{"id":342,"date":"2026-06-28T02:18:00","date_gmt":"2026-06-28T02:18:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/mfrancismccarthy.art\/?p=342"},"modified":"2026-08-22T02:30:40","modified_gmt":"2026-08-22T02:30:40","slug":"matapouri-bay-at-dawn-5x10-15-minute-painting-session","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/mfrancismccarthy.art\/?p=342","title":{"rendered":"Matapouri Bay at Dawn 5×10 \u2013 15 Minute Painting Session!"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
\nhttps:\/\/youtu.be\/gH5sJ0d2Iek\n<\/div><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

You don\u2019t need a bunch of different blues. You only need one blue, use your favorite. I like either phthalo blue or prussian blue. What I love about prussian blue is the history of it. It\u2019s the first synthetic pigment made available to people. Prior to prussian blue, the only blues available were extremely expensive, like lapis lazuli, which is a semi-precious stone. Artists would often charge one amount for the painting and then an extra amount if the client wanted blue in there. The workaround? Ivory black mixed with white gives you a very cool gray, which in many applications can definitely read as blue.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Start with that blue, get yourself some white, and I always recommend adulterating it somewhat. I like to adulterate with raw umber and\/or ivory black depending on the application. The raw umber will tend to green it up, not with every blue pigment, but definitely prussian blue has these latent green tendencies which raw umber really brings up.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"\"
Matapouri Bay at Dawn 5×10<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

The Real Key to Sky<\/h3>\n\n\n\n

The real key to making blue sky and gray clouds interesting is playing off the warm grays against the cooler grays. I\u2019ll always mix both and use both, even if the reference is only showing me cool grays or only showing me warm grays. I\u2019ll play them off each other.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Another great technique is to tint things. You can go a little bit more burnt sienna on the uppermost cloud pattern, or I might go into pinks or I might go into purples. With the cool grays, there\u2019s all kinds of ways to expand things and add interest. You should definitely be looking for opportunities.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In your lightest areas, I\u2019ll mix a light color, usually some type of cream. That\u2019s usually some yellow ochre, always some yellow ochre, actually, a bit of raw umber, a bit of maybe even mixed gray to adulterate things, and then titanium white or titanium buff depending on what I\u2019m trying to do. You never want to go with the brightest tube white.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The Underpainting<\/h3>\n\n\n\n

The underpainting is so critical because it\u2019s where you figure things out. It\u2019s where you get the architecture. It\u2019s basically like the blueprint for the painting. A lot of times I might go fairly dark on the values there, but I always go darker when I move into the color portion.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

What I like about this painting is that it has a kind of crisp feel. Look at that round mass at the end there, it\u2019s generally a bit larger than the other mass. I kind of tweaked the perspective a little bit because it bothered me. I figured it\u2019s just a matter of perspective. I was real happy with the way the greens came out. It looks quite lush and rich, and that\u2019s predominantly down to my favorite green, which is Mike\u2019s green.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Mike\u2019s Green<\/h3>\n\n\n\n

Mike\u2019s green is ivory black mixed with a krill-eyed yellow, that\u2019s PY 73 or PY 74. You can get that as a brand name from Gamblin, Hansa yellow, or you\u2019ll see it in a lot of cadmium yellow hue pigments like from Winton or Georgian or Classical when they have their cadmium hue. It\u2019s not real cadmium because if it was, it would be quite expensive.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I like that over cadmium for that job because cadmium is so dense and opaque, it brings in kind of a chalky feel into those greens, and I don\u2019t like that. The hansa yellow is light fast in mixtures. I don\u2019t use it as a glaze anyway. If I was going to glaze something yellow, I\u2019d use transparent earth yellow from Gamblin, or I use Indian yellow, or I like to use a mix of both.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Compositing the Sky<\/h3>\n\n\n\n

This is based on a photo I took. I went out there very early one morning at dawn. The sky was clear that day, and I\u2019m not the kind of guy that\u2019s just gonna paint you a plain blue sky. That\u2019s just not me. So I dropped in another sky, composited in another sky. But what I loved about it was the reflection of the sky and the landforms into the water that\u2019s on the beach. Of course, that\u2019s just some water left from the high tide.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I was out there at fairly low tide, which I think is better for beach photography because it just shows more of the land masses. I\u2019m not the kind of guy that\u2019s gonna sit there and just paint some waves on the beach. I\u2019m more interested in the coastal landforms. I\u2019m very much a landscape painter, not a wave painter. I wouldn\u2019t even consider myself a seascape painter, a coastal painter.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Simplification and Design<\/h3>\n\n\n\n

I did a real nice job with this scene, and I really love painting things like sand. There was a decision made here not to bring up too much of a wave thing. I thought just a bit of a slash of that light blue color would do the job. You always want to design and simplify your painting in whatever ways you can. The goal is to add interest and value to the painting, make it a good experience for the viewer.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

When you do that, you\u2019ll have paintings sold. You\u2019ll have people happy to exhibit your work in their homes. At the end of the day, I think that\u2019s what we all want as painters. We want our work to be beautifying someone\u2019s home. And if you can make a little money selling the painting too, that\u2019s a gladness.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Take good care of yourself. Stay out of trouble. And fight the power.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Mike’s New Site<\/a> | Substack<\/a> | Painting Website<\/a> | Mailing List<\/a> | Store<\/a> | My Music<\/a> | Support<\/a> | Members Area<\/a><\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

M Francis McCarthy, Your Painter in Residence<\/strong><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

You don\u2019t need a bunch of different blues. You only need one blue, use your favorite. I like either phthalo blue or prussian blue. What I love about prussian blue is the history of it. It\u2019s the first synthetic pigment made available to...<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":339,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-342","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-painting","rsfv-has-video"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/mfrancismccarthy.art\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/342","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/mfrancismccarthy.art\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/mfrancismccarthy.art\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mfrancismccarthy.art\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mfrancismccarthy.art\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=342"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/mfrancismccarthy.art\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/342\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":552,"href":"https:\/\/mfrancismccarthy.art\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/342\/revisions\/552"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mfrancismccarthy.art\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/339"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/mfrancismccarthy.art\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=342"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mfrancismccarthy.art\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=342"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mfrancismccarthy.art\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=342"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}