I have found that my paintings turn out the best when I have a good mental image of them before I start painting. This often involves some research. Ideally it is good to have several types reference. One of the first things I do is to think about what elements could be in the painting. Then I try to find good general pictures of those elements. Second I sometimes look for color reference. These pictures or paintings can be totally unrelated as long as they have a color scheme that fits the mood and the setting. It is also nice to have inspiration for the artistic qualities or that “wow” factor. Often this is a lifelong habit of always studying nature and good art.

Here are a few snapshots that I took while visiting the rocky coasts of California.

I often do several thumbnail sketches to find the best composition. This time was unusual because the basic idea and placement stayed the same from this thumbnail to the end. I usually block things in black and white. This helps me work out the arrangement of elements, get the drawing close, and helps me use values to focus attention on the main subject.

Sometimes I find it easier to draw subtle details with pencil and paper. So I drew the mermaid, scanned it, and then set its layer mode to multiply. For the boy, however, I just started painting directly in Photoshop.

Currently I use one brush 80-90 percent of the time. It is a rectangular brush that looks like a sponge.

Under the “shape dynamics” tab, I set the Angle Jitter’s control to Direction. This setting makes the brush always orient in the direction of the stroke. When this brush is very large and transparent you can spin it around, and the irregular edges of the brush make a textured pattern.

I also used this brush at a much smaller size for drawing fine details. The square corners and irregular edges give brushstrokes a look more like traditional brushstrokes.

At this early stage I usually try to have as few layers as possible. I like to jump all over the painting correcting any errors that I see when I see them. Having a ton of layers gets confusing and slows me down. I think for the image below I had one layer each for the background, the boy, the mermaid, and the water. Isolating each element allows me to move and adjust things quicker.

Next I added a blue layer and set the layer mode to multiply. This is like turning off the lights. It makes everything darker and unifies the shadow color. In traditional painting this would be like adding a transparent blue wash over everything.

The next step is to turn the lights on. This is done by setting the brush mode and the layer mode to linear dodge. Then paint in the lights with dark warm colors.

This is what the linear dodge layer looks like by itself. (The grid in the background is how Photoshop shows transparency) When this layer is added it lightens everything under it proportionally to how bright it is. For instance the darker green colors only lighten and tint slightly, while the bright yellow areas become almost pure white. Compare the previous two images to see the effect of this layer.

The sky was getting too bright and taking away from the focal point, so I darkened it quite a bit. At this point I was happy with the composition and colors, so I increased the resolution to the final size, 3600 by 4800 pixels.

Everything up until this point I tried to paint zoomed out in order to focus on the overall composition. I find it dangerous to focus too much on one element without keeping the whole in mind. But that changes a little after I have reached this point.

When I am happy with the composition, values, and colors of the whole, I start focusing on individual elements. This is where the layers can start stacking up. I use as many layers as I need to render each item. Since I am painting fast and furious, the layers often become a mess. I find the right one by temporarily switching to the move tool (with the auto-select on) and clicking on the area that I want to paint.

I was not happy with the boy’s expression and realized that I needed to find better reference. Since I was painting this as a gift for my nephew, I wanted to capture his likeness. Until I could set up a photo shoot, I moved on to the other elements.

My friend Jason and his children provided reference for the upper half of the mermaid. For some things, like the mermaid’s tail, there isn’t much reference, so I had to make it up.

The water took a lot of trial and error.

While looking at this painting reversed, I noticed that it was a bit unbalanced and top-heavy. So I changed the angle of the mermaid, and repositioned the main elements.

In addition to my own photo reference, I looked to paintings by J.C. Leyendecker, Norman Rockwell, Haddon Sundblom, and Scott Gustafson for more inspiration.

I started to add more detail to the foreground rocks, then decided that they drew too much attention away from the characters.

At some point I try to organize, name, and reduce the layers to as few as possible while still keeping enough to easily change things. So by the end of the painting I would have a “layer set” for each element. For instance I might have a couple layers for the lighthouse, and a few more for the background, and all of them are put into a Layer Set that I title “Background.” Then I do the same with each other element as needed.

After a few more finishing touches it is time to call it finished.

About the Artist – Dan Phyillaier’s art career began as an illustrator for A Beka Books. This helped pay for a degree in Commercial Art. After graduation Dan started working for Sight & Sound Theatres in Strasburg, Pennsylvania. This theater has over 800,000 customers each year, making it one of the highest visited theaters in America, including Broadway. Although Dan was never really a “theater person,” he is now enjoying the opportunity to concept new shows, paint backdrops, create scale models, and animate media sequences.

Website: www.danphyillaier.com