Summer 2010 Acrylic Class

Glass and Metal – Acrylic Week 4

Now that we have practiced painting metal and glass, we are going to put what we have learned to practical use by organizing our elements and adding a simple third element into a pleasing simple composition. How ever, the first place we start is not by drawing on our design but with the background.

I know just how tempting it is to jump right in and get started on the things that matter most in a painting and worry about the background later, the thing is the background is like the stage set. Yes, you can act out the play without the set but it is very difficult to move the stage in or get the props on once the play has begun, I know, been there done that and had to be physically held back from running on stage with forgotten props =-O (I still have nightmares). While you may not have nightmares if you don't get the background in first, you are going to have trouble trying to get the background to look like it belongs as you try to paint around your subjects leaving halos and hard lines and odd colors you may never get rid of, so trust me when I say" Do the background first, it will make your painting a lot simpler.

If you come from an oil background you may have been taught a different way, the thing with oil is you can blend oil weeks after it has been applied and smooth out hard lines or blend edges. Acrylics dry so fast even with extenders that we don't have those kinds of options, we need to start with what is furthest away first and work forward. In this case it means the background.

The first thing I look for is my light source and which way the light will be traveling. In this case the light was in the front right so it will hit the upper left third of my background. I went over the "the rule of thirds" in class and if you do a search on the Internet, you will find a lot of sites that can give you more examples and explanations so I won't go into it here except to say that it is important to my composition to use the third lines when I am designing my painting and that includes the background.

Now that I have determined where my light source will be the brightest on my canvas, I can start painting. First I use some gesso in the brightest area getting it pretty well covered then, while the gesso is still wet, I pick up a little yellow to tint the area. A little yellow will go a long way so don't get too much on your brush (I was using a #12 flat bristle) and brush mix on the canvas using a scumbling or crisscross stroke to move it out from the center.

This moves pretty fast so don't stop between steps.

Next, pick up a bit of orange and gesso and on the outside edge of your pale yellow work the orange out a bit more making another ring of color. Blend the two areas together either with light strokes from your brush or with your finger, you want a nice gentle blend. Keep working.

Next, pick up red, sienna and gesso and repeat what you did with the orange. You may find that on the left side you have run out of room for a complete ring, that's okay, just get your canvas covered and be sure to blend the area where the two rings come together so you have a nice transition.

The lest step to the background will probably be mostly the corners and down the right side and bottom, use sienna and purple without using gesso to create a dark color in the corners. Again blend the touching areas so you don't have a hard dividing line. Now it must dry before you can put on your design.

Before you start drawing your still life, check your composition. First and foremost, you want to fill up your canvas with your subjects. If you are have something tall like my wine bottle and you go with a horizontal (landscape) placement of your canvas, you are probably going to have a lot of wasted space around your subjects when you get finished so a vertical format will probably be better for tall things. Also overlap your objects so they become a unit, not separate thing competing for attention.

Again, rule of thirds. I placed the bottle close to the left vertical third line as well as the candle and the bell of the snuffer very near the bottom third intersection and the handle running near the bottom horizontal third line. This I usually do in my head but if you need to, divide your canvas into thirds before you start drawing. You should be using soft vine charcoal or chalk because both of those will wipe off with a wet paper towel. Don't use a pencil at this point or you can leave marks in your under painting that won't go away.

Add as much information as you need or want to create the elements of your design just don't be so committed to them that you are afraid to improvise when you need to. I look at my subjects as my guide once I've gotten my basic drawing on my canvas.

I started with the wine bottle because it was the thing that was furthest back in my composition. I based it in with sap green and I overlapped the area where the candle will be to be sure that the bottle will look like it continues behind the candle. Looking at my bottle I added in yellow in the lighter areas, and sap with blue or just Hooker's green into the dark areas. I was using a #6 Filbert which is similar to a #6 flat bristle brush and I was basically scrubbing the color on. This is just the first layer of under painting for the bottle, there is some more work to be done next week.

Depending on how fast the class works – and I am by no means trying to rush you – we may get done with the painting next week and for sure the following week so please start looking for something you would like to paint. It can be any subject you want. Also, think about what you might like to do next semester so I can plan for something you want to learn or feel you need more instruction.