Working with Light

Our calendar this year has one of Thomas Kinkade's paintings as the picture for each month, and at the start of each month as we flip to the next page, I love to spend a few minutes studying the new painting. I really enjoy seeing the way he used light in his paintings, such as the warm glow coming out of windows or the way the light reflects off of the wet streets.

This month it gave me the idea to try painting something with a specific focus on light. I looked through some photos I had and found a couple of this neat canyon about 45 minutes away from our city that we love to hike or picnic at. One photo showed the river running through the canyon, and another showed the sun peeking through some tree branches. Aha! I thought. The sun peeking through... that sounds like some good light to work with. So I sketched this out onto paper, combining the two photos so that the river runs down the center and the tree that the sun shows through comes in from the left side.

These are the photos I combined for a reference.

I sketched out the parts from the first picture first, and then I added the tree on top.

And now came the part where I got to work with the light. I wanted to exaggerate the sunlight and make the whole canyon feel very warm, using oranges, yellows, and warm browns. I decided to set it at sunset, so the sky would be orange and yellow. I used pink and purple for the shadows on the clouds.

I painted in the distant trees with a thin layer of green and blue to make it look faded, and I used a little bit of cream paint for the pathway through the trees.

Now onto the cliff. I was worried at first that it would look too brown and boring, but between the different shades of brown and the orange and yellow highlights, it looked interesting enough. I used patches of dark brown for the shadowed areas on the cliff, and orange highlights towards the edges where the sun would be shining on. For the sand and dirt along the bottom of the cliff, I used cream, dark brown, and an orange-brown.

The green bushes and trees dotting the edge of the cliff also helped add variety. I started with a layer of light green and then added a dark green along the bottom edges in the shadows.

With the cliffs done, I started on the water. In the photograph, the water appears to be a mix of blue and green. Since I wanted that warm light throughout, though, I wanted orange and yellow reflections in the water. I began with a dark green in the darker areas of the water, leaving white areas for reflections.

Then I painted a thin layer of brown on the edges of the ground where the water was very shallow, and I also added a tiny bit of light blue to some areas of the water. After that I began the highlights by adding some strokes of yellow.

I continued to develop the highlights by adding orange to the water. I then painted the rocks in the middle of the water, using a dark brown for the shadowed parts and an orange-brown for the highlights at the top.

I did the same thing with the rocks at the bottom right corner, shading with the dark brown first and then adding the lighter, warmer brown.

Next I began work on the sand at the left-center. I painted a layer of cream as the base and then went over it with spots of dark brown.

After that, I painted in the tree with strokes of dark brown following the direction of the bark. For the sun shining through, I left the center white and painted the rim with yellow and orange. To finish, I added spots of dark and light green, as well as a tiny bit of yellow, for the vines growing on the tree trunk.

Here is my finished painting on working with light. I'm pleased with how it turned out and want to try some more projects with a focus on light!

Sunset in the Canyon