Why start with yellow ochre when you want to paint white walls? In this acrylic exercise, a warm base gives us a starting color that can remain visible between brushstrokes or through thin passages. The lesson is deciding where to keep it and where to cover it.
We use John Singer Sargent’s Moorish Buildings in Sunlight as a reference for a simplified study of a white building, a sloping shadow, and an archway. This is an acrylic teaching exercise, not a reconstruction of Sargent’s painting process.
Watch the 3-minute 26-second demonstration
The video includes English narration and captions. Pause during the paint comparison and the final close-ups. The demonstration is edited; allow more time for your own painting and drying.
Prepare a warm base
Use a canvas or panel already prepared for acrylic painting, yellow ochre acrylic paint, your chosen painting colors, a flat brush, a smaller brush, and a palette. Have a suitable acrylic medium available if needed. No fixed brand or color count is required.
Spread a thin layer of ochre over the prepared surface. Keep the base light enough for the pale walls you will paint later. Adjust consistency according to the paint and medium instructions, and let the layer dry before painting over it. This colored layer goes over the prepared surface; it does not replace the canvas primer.
Compare white and ochre in four small patches
Prepare white and dry ochre areas on the same type of surface. Use one batch of gray paint for both. Make a thin pass in the upper row and a fully opaque patch in the lower row, keeping the application comparable across the two bases.
Compare the patches after drying under the same light. Where the lower color shows through, it can influence what you see. Where the upper paint fully covers it, the base no longer contributes directly through that layer. A thin brushstroke is not automatically transparent: check what your actual paint does.
Build the walls and place the shadow
Mark the roofline, the sloping shadow, and the archway. Keep the drawing simple. Block in the sky and the light walls, using enough opaque paint where the wall needs to be bright.
Leave a little ochre between selected strokes and in parts of the ground. Avoid leaving a yellow outline around every shape. You can cover the base wherever it distracts from the scene.
Compare the shadow directly with the sunlit wall. For this study, make it darker and relatively cooler, then place the sloping edge carefully. If the warm base pushes the shadow too far toward yellow, increase coverage. Keeping the shadow distinct matters more than showing the base everywhere.
Finish the archway and check the whole painting
Place the deepest dark within the arch while preserving its lighter inner surface. Add a few marks for stones without describing every small detail. Some exposed ochre in the ground can repeat the warmth elsewhere in the painting.
When the painting is dry, look for exposed base color, thinly covered passages, and fully covered areas. Then step back: do the light wall, shadow, and doorway still have clear differences in value—how light or dark they are? A common base can help connect colors, but the colors you put over it and their light-dark relationships still matter.
Try the method yourself
Paint the same small composition on white and on ochre. Compare where the base remains visible and how clearly light and shadow separate. Neither base is automatically better; the exercise helps you choose how much of it to use.
For the related lesson on wall colors and cast shadows, read How to Paint Sunlit White Walls in Acrylics. For another composition exercise, try our Corot-inspired acrylic landscape study.
Artwork and music credits
Reference: John Singer Sargent, Moorish Buildings in Sunlight, 1879–80. Oil on wood, 26 × 35.2 cm. The Metropolitan Museum of Art, Gift of Mrs. Francis Ormond, 1950 (50.130.9). Image: Public Domain. Museum collection record.
Music: “Dream Culture” by Kevin MacLeod (incompetech.com). Licensed under Creative Commons Attribution 4.0. Music source. Changes: 206-second excerpt, levels adjusted, narration ducking and fades added.
The painting demonstration was filmed by the creator. English narration uses a synthetic voice.