I’m nearly done with the New Zealand painting that I’ve been working on for the last week or so. I’ll share it soon. In the meantime, I have one more lesson from the painting process.
Below is the reference photo I’m painting from. Take a look at the distant mountains.
Notice how the edge along the top of the mountains is hard and crisp. There are also a few hard edges between the areas of light and shadow, but they don’t appear as crisp due to the reduced contrast.
Does that mean I should use hard edges for the mountains in my painting? Not necessarily.
The mountains are not the focal point of my painting; they are part of the background. The focal point is the glaring highlights bouncing off the water. If I were to blindly copy the reference photo and use hard edges for the mountains, it may draw attention away from the focal point. It would also go against how we see in life: What we focus on, we see with clarity and detail, while everything else appears fuzzy.
A more effective approach may be to gently soften the edges in the painting to make them appear more distant and out of focus. Not much, as it is a clear, sunny day. Just a touch. This would probably lead to a more compelling painting with a stronger focal point, and that more accurately reflects how we see the world around us.
This is just one example of when blindly copying the reference photo can lead you astray. The reference photo is there as a guide, not something that you must copy pixel by pixel.
I’ll let you know how the painting turns out.
Happy painting!
Dan Scott
Draw Paint Academy
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Most of what I put out is completely free, but if you ever want to dive deeper, check out the following:
Sunrises and Sunsets Workshop: Learn how to paint striking sunrises and sunsets. This is also a great workshop on light and color.
Painting Academy: Get up to speed on the fundamentals.
Landscape Painting Masterclass: A deep dive into landscape painting and how to capture nature’s beauty in a painting.
