Drybrushing The Moon

3693 Now, as I said before, Lighthouse In Moonlight is essentially finished, but for a few areas of drybrushing. And, in the past, being the impatient artist that I am, I basically blew it off most of the time. This time, with such wide areas of drybrushing to do and the potential to improve the painting, I decided to really apply myself and try.

Hence the two graphics.

The first is the painting before, the second, after. And there is something to be seen and learnt here.

Before Drybrushing

After Drybrushing

Doing PBNs you learn to process the posterized look of them, it's just part of the visual language of the thing, so you learn, in your mind, to interpret. PaintWorks kits give you the opportunity to kick it up to the next level by encouraging these little painterly techniques. Its directions for drybrushing are: load the brush with the lighter color, use a paper towel to wipe off the most of it then, with a realtively dry brush with enough color to leave on the painting, dab into the darker color. The resulting thin, translucent layer of paint seems to blend in from the lighter color to the darker color, disappearing into the darker and setting up the visual blending. My original attempts were unsatisfactory.

Then, The Brown Eyed Girl, who had drybrushed with aplomb in painting her RPG miniatures, suggested I pinched the belly of the bristles rather than wipe. And I tried this. It helped a great deal, if only to give me the courage to go in again and be ready to make a mistake or two. In places I laid it down a little too thickly and was able to blend it out before it dried too hard.

The results are fairly satisfying if not wholly accomplished. I don't doubt I have a ways to go, but practice will bend toward perfection, if not ever actually getting there; the hard, posterized color edges around the Moon and on the lighthouse tower have been softened and the soft layer of light color visually influences the darker color in a kind of atmospheric way. The first image is before I tried; the second, after I decided I was through.

I'm pronouncing this effort a qualified success, and am much more likely not to blow this step off in future works.