Hey guys thanks for coming to check out
this new video firstly I just wanted to
say a big thank you for all the
beautiful compliments I've been getting
on the last two videos I did the Jamaica
bullet journal setups really really
appreciate your feedback from the old
subscribers and my new subscribers thank
you so much for supporting me it means a
real lot and anyway moving on to what
today's video is I'm still really
feeling the Jamaica vibes and just
loving it and I'm feeling very Jamaican!
So I kind of wanted to do more so I've
bought a sketchbook that actually allows
me to use wet media in it I wanted to
practice some more acrylics because I
haven't used them in a while
so I'm going to be painting a beautiful
scene from Jamaica that I wasn't able to
put into my bullet journal so I'm gonna
guide you through it on what I do and I
hope you guys enjoy it
mm-hmm so as I said I got this brand new
sketchbook and I was very excited to get
it I haven't used a sketchbook regularly
for many years I'm gonna say since I was
at Uni so that's probably going on 13
years but yeah so I wanted to get
started and keep a record of all the
drawings that I do I do tend to do
drawings and paintings on pieces of
paper or canvases and they're either
stored somewhere in my house or just
thrown away if I wasn't completely happy
with them so I wanted to get
something that I can keep the record and
document everything that I draw even
small miniature paintings in so I came
across this one This is the Moleskine Art
series the watercolor sketchbook and the
pages are 200 GSM so they are gonna
withhold a lot of water use and if I'm
wanting to practice my watercolors and
my acrylics and gouache I'd like to try
that out as well this is going to
hopefully be ideal so anyway moving on
to what I am actually drawing today I am
still in this Jamaica phase and really
loving exploring Jamaica and it's
beautiful landscapes and things that
make me think of Jamaica the thought of
riding a horse through the beautiful
crystal clear water at sunset is
incredible to me and I thought it would
be nice to capture that in a painting so
how I created this particular
composition I found a photo reference
of a girl riding a horse and it was in
silhouette form and then I compiled that
with a different shot that I found of a
sunset with awesome palm trees on the
right hand side and some bungalows with
thatched roofs it really said Jamaica to
me I start with a simple grid that's
usually just a four quadrant across the
image and then I'll create that same
template on my photoshop image
so I drew a line straight down the
middle vertically and horizontally did
the same on my page so now that I know
I've got the exact area to work with and
it helps with the proportions and I'm
still just using my eye
within each portion it's just it's just
a nice little guide to help you get
things right first time then once I map
in my horizon line I've got a good basis
to start with and I can start sketching
in where the areas are the sea, the land
and the sky and then I can get painting
immediately what I noticed about this
paper is it's so different from a canvas
it behaves really differently I had to
use a lot of paint and a lot of water to
get it to spread and to go into the
teeth of the paper so the texture of the
paper is kind of rough and you've got a
lot of your indents in it that I wanted
to try and fill with paint and every
time I put some on it would kind of soak
it up and absorb it and so I'd have to put
another layer so I do a lot of layers on
this page to get the right depth of
color and to not see the paper come
through the paints I didn't want them
too transparent so yeah I'm just
starting in the sky with the blues and
trying to get as much of an even gradient
that I can starting from that sort of
richer blue on the right-hand side
and adding white to get lighter as we go
to the left now I'm adding in some
clouds and it was very
experimental I'd say to try and get the
right colors for these clouds normally
you would think white clouds but because
of the sunset they've got intense
shadows on them so they're almost like a
grayish purple color so I tried to mix
the best look just based on adding what
I think needed to go in there to get the
right color and then it was just about
building different layers on top of each
other to get those highlights and little
shadows here and there and
reflections from the yellowness of the
Sun so it did take a lot to get that
kind of look and they're definitely not
perfect but it was yeah it's fun to
explore actually I don't do a lot of
cloud work in general so that was a bit
new for me so now I'm adding in a very
warm deep yellow to the base of the sky
and it was really lucky that these
clouds were positioned the way they were
because it meant I didn't have to try
and create a smooth gradient between
this rich yellow of the Sun into the
depth of the blue sky because that would
be really really tricky because
obviously the two blended together and
make green in nature that is not
happening so it would have looked very
odd if I had to do that so these clouds
were the perfect thing to block out the
yellow from that blue area and I could
just burn my clouds over the top I've
added a lot more of the purple clouds
throughout and also in the yellow areas
added more of a pinky tone to it or an
orangey tone to it and to make it look
like that Sun Shine is reflecting on
them and changing the color of those
clouds
and now to place in the very bright Sun
now this is obviously even even brighter
in in the photo it's hard to get that
luminance in the painting so I've just
gone for pure white and I'm just trying
to get it as bright as possible in that
point there and softly blend it out into
the yellow here I'm adding highlights
across the clouds where that Sun would
be hitting the edges and giving that
that little glow around them and I think
that's where it starts to take a bit of
shape before it was kind of looking a
little bit messy but now it's sort of
going oh it's clouds if anyone is
interested on how long I took in this
section this guy took me about an hour
so we're an hour into my first session
for this part I'm just using some black
mixed in with some red because this
first part has got a lot of the Sun
shines reflections on it making it a
little bit more of a red tone and then
as we progress out to the right I'm just
sort of increasing the blue shades a
little bit and it's all in silhouette
form anyway so at the moment it's all
pretty flat and then I'm gonna build it
up with a bit of highlights later on
Here I am using the side of the
paintbrush to give me long sweeping
strokes for all the tree trunks and I'm
trying to make it look as if the palm
trees are all blowing one way so little
tiny scratches on the on the flat side
of the brush gives you that wispiness
for those palm leaves and they're all
going to the right-hand side
and I think that gives it that feel that
you're on a tropical island
so I've added in a few lighter tones
throughout that silhouette background
which just gives us an idea that there's
some thatched roofs there and now I'm
adding in the sand Bank in front of that
like when you're looking at these well
when I'm looking at these paintings you
don't really see the colors as
individual colors yet until you start to
paint and yet it was pretty bizarre some
of these colors that I decided on making
to get that match to the photo is yeah
really bizarre so this is like a purpley
grayish sort of shade that I recognized
in the beach
you would never think to do that until you're
actually painting and the way I choose
colors I don't know if anyone else does
this but I sort of close one eye and
look at my reference and just try and
focus in on that color and see whether
it's warm or cool and try and try and
see which shades you should add to get
to the right tone so yeah I'll initially
see you know a gray or an off gray and
then I'll be like should I add red to
make it more of like a warm gray or do I
need to add like a purple or a blue to
make it a little bit cooler so I don't
know why the one eye helps me do that I
think it's maybe because it's you know
taking away that perspective from your
eyes and you just sort of seeing flat
shapes and colors so yeah let me know if
I'm not alone in doing that but that is
how I'm choosing every one of these
colors in this painting how I'm trying
to match to that reference photo that
I've got
now that I've got the majority of the
background setting in I've decided to
sketch in the shape or the silhouette of
my horse and person so I've still got
that little reference line through the
center because I didn't want to paint over
that I wouldn't know where the center
line is and so I can see that the kind
of like the base of the horse's nose
goes right through that center line so
that's how I adjust and I'm just using
my eye to scale how big the horse and
the lady should be and then once I've
sketched that in then I can go back in
with the paint and start working that
into the painting.
now this water was very challenging water is one of the hardest things I think to paint trying
to capture every ripple and wave is yeah
tricky and sometimes very tedious but I
enjoyed doing this and it's always nice
to achieve the final result anyway but
yeah so to do this I just did multiple
colors multiple blues and just layered
them up tried to add white in to get
some highlights and some yellow bits for
where the Sun was hitting and just
tried to do my best to work straight from
the reference wherever there was a dark
section I'd put a dark section in my
painting and the same with the lights
and just try and get as much of a
likeness as I could
about here is where I started to feel
disheartened I felt that the water was
not going the way I wanted it to and
this section here that I'm painting felt
so wrong to me I was like what is this
blue doing on the shore but my my brain
was telling me that's the color that is
in the reference so just go for it and
try it and see what happens so yeah it
just felt really odd to be doing more
blue here this is actually the shiny
part that you see reflecting where the
waves have lapped away from the shore
and so it definitely felt bizarre doing
this blue here but once I add in all the
shines and the highlights from the Sun
it does start to look more shiny rather
than more of the ocean so I'm glad I
stuck with it
and
yeah kept going at it in hopes that I
could fix this problem that I was making
so now while that blue ocean was drying
I thought I'd paint in the
silhouette of the horse and the lady and
get that put in and try and see if I can
save that water behind it now I'm
building up those layers on that shiny
wet sand area and I'm starting to
breathe again because I think it's gonna
work out as soon as those highlights
went in and some of that yellow was
reflected in there it felt like it
became part of the scene it was looking
really you know segmented and even the
darkness of that silhouette it just
wasn't working so so glad when this
started to pull through and it started
coming together
I'm now at about two and a half to Two
hours and forty-five minutes into this
painting and you can see it coming
together and I'm so happy about the
shines on that sand I was yea really
fearful that that wasn't gonna work out
and it luckily is looking much better
the highlights and the shadows did
wonders for it so now I'm just adding as
much highlights and dark spots through
those waves as I can to get it to
separate from that wet sand and to also
get it to look like water because right
now it was still looking way too flat so
I was trying to give it some shape by
yeah defining some shadows and
highlights and it was really just a
matter of layering and just working at
it for another hour or so until I was
happy with the depth and that I was
getting now that I'm adding some of this
yellow and these strong highlights
behind the horse that's starting to make
that appear part of the picture itself
it was looking a little bit flat and it
needed more contrast between that and
the water behind it so by having this
lightness there makes it pop out a
little bit more and yet made a world of
difference to just add that little glow
around the body and the horse's body as
well and now the final touches around
that horse of where the waters splashing
beneath and the Sun is hitting it
causing it to be sort of lighter in
shade a little bit brighter and what
that is
I think where it's pulled it all
together it's made them seem like
they're in the same setting so happy
with how that had turned out so I
finished this piece off by writing the
word Jamaica down in that bottom right
corner I'm just using the Calligraphy
brush pen to create the shadow and
map out where I'm going to write it and
then go over the top of it with the
white gel pen to make it pop from the
page and I'm happy with how this turned
out and it kind of finalizes the piece I
think
and now it's time for the fun part of
removing the washi tape from the edges
by having this washi tape here it gives
you a really clean line to work with and
you don't get any mess on your pages so
let me know in the comments down below
if you enjoyed this kind of video
something a bit more relaxed and just
seeing me paint or draw in the
sketchbook I'm considering making this a
series because I always feel that
there's more to show of these
countries and I just thought if I did a
spread based on the countries you get
all that inspiration out and they won't
always be finished paintings like this
one they might be a little bit more just
relaxed little sketches or something let
me know if that's something that you're
interested in watching and if you like
this video please like it and so that I
know that you're enjoying it and I will
see you again in my next week's video
bye X
