The Outside Shore
Demonstration - Around The Bend
Developing Shapes
With my painting already starting to resemble the scene it is supposed to
represent, I began to consider how far to take it. This is a very personal
matter. Some artists go for a photographic likeness, and others would probably
have been happy stopping right here. I like a bit more development, but as you
might imagine from my description of my working methods, I am not overly
concerned with detail.
 Working more
carefully now, I continued to adjust my shapes and their colors and textures,
dealing with whatever area seemed to need development. One of the main areas I
worked on at this stage was the river. Painting water is difficult for many
artists, because there are often no obvious well-defined shapes within it.
However, if you look closely enough, you will see patterns in how the colors and
values are arranged. Even though these patterns may not correspond to anything
as obvious as, for example, the way a tree can be broken down into a trunk,
branches, and foliage, it remains the case that if you get patterns within a
given body of water down, you will successfully convey the impression of that
body of water.
In this case, the water was probably no less developed than any part of the
painting, but because there are no obvious signposts for the viewer to
recognize, I had to start developing it further to make it read correctly. Water
has texture, at least when considered as a set of shapes. I tried to capture the
idea that there were smooth areas of water and also more rippled areas. I also
introduced some more prominent green in the water, caused by reflections of the
foliage, and worked on getting the shapes of the light areas within the water
more accurately.
Then I decided to work on the pile of rocks in the water just off the far
side of the foreground hillside. At this distance, it would have been completely
inappropriate to start painting individual little rocks, but I tried to capture
something of the texture, and the fact that my sketch was showing the closer
side of the pile to be in shadow and the far side in light. I also started to
clarify where the water met the shoreline, which can be a big factor in making
water look realistic. I did this along the entire bank of the river. Still, I
was not interested in photographic accuracy - just making the water read as well
as the rest of the painting.
In working on the water, I ended up breaking the river shapes down into
enough smaller shapes that I felt the need to introduce a similar level of
development elsewhere. I redrew some of the background tree trunks and branches,
and added some of the color I had used for the highlights in the water to other
parts of the painting for unity.
After twenty-five minutes or so of this stage, the painting had reached the
point where I needed to just sit back and look at it for some time before even
thinking about placing the next stroke.
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