Painting Lesson With Uncle Ben Part 2

Painting more details. Slowly spreading out into the rest of the painting.


Still rendering. I add some dabs of other colours into some areas like those greens in the red wall. This is just something I do sometimes to add a bit of interest in an otherwise quite boring paint job for me :P I like the randomness you can get from traditional painting so this is kinda inspired by them.


Another Photoshop trick here. This is something I started to use only quite recently. I make a layer that darkens the whole painting and then I erase parts of that layer to reveal the original painting beneath. This way I can darken the shadows without repainting it by erasing where the light is. I also do this with the highlights too. You can make another one of this layer and use it to lighten the whole piece and erase where the darks are. Of course, you mustnt depend on this to paint the shadows for you. Its just something to boost the contrast when it is needed. Its a good way to vary your values in a painting. So how do we get this layer? Its similar to the hue and saturation thing that makes the painting a grayscale. Go to Layer > Add New Adjustment Layer > Levels. You should have a window with three triangles. Dragging the black triangle alters the dark values, the gray alters midtones and the white alters the lights. So if you are making a layer to adjust the darks, pull the black triangle around (and maybe the gray one too) till you get the right darkness for the shadows. And then erase baby!