3e. Adding Light and more reflections.

Looking for Drama here!

Now it is time to start lighting the objects in front of the light.You can see here how I am going around and adding a light yellow highlight to all the boat rigging.

I am not being very particular on these. I like the roughness of how the light is broken up. There are many shadows on the rigging created by other parts of the rigging. So, the light comes and goes along the surfaces. As I was painting, I noticed a few areas where I have the wrong thing in front of another thing. I will go back and do all these corrections later.

I am also considering keeping the light attached to the rigging at the left of this photo as a secondary light. I had put it in originally and have been looking at it while I paint. The rust colored objects near it are lighted from both sides. 

I think I will keep it and give it a little more emphasis. This type of light will make the objects nearby show their real colors. I'll add those in later and see if I like the effect. Two light sources can be tricky. If it doesn't look right I will go back to just one source.

It was fun bringing the light between these boats. I had envisioned the light on the bow of this little boat to give it importance in the composition. Each boat must carry its own weight in this 3-boat design. They each have a part to play.

The right side of the composition is there to stop the light. The posts do just that. The viewer's attention goes there, and gets bounced back into the scene. The flat lighted deck gives a powerful spot for the eye to rest on the way back.

Notice the black ropes. They are at an angle that emphasizes the angle of the light source. The ropes, as well as the shadows on the posts parallel the metal pipe above.

Now, I want to start adding in the light on the third boat over. Its the only boat that gets lighted from the side in the scene, so it will provide a very important reflection below. I am adding the same color (yellowish white) on this as I used in the highlights elsewhere. I am careful not to paint it on too thickly because I want some of that blue color to come through to add texture.

Done with that. Now I'm off to work on the reflections below the boats.

I went ahead and put the golden reflection in below the cabin light I had just done. Reflected light is just a little darker than the object. I like to add in some orange and ochre color into the lighter color when doing this type of reflection.

So, this is what I have now.

I've been waiting for the time when I can add the reflections in from the boats rigging in back. Most of the rigging is too far back to show in the reflection. But, some are tall enough to make it. I start by just looking up and down between the water and background making sure I am in the right spot for each reflection of the rigging.

Using my flat brush, I make back and forth movements as I take the shape down. That also creates a variety of widths, which is a physical property of a reflection.

While I am doing these shapes, I am seeing other things that need some attention. So, while I'm thinking about them, I might grab some other colors on my palette and take care of them. Here, I noticed that the reflection of the fascia of the roof needed a darker color. It was too much like the color of the object and wasn't working.

I also darkened areas of the reflection that needed it. Where blacks had not dried dark enough, I added more pure black over them. Reflections need contrast and black is key. If I have overdone the black, i can always paint lighter back in.

Now, I start dragging paint horizontally across the reflections. I have to add these slight waves that connects with the lower waves, but in perspective. I will add paint back over some of these shapes so its not so messy in places.

Here are the reflected shapes before I started the transition.

Here it is after dragging paint strokes across the reflections. You can also see here that I started adding in highlights and other shapes to the waves.

A closeup of these waves show the different brush strokes. Between each of these dark wave shadows are smaller shapes and waves. This is where the reflections start to work. The lightest reflections are what make the water look wet.

You can see how the reflections from the rigging seem to jump around the wave action.

Now I will have to come back to those black riggings and add the yellow highlights.

I'm not that far away from finishing this one. I'll add more light in the riggings, particularly the secondary light, add the golden reflections to the rigging reflections and I think I might put some reflection of the metal building in that little space on the right side. Then, I will go over the riggings, adding in some details and fixing things that are wrong.  

I am reaching a point where I can stand back and give some long looks at this painting to see what stands out as needed some attention. Stay tuned...

STORY: Music, Surfing and Bikinis.

We heard that the Chupacabras were playing at The Backyard at Playa Hermosa on Saturday night.

Its "Semana Santa" in Costa Rica –– when half of the Central Valley's population spend a few vacation days on the beach. Easter! 

We are only about a ten minute drive to The Backyard from our beach house in Esterillos Este.

Deb and Rob came down for the weekend to hear the band. Rob has known Chris, the band's lead guitar player, for a few years and tries to get down to hear them play as much as possible. We invited our friend, Eddie, to join us.

Rob said he would drive, so we all piled in his Toyota and off we went.

The Backyard is right on the Costanera Hwy 34 in Playa Hermosa and traffic was heavy. Parking looked impossible until a car pulled out of a spot right across from the entrance to the bar.

So, fighting traffic and the red taxi cabs running about, we made it over to the entrance. The Backyard is a bar, restaurant and hotel and the back of it looks right out over one of the best surfing beaches in Costa Rica, Playa Hermosa de Puntarenas.

We walked on past a large bar, then down a few wooden steps to the back of The Backyard. It was about 4:00pm and the Surfing Contest was still going on. I hear they have them often at this location. There was a pretty good crowd hoot'n and holler'n as the surfers did their thing. 

To be honest, I haven't been to too many surfing contests. These guys are good! All short  boards and a lot of energy. 

Gilbert Brown, who owns a restaurant just down the beach at Jaco, is the local surfing champ. Wasn't able to get a photo of him, but he made some great moves.

The place was pretty full. I was looking out at the crowd and my group called me over. We wanted a table so we could see outside and be close enough to watch the band when they played later. 

They had found a perfect one! It had a reserve sign on it, but no matter. Hey, we're with the band.........well, sorta. We know one guy...

Chris.

I thought this was a pretty cool setup. So tropical and laid back.

The sun was getting low in the sky and the temperature was perfect. Cool breeze off the Pacific and pretty good waves. Last year this beach hosted an international surfing contest with a crowd of about 22 thousand people from all over the world. I'm good with the size crowd we had this day. 

So, right after the surfing contest, the beach changed its tempo. All attention turned away from the water and to the makeshift stage....

Its a Bikini Contest!

What a surprise....okay, it wasn't exactly a surprise. We heard there was going to be one, but we didn't know what time it was or anything. We came to hear the band. I wouldn't think of going there with a "womanizing" plan to see this contest...

But, as long as we were already there, I got out of my chair and walked on down the steps to get a better view..... for my story....

Here's the lineup. I think I saw plenty of beauties in bikinis looking on that probably could have won, but I guess it takes a certain personality to strut your stuff in front of a crowd of a couple of hundred people.

The sun was getting low, so my camera slowed down its shutter and blurred many of the images. But, you will get the idea from the following:

Actually, I kinda like the blurred images. Sure would be hard to paint. Hmmm...

This girl didn't get the applause she thought she deserved, so she started making gestures to get more. I didn't think begging for applause was a very good strategy. But, I'm not very experienced in these matters. 

Rob came down and joined me for the event. Although my role was only as a reporter...he may have actually been enjoying this womanizing! I'm just saying....

The crowd seemed to like it too. Hey, there's a surfer back there! Oh, no one cares...

If there is a contest, I think the bikinis would win out over the surfing.

They all had the right parts, even with different body shapes. 

I did noticed that the most applause was not for who had the best body (in my objective opinion), but instead, who acted the sexiest and had the best moves. 

I couldn't tell who was actually doing the judging. After all, the production is not exactly "Dancing with the Stars." But, I wasn't exactly sure who was doing the judging in the surfing contest either. I'll get better at this, I promise. Next time there is a bikini contest, I will be there to make a follow up report.

As the contest progressed, I couldn't help but wonder just who these girls were. Were they Gringas on Easter vacation in Costa Rica and just happened to be here at the right time?

Or, like the surfers in the competition, were they actually locals who competed here whenever there was a bikini contest? It can be hard to tell a local from a vacationer sometimes. Tica's have several influences in their backgrounds, some being light skinned Spanish and some from dark skinned Caribbean islands. Note to self: Need follow up interviews next time. Get closer to your subjects. Do they speak English? Who cares.... they are not in this contest for their brains anyway.

Well, believe it or not, I got bored and went back up to our table. Not sure which one of these girls actually won, but there was a lot of applause going on for some time.

Deb and Rob were ready for the band to start.

Linda and Eddie were having fun.

The Chef.....they have a Chef?.....came out.
Or, maybe its just the guy that helps with the car parking who put on the funny hat. I don't know.

Finally, the Chupacabras started to play at about 6:00 p.m. It seems that they were waiting for the Bikini Contest to end. Great timing. 

The band was great, even though they could have used a sound engineer because I couldn't here the vocals very well. Or maybe it was just that I can't hear good anymore. How can you tell whether you are hearing something the same as someone else? If a tree falls in the forest..... never mind.

So, over the course of about three hours, we drank a few beers, ate some salad and pizza, watched a surfing contest, a bikini contest and listened to some good live music and made it home safely back to our beach house in Playa Esterillos. 

I think I could get used to this...

3d. Turning the Light back on.

Lights off!

Last time I said I would add some black shapes to the water in the foreground before adding light. Now that is done and I will proceed to adding the light.

My strategy is to start in the very back and work forward. I know I have to put in a light source. I  am looking for a contrast between the cool blues and violets of shade and shadow, against the warm yellow light created by an artificial light source.

For my yellowish light, I am building my palette with these colors. I have wiped the palette clean. The blues you see are from dried paint with a slight film leftover.

I decided that I would place a strong light on top of the metal building behind the boats. The building is the Casterline's Fish House in Fulton, Texas. The actual building is yellow, so I will emphasize the yellow under the light.

From this photo you can see that I am starting on the left side of the building with a strong yellow light. I'm using the paint a little loosely. I want to keep some of the underpainting coming through the yellow for texture.

I just keep moving on across the building with the yellow light. I want the scene to be totally divided between the building, the lighted area behind the boats, and the still moonlit water in the foreground. I already have a strong composition with the boats coming out at you. Now its a matter of adding "drama" with the lighting.

You can see a small black square at the roofline of the building. I plan on making that my lights source. First, I just want to get this yellow color in place. I am loosely going around the black shapes from the boats at this point. I will go back over these black shapes later and add the light to them.

Now I have come to a tricky part –– fading the light away from the light source. To do so I found some wet areas on my palette that still had some blue.

So, by dragging some of my yellowish paint into this blue area I started picking up some bluish green color. I started out with just a little



You can see here how I kept adding more and more blue as I painted towards the right. I think this looks about right at this point. I had to be careful not to let it get too green (ie: yellow and blue make green). This would be a warm to cool transition. Not for sissies!

Now, I have added in my light source by painting white over that black square on top of the building......some sort of industrial looking light.

I started adding white to the yellow close to the light and some light on the edges of the metal seams. I also went back in and reduced the thickness of the black lines. I thought they were too exaggerated the way I had them. This way, the light seems stronger.

And here is how it looks at the end of this session. I'm starting to visualize how the light will come forward. I have a one-point perspective light source. In other words, I can draw a straight line from the light to the different parts of the boats that will cast light and shadows from the light. That's where I will begin next time.

Looking for DRAMA here!