Starting the oil rigs illustration (1 of 7)

This is the image we'll take apart for this month's tutorial. As with much of my professional work for print, the original image was created 9x12 inches at a resolution of 300 ppi. The final image was vertical  with foreground details and some other images vignetted on top. But this tutorial will just concentrate on the back image; that will be plenty to do.

Fill the background layer with PMS 2905 for the main sky color. Make a new layer above that and add a vertical gradient of 285 to transparent. Change the Blend mode to Multiply and lower the Opacity as desired. I chose 40%. Paint some clouds on a new layer using a simple brush and Cool Grey 2. I used one of my standard favorites. Paint just the lighter part of the clouds. Since they are in the distance, the shadow areas won't be any darker than the sky.

On a new layer, paint the cloud highlights with a smaller brush using white. You are looking to make some sharper edges here. Now, add some gradients above the clouds. This will help them fade away as they approach the horizon. As always, the gradients will be foreground to transparent. The first one uses PMS 290. Lower the layer's Opacity a bit. The next gradient will be 2905 again, but change its layer's Blend mode to Screen. Lower the Opacity if necessary.

For the ocean, use the Rectangle tool to make a vector Shape layer. with 5395 as the color. This dark greenish-blue will give some shadow areas to the water. To make the horizon a bit more exciting, curve the top of the rectangle by selecting it with the Path Selection tool, then clicking in the middle with the Pen or Add Anchor Point tool. Then click that new point with the Direct Selection tool (that's the white arrow) and move it up a little bit. Now you have a curved horizon.

Add some Layer Styles to give the water some depth. A medium blue Gradient Overlay in Screen mode brightens the water as it approaches the horizon. A soft Inner Shadow with Cool Grey 1 in Screen mode and Outer Glow of 290 in Normal mode will fade the water's edge at the horizon. Adjust Opacities until the edge looks sufficiently distant and fading away. In the next tutorial, we will cover how to not paint the water texture.