Painting a Magical Light Effect

There's a second painting covered in the upcoming video Fantasy in the Wild: Painting Concept Art on Location.

The painting is called "Incident on Kelly Street."



The actual scene I'm looking at is lit evenly, so I have to consciously change the the light so that it only strikes the house. The car is based on a model that I buy at the drug store.



Through the course of creating the painting and shooting the video, all sorts of strange, surreal things happen around us, including a dog wearing a dress and another dog carrying a skateboard in his mouth.



Here are the casein paints I use for the painting. The video covers familiar tutorial topics like paint technique and perspective, skills that apply to painting in any medium.

But I think what makes the video special is that it explores the intersection of imagination and observation. How do you develop your science-fiction concepts and hang onto them in the face of the tsunami of information from the real world?

This is also definitely not an "abracadabra" video where I make everything look easy. It doesn't happen that way. I screw up, hit dead ends, and change gears several times. If anything, one of the themes is how to recognize an idea that's not working and how to keep trying until it gets better.

Fantasy in the Wild: Painting Concept Art on Location is 71 minutes long, and will be available as an HD video download ($14.95) or a DVD ($24.50). It will be 10% off on the day of the release, this Wednesday, December 16.