Sandy Breckenridge

Painting Foregrounds: Creating a Foundation

April 5, 2021 By Sandy Breckenridge 2 Comments

“The art of being wise is the art of knowing what to overlook.” —William James

Mama bear and cub at the water’s edge. — Mama and Cub at the Bay

The Perfect Palette series has taught us how color choice, value, and intensity—combined with a thoughtful deliverance of the creator’s intent—are essential for building a scene. It’s a satisfying outcome when a viewer is captivated by an artist’s rendering.

The quote by William James articulates how an artist interprets a scene from their chosen reality, keeping the gems and asking the viewer to step into the image to discover its essence.

A well-executed image moves the audience’s eye through the image to discover various treats. Hopefully, they deeply engage and find it hard to break away, like they’re in a captivating spell!

If you’d like to explore purchasing a poster of the above print, please click > Mama Bear and Cub Poster

Building the Foreground

The first two layers when creating the foreground foundation — The first two layers of the foreground foundation before adding the detail.

Painting foreground rocks, trees and their root mounds, grasslands, twigs, gravel, flowers, weeds, all start with a foundation.

Steps for painting the foreground foundation before adding the final detail:

When laying out a foreground plan, move the brush inward with every stroke to represent a thoughtful execution. This is one way to define and record the experience you wish to give the viewer.
Always note the light source so you can begin to define the shadows and the highlights.
Change color and hue about every four brush strokes.
Use a balance of red, yellow, blue based hues using simple abstract shapes.
The percentage values are in the lower range in the foundation layer while still consisting of a combination of 2 bright and 1 dull color.
A perfect shadow tone combines Ultramarine Blue and Raw Sienna, and uses a little black and Alizarin Crimson for the holes in the soil, rocks, trees, etc.

Now it’s time to add the rest of the foreground detail:

Adding the foreground detail — After the first two layers now add the next layer of the foreground detail.

Three Steps When Painting Rocks

How to Paint Rocks — The three steps to painting rocks.

After painting the foreground base foundation, if the image contains elements like rocks, add another light wash to further build the rock’s next layer of detail.

Note the warm side of the rock and the cool side. The intensity is heavier in the middle value of the rock.

Warm area: the middle value of grey plus a little Yellow Ochre
Cool area: the middle value of grey plus a little Ultramarine Blue
Core: and a little black to your mix

Add another wash using a dry mix over your current rock’s foundation.

Now, begin to build additional detail using whatever technique supports creating greater dimension. Some favorites are dry brushing, a toothbrush, dry brush or tool to flick paint, course airbrushing, or even squirts of spray paint.

Painting a Seamless Transition

The painting is complete when all three fields, foreground, middle ground, and background seamlessly flow together.

The following images illustrate how foreground, middle ground, and background combine to complete the painting and go on to capture the viewer’s eye. Hopefully, they feel enticed to step into the painting to explore this new reality.

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The eye might first notice the focal point or it may be intrigued by the small rusty orange flowers in the foreground and move on to see bears. Or the eye may first see the bears, move to the sky, the sunrise, back to the foreground while noticing the detail in the grasslands, and then back to the bears.

- To where do your eyes naturally move?
- Did you notice where your attention first landed in the scene?
- Did you notice if your eyes moved to other elements in the painting?
- Did your eyes interpret the light source?
- Did you find the scene comforting?
- Was your imagination engaged?
- Did you feel your eyes wanted to return for a second view?

When an artist gets their audience to consciously and unconsciously respond to this list of questions in a positive way, it’s time to celebrate. You’re on your way to becoming a master artist. Congratulations!

Please feel free to share this series with other artists or anyone who may want to deepen their knowledge and understanding of color, theory, and atmospheric perspective.

Our next art series will describe all the Basic Graphic Design Elements. What a fun series to learn how design can be interpreted mathematically and be combined into recognizable marks and shapes!

Table of Contents for the Perfect Palette Series

Stepping Into the Foreground

March 15, 2021 By Sandy Breckenridge 2 Comments

Wheat stalks in the foreground — A picture with a grassy foreground of a farm and Mt. Baker’s snowy cap in the background. I took this picture in Mt. Vernon in Washington state.

“Great things are done by a series of small things brought together.” Vincent Van Gogh

The foreground of a painting acts as an invitation to allow the eye to move comfortably to the focal point.

In a way, it is a promise that the viewer will enjoy the journey. An inviting foreground is like an eye-catching welcome mat against a front door. It makes one eager to ring the bell, gain entry, and explore the internal spaces.

If the foreground is out of balance or lacks harmony with the other planes in the image it can be compared to a home lacking curb appeal. If there is too much clutter upfront the viewer can get lost in the distractions and lose interest before discovering your intended feature of the painting.

Two Brights and One Dull

Painting palette, mixing foreground colors — 2 Bright Colors + 1 Dull Color mixing examples for creating foreground colors.

When choosing the color hues for this first visual field two bright colors and one dull color are blended, adding a little white or black (if needed) to match your reference scrap. This process ensures the foreground has the necessary intensity.

The foreground color choices are richer in value and intensity than the middle ground or background. The percentage of detail increases, too. Additional warmth can act as an invitation. Another option is even larger brushstrokes to suggest to the viewer’s eye the foreground plane is closer.

Too much detail in the foreground can also distract the eye from establishing an enticing relationship with the focal point.

Increasing Color Values in the Foreground

We previously learned the color’s scale percentages in the background are best between 20 and 35. In the middle ground, the range is between 40 and 55. In the foreground, we step up the percentages between 45 to 70 percent.

Some compositions may defer from the suggested values. They could be as much as 100 or as little as 10 percent which depends on the reference scrap.

Layering the Foreground

The painting’s foreground usually includes natural elements like tree mounds and roots, rocks and boulders, textured soil, varied grass mounds, water, natural vegetation like weeds, grasses, and flowers. Sometimes a man-made element like a swing, bench, or bicycle is added for interest as long as it does not take away from the focal point.

In our next post in this series, you will learn how to lay down a base foreground foundation to give the impression of texture, color harmony, shadow, and atmospheric depth. After this step, additional layers of detail bring the foreground to life.

Be sure and check back soon for our next tutorial lesson.

Table of Contents for the Perfect Palette Series

A Squirrel with Pearls

March 9, 2021 By Sandy Breckenridge 2 Comments

“Sometimes big trees grow out of acorns. I think I heard that from a squirrel.” —Jerry Coleman

My husband made an observation during our many years together. I think it started watching me enjoy the movie “Chicken Run” for the third time. I kindly dismissed him to go and work on one of his varied projects, while he chuckled and graciously accepted.

His observation: Sandy loves movies with talking animals!

Fluke, is a movie about a man who died and came back as his family’s new dog. Babe is about a sweet little pig who narrowly escapes becoming Christmas dinner. And the claymation movie, Chicken Run is about the inhabitants of a chicken farm wanting to escape their evil owners. All three are favorites. There are numerous other movies with talking animals on my favorite movie list.

Can’t Forget Rocky the Squirrel

Did you grow up enjoying cartoons? I sure did.

Who could forget Bullwinkle J. Moose and Rocky the Flying Squirrel? Maybe this is when my love of watching films with talking animals started.

I don’t remember a time where the humanification of animals combined with storytelling didn’t pique my attention. The same holds true as an artist. I enjoy illustrating animals and including sweet quotes, sayings, and heartfelt messages.

Little Girls with Vision

Squirrel Dreams is the name of a recent digital painting I was working on the day of Ruth Bader Gingsburg’s passing. It’s not easy to bridge from talking animals to the seriousness of the lifelong accomplishments and inspiration of RGB. But I had to try.

Ruth was a short-statured woman with enormous power who was an effective advocate for gender equality, women’s rights, and many other issues. She would wear a symbolic collar made of pearls on the days she’d write a dissenting opinion.

She was often quoted. The messages she imparted were deep, thought-provoking pearls of wisdom.

So, on the day of RGB’s passing, my Squirrel Dreams piece was transformed. She became a dainty, kind, pearl-wearing squirrel with tremendous power. She chose to serve as an example for little girls to dream, and dream big. Leave it to a squirrel to remind us that even a tiny acorn can carry much more than its weight, and take us to places we can only imagine.

If you know someone who might enjoy the message in the painting, click > Squirrel Dreams Merchandise & Posters

Driving Through Oso to RockPort, WA

March 3, 2021 By Sandy Breckenridge 3 Comments

“Sometimes it’s the journey that teaches you a lot about your destination” – Drake

At the end of the summer of 2017, Kirk and I took a car trip to the Kootenay region in British Columbia, Canada. We had several overnight stops planned on the way. You will learn about all our destination in future posts.

After we left our home on a late September morning, our first stop was a couple of hours away in Oso, WA. We wanted to pay respects to those who lost their lives in the historic mudslide of 2014.

For more information, click > Oso Mudslide

In March of 2014, the little town of Oso experienced record rainfall, two hundred percent of the average rainfall for that time of year. The mudslide smothered forty-nine homes and structures. The devastating event ended the lives of forty-three people.

To understand the devastation to the small community, the tsunami of mud swept over one of the largest unincorporated neighborhoods located on the south side of the North Fork of the Stillaguamish River. The entire town’s population in 2010 was only one hundred sixty people.

Highway 530 runs through the area and east over the North Cascade Highway and the destroyed highway running through Oso had to be completely rebuilt. GeoEngineers had to reengineer this destroyed section of the highway and reconnect surrounding communities following the Oso landslide.

We spent quite a bit of time at the memorial. Small tokens and personal mementos can be viewed by the gate blocking the area so no one can trespass. A tree was planted as a placeholder for each life lost. They were decorated with treasures that connect to memories of those who lost their loved ones. We were touched and felt honored to pay our respects.

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I Scream for Ice Cream

After the sober and touching experience at the memorial, it was time for a pit stop.

Lucky for us, the original Cascadia Organic farm was just up the road! We heard about their roadside stand with fresh homemade ice cream located just before heading over the North Cascades in RockPort, WA. The Rockport National Park is another tourist stop which is close by in this sparsely populated region.

At Cascadia’s first farm they still grow blueberries, raspberries, strawberries, sweet corn, and pumpkins at this location. We were lucky to see the pumpkin harvest at the end of summer’s growing season. As you’ll see in the pictures a farmer was loading trucks for the market during our visit.

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Of course, we had to have some of their homemade ice cream from the little roadside stand and small store. Other items that were made from their various harvests were also for sale.

We enjoyed the views of the pollinator flower gardens, pumpkins, the river, and glacier-covered mountains visible from the outdoor seating area next to where we purchased the delicious ice cream.

What a treat on such a beautiful day. Our next photo stops are several breathtaking scenic areas as we drive over the pass and include: views of Ross Lake National Recreation area, Manama and Stehekin mountain regions. The next overnight stop is in Twisp, WA where we will include photos of a friend’s straw bale house.

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