let's go to the water let's put a very dark tone along the waters edge because it's very deep out there so we have an extra dark tone remember we're using again an extension of the sky tone darkened down for the water so we do that first like this you see we've almost lost a trees

I know they're there and so will you like that then we have a lovely tone which we have used in the sky with a bit of yellow added to give it a rather greenish tone and we do this our usual lovely tone that we use for grasses and water and what have you get down into the grasses there like this you may be tempted to do some field painting which we've done in California but be very careful that you don't have a storm coming up and that can happen we were painting at the beach in Ventura and I um we're painting the scene a storm came up and my the students work at all full of sand and when I went back to one of my students

I said to friend what happened to your painting she said a woman came by I was busy with another student and she says oh there's one of those sand paintings and she bought it she was so historic and we all of course it was the highest thing you can imagine so that was a plus but it's not always so profitable I'll tell you I see we're getting a feeling right I think you have the feeling that I'm enjoying this a bit you're right I am now keep going we're going to put little white caps on that and I think we should do that right now here and there no waves please the little greenish tone that we've put in there tells us that the water is coming up and because they are lighter when the water turns up the light gets through it

and it gets quite a beautiful shade of green let's go to the foreground let's start with the dark tone of green like this and on that we're going to add purple like this oops don't forget to cover it all up there we are dark green the very darkest green like this this is almost in silhouette and this is what creates the fantastic contrast which gives a painting a great deal of excitement like this take purple and dark green and work them together like that we have a lovely shadow here there again work it over like this now this may give you qualms but don't just keep painting now like you know what you know

that you know what you're doing if you don't don't be afraid of failure and don't be afraid if you dot a Michelangelo the first time around fine now we're going to take some yellow ochre and work it in with the middle tone of green like this like that the stroke goes this way and pull it over like that bringing some of the dark tone across the foreground again we're going to add yellow ochre in there to give a feeling of grasses that are growing along the beach I think the beach is my favorite place I adore the beach so I might paint this lovingly and it's true a little yellow ochre also gives a painting a little

excitement and contrasting color which is very nice with the blues I'm going to add a very light tone in there I'm trying to give you as many colors as I can so that you have knowledge of being able to use other colors and not be afraid to use other colors don't be afraid to use any color and don't be afraid period as a marvelous saying that one of my students actually told me and he said the forest would indeed be a silent place of only the birds saying that's saying best so that goes for you don't apologize ever let's put a little red in there I think that gives it a little excitement

five there we are now we're going to do something else which we haven't done and I think for you beginning painters I'm I'm going to give you a little out now you can do the trees with a brush if you like and it may be a little easier so we're going to put the trees in with the brush this time that's when we pick up our color it must be like this you know it has to have pick up a large glob of color you put your brush in the paint and you pick up a glob like this do not ever rub your brush in the paint just pick up your paint on the tip of your brush because if you rub your brush in the paint you ruin the brush and you can't get a line but definitely you will ruin your brush it will spread it and you'll never get the paint out fine now let's go we have marvelous tree

here which of course I have completely lost but the I know where it is they're like that and you will too in your case you can keep the trees I'm a little careless because I'm experienced now let's have this like this clean your brush constantly then we have let's put all our trees in first like that and try to skip lines in other words don't don't try to paint it every line and how this one really bending in the wind like that and how now we start bending the branches this way give them knuckles now don't have just a little smooth round branches because they're not however we will use a knife in just a moment because there's a nut technique which is very

helpful in a case like this like that now this is what we have to do like this now these branches are all doing this clean your brush constantly because it picks up the paint from the background and nullifies the stroke and the color so you must constantly clean your your brush like you do your knife excuse me in a moment I'm going to show you how we are going to take the knife and scratch in the secondary fine branches leave that for just a moment let's do our little tree over here tiny little one here like this like that there

storms are very satisfying it's probably it's very revealing I don't know I shouldn't say that should I you know these armchair psychiatrists around you can't rub your ear without somebody putting a label on it's terrible time was when you could be peculiar and it was considered a asset you have to please be plain vanilla I'm afraid there now I'm going to put in before we do the foliage and I want to scratch in the grasses and the secondary branches of the tree I see how this works for you because they're too fine to draw with the paintbrush you see you have to do this pull it out like that

I'd like to have a couple of branches down here like this after all they aren't just like that so let's pull a few out like that let's get a very wind swept look like this there we are we will scratch in some grasses because you do have this at the sea it's wild it's a wild coast it's particularly beautiful along the Adriatic as a matter of fact the Italian sea coast is beautiful period although I've seen the big sir look as beautiful as a coppery as coppery the copper coastline now not too many of them and please don't have the blades of grass too fat

and they should also oops I should have had them blowing in the breeze also dear me but they're tall they're blowing excusey there we are my time in comes out when I paint an Italian sea by now we're going to put in our foliage we start with the dark tone and this is what makes it an umbrella pine there are actually tuts like this now there again we have a storm so they're blowing like this let's do the dark tones first like that like this and we're going to run a few scratches between that you see to again tell us something that it's blowing

see all the foliage is at the top in a rather peculiar round formation so you don't only learn painting here you learn all about the different trees of the world and the different pottery of the world there we are let's put a little medium tone and a little light tone this is not all dark as you may have guessed and of course it's on the left side because we assume that a little bit of light that isn't the painting is coming from the left also we don't want all one color a little purple here to give it a little shadow and then we're going to put a few strokes through that again to create the feeling that we're trying to that we have a storm because you're seeing the branches through that as they as they blow you're seeing the underside and all the branches

like that i would like to put a little darker tone at the base here it's very important as you know i always like the foreground to be darker and no less here i would like this a little darker here on this right side you have to be the wildest storm that ever had i'm sure i want to put a little more yellow in here i think it's a bit dead in front so i want to put a little more yellow right here like this has a marvelous light tone which i rather lost when i was playing with it okay right here i'm a little more red

well that's our painting for today and now for the signature goodbye for now you This program was made possible by a grant from commercial union assurance companies.

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