Winter 2011 Acrylic Class

ACRYLIC CLASS Week 3 – Snow Demo

Torrance students please go back to the blog from a couple of weeks ago for the instructions. I will post a picture of the one I am doing in your class but all the techniques are basically the same. If I think of anything I didn't cover in class, I will mention it, right now you need to get your distant trees in and the rest of your canvas covered in a soft blue gray.

This was the final week for our snow/white painting, the main point to this exercise is no matter what the subject is if it is white you need to have dark to show it off. It doesn't matter whether it is snow, lace, fur or whatever, if you want it to have depth and texture you need to have the contrast in values to show the white off. You can see this in the everyday things around you and in the works of other artists, the more you look for these things the more you will understand them.

I finished the middle ground trees by adding a few more branches also some touches of white tinted with a touch of orange on my flat bristle brush to suggest snow in the tops of the trees, I did this by taping straight on with my brush very lightly. Remember the harder to press down on your brush – any brush – the more paint will come off it, if you don't want a lot of paint you don't press too hard.

On the snow in front of the trees, I dry brushed in some more highlight. Again it is white with just a tiny touch of orange to slightly tint it. White can look too chalky by itself so we limit using pure white until the very final highlights. Do not cover up all of what you have down, just add to it , you need those previous layers to show depth, contour and texture.

When that was dry, I used my charcoal to sketch in my foreground trees and a few of the main branches. This is where your artistic license comes in. You can move, remove, add or subtract elements as you see fit, it is your right and sometimes, duty, as an artist. Your utmost concern is for the composition of the painting so you do what ever it takes to make the best painting you can. I thought that the trees in the picture were 1, too small and 2, were in too straight and horizontal of a line so I made them bigger and changed the angle slightly to make it more pleasant a composition. I also sketched the snow drifted up against the bottoms of the trees.

I based in the trees with a medium grey color (blue, sienna and white, touch of purple) and I used a smaller bristle brush. When I was forming my tree trunks, in the larger parts of the trunks I started on an outside edge with the end of the brush on that edge and made small "u" shaped strokes to create the trunks. A tree is not flat, it is usually a rounded shape. The brush strokes you use can be critical in explaining to your viewer that it is a 3 dimensional object. Your brush strokes have meaning and are an important element to the successful completion of your painting.

I also started highlighting the snow in the foreground around the trees again with the white and a touch of orange on my bristle brush and the dry brush stroke. Keep in mind what you are trying to do which is to suggest snow that has fallen over a field that could be full of rocks, logs, clumps of grass or what ever you might find in a field so again, don't cover up all of the under painting you did it becomes the dips and the texture you will need in the snow. You may have to go over the snow several times to get the brightest areas to be as light as you want them but each time you go over, leave some of what you did before to make your snow more interesting.

When you are doing this highlighting, don't worry about going over the edges of your trees you are still working on them anyway, the problem occurs when you try to avoid something then you end up with a halo around it. With acrylics you can always paint it back, no problem.

When I started highlighting the trees, I wanted a color that was just a shade or two lighter than the first gray color so if you have some gray on your palette, add some white and a touch of orange to it or just mix some of the mud on your palette to get a light color. Same little "U" stroke but this time it only goes about half way around the trunk all the way up.

This next step may sound a bit strange to new or beginning students, you will just have to trust me on this for now, but on the back side I took my blue and purple and a little white to make a lavender color and with the same "U" stroke I put this in the shadowed side. Purple is your natural shadow color because it is what is left of the spectrum of light as it is scattered and absorbed by things in the real world. This is especially true when there is snow, water or white buildings nearby. Other colors can reflect in the shadows but you will always find blues and purples. It helps your trees look round.

At this point I went in with my liner brush and the gray I used for the trunks and added in all my branches. Look at the photo, you will see A LOT of branches and twigs of all sizes, dark and light and coming from all directions. You will have problems if you don't put enough of these in. When you start our branch, start back in part of the tree then "branch off". This will give a more natural look to the branch rather than starting at the edge of the trunk or branch.

When I got all my branches in, I did some more highlighting on the trees and branches. This time it was mostly white with a touch of orange, smaller "u" shapes and I think I was using my #4 flat sable brush, it gives me a bit more control. I added some of the scaring you see on the trunks by using a dark color (blue, sienna and purple, little or no white) and I dry brushed some shapes and lines on the trunks. Remember the trunks are round so any horizontal lines on the trunks need to be slightly curved.

The trees are also casting shadows which we need to get in. Using just the blue and purple and enough water to thin it down to create a wash (very thin paint), the shadow will start at the base of the tree and angle off to the left. Here is the thing to watch out for: you must remember that the shadows follow the terrain so they are not nice straight shadows they may go up and over something or down a depression so with this thin paint dry brush this color onto the snow for your shadows.

The rest is adjustments and detail. You can add in the dead grasses in the foreground and more highlights to make the trees and snow stand out. You can use pure white for the very final highlights on the tree trunks and for some of the snow, but really finishing it is up to you as to how much detail you want. If you are looking for something to do it is probably finished. Stop. You can fiddle a painting to death trying to make it perfect. It is better to leave it for a few days then go back and look at it, if it is something glaring, it will jump out at you, if it doesn't, you were done.

Next class I will be doing another demo on white, but in a different way so if you want to give it a try you will need another canvas or you can work on your own project. If you want to follow along, please download and print out the poppy picture from the picture page for this exercise. I will be doing demos in class for the rest of the semester so you might want to have a canvas just for practice. See you all soon.

Winter 2011 Acrylic Class

Acrylic Week 2 – Snow Demo

This week we got started on our project which I will get into later, I do want to mention a bit more about the tree stump and snow to finish it up and to detail the use of the liner brush.

To remind the new students: Acrylic dry darker. This can be a bit annoying when you think you are done and come back 20 minutes later and all your highlights are gone, you just need to understand this is the nature of the beast so you may have to apply a couple layers to get the results you want.

When highlighting the snow around my tree, I kept in mind a couple things: First that it is snow. I know that it may seem an obvious statement but sometimes we get so wrapped up in painting we forget exactly what it is we ARE painting. Snow is soft and fluffy and has no hard edges; it clumps up and drifts over things which brings me to the next thing I want to keep in mind is what is underneath the snow. There could be rocks, roots, grasses…anything you can think of that might have been there before the snow started to fall. Make up stories in you mind about what is there so as you are painting the highlights you remember that the top of something gets more light and the space between stays in shadow. This also affects the strokes you make: If it is going over the top of something the stroke will be convex (upside down "U" shape), if the stroke is going down the side or in a depression, it is going to be a convex stroke ("U" shaped stroke). Our brush strokes tell our viewer a lot of information so they shouldn't be taken for granted.

With this in mind, using my #10 bristle brush I mixed white with just a touch of orange to warm it and using what is called the dry brush technique, which means that I have thoroughly dried my brush, loaded it with paint but have wiped the excess paint out before going to my canvas. Then using either the flat side of the brush, I start in the area where there would be the strongest light and scrub in this color. The harder you scrub, the more filled in the area will become, this is good to know when you are shading so you can get a nice graded look to your transitions from dark to light.

Another thing that I need the new students to understand is you don't want to cover up all of the under painting you just did. That under painting becomes the depth and texture of the snow so if you see pockets of the layer you just did, that is a good things, leave it, don't try to cover it all up. We mush have dark to show light if we cover all the dark we loose the contrast..

The liner brush will be used in a bit but I want to go over it now so you have a chance to practice with it. This little brush can be a blessing and a curse and that just depends on how much practice you have with it so take the time to get comfortable with it before you use it on your "masterpiece".

Your first hurdle with this brush is loading it. Most of the time you will here be admonish you not to get too much water mixed into your paint, with this little brush it is just the opposite: You need a lot of water to make it work correctly. The paint should be the consistency of ink. If you tip your palette it should slightly run. Next is loading the brush. You want it full of paint so really work all of it into the paint not just the tip. As you lift it off your palette, roll it in your fingers to create a point. Hold the brush at the back of the handle and the bristles pointed slightly down so the paint will flow, now you are ready to start.

To create a thicker line, you press harder and are on more of the bristles, for smaller lines you lift the brush to the tip. This is how you start a tree. Press, pull, lift and drag. If your hand is a bit nervous you have an advantage when making trees because trees have all kinds of bumps and twists, these aren't fishing poles, these are tree branches and twigs. To make branches off other branches it is easier to start within the tree or a branch then "branch off" with a new branch or twig.

When you are making grasses the process is much the same but when you get to the canvas, this time you want to start by making circles in the air using your whole wrist, when you have your rhythm down, on the up-stroke touch the tip of the brush to the canvas. Be sure you are holding the brush at the back, believe it or not, you have more control holding it like there. Big circles create tall grasses, small circles create short grass. Practice, practice, practice!

Now to our project. If you have chosen to paint something other than one of the two photos I posted, you will have to adjust what I am saying to fit your picture, however, everything I am saying about how to paint white can be applied to all subjects that are white.

The first thing I did was determine where my horizon should be, which was about a quarter way down from the top of the canvas. With my soft vine charcoal I drew a line across the canvas at that point but I didn't get out a ruler, there was no need, but that was as much drawing as I needed to do at this point.

Next I applied gesso to what will be the sky area – that quarter space at the top of the canvas. I was using a #10 bristle brush to apply the gesso and the gesso should be thick enough that when you touch the canvas your finger tip is well covered, we are going to mix into this so before it dries, on the same brush, on one corner pick up some blue and on the other corner a little burnt sienna and streak it across the top of your canvas. Once the paint is on, use big "X" stokes to work it down to the horizon, the color should lighten as it gets near the horizon and that is what you want. I did switch to my soft blending or haki (pronounced Hockey) brush to finish blending the sky because the soft bristles don't leave as many marks as the hard bristles. Make sure that you have squeezed all the water out of this brush because it can hold a lot of water. I use the big X stroke with this brush as well but I was barely touching the canvas. Again, practice.

While the sky is still wet I did the distant trees. I went back to the #10 flat bristle brush and on my palette mixed white with touches of blue and tiny touches of sienna to make a cool gray color which was slightly darker than the sky behind the trees. To load the brush I tapped it straight down onto the palette rather hard so that the end got really scrunched up. If you look ant the end it should be a twisted and funky, great for making tree tops. Right along the horizon I gently tapped this color into the wet paint of the sky varying the size and shape of my brush strokes all along the length of the horizon. This color shouldn't bee too dark, if it is pick up a little white or gesso on your brush and just work it into the tree line.

Next I under painted the rest of the snow area using the same brush, same colors and starting right under the tree line, I scrubbed in this color with a scumbling stroke. You can do what is called "brush mixing" by picking up the different colors of paint on your brush and mixing them on your canvas. This is actually much better than mixing on the palette because it gives more variation in the color which is a good thing. As you come into the foreground, use less white – don't eliminate it just use less – and add more blue, with touches of brown and purple. The corners can be the darkest areas just be sure to cover the canvas well. Now it all needs to dry for a few minutes so now is a good time to practice your trees which are coming up.

When this under painting was dry, I needed to start highlighting it. On my palette I was still using my #10 brush but if you feel more comfortable with a #6 or # 4 for this it is okay, I mixed my white with a tiny touch of orange just enough to tint the white. Always make sure that your brush is free of excess water before you start mixing color or the color can become too thin and won't cover. I wiped the excess paint from my brush and just under that line of trees in the distance, I dry brushed this highlight color on to the snow area. Remember you don't want to cover it all up and think mounded snow so make little slightly, rounded strokes. As you come forward, lighten the pressure, more canvas will show and that is what you want to suggest a hillside.

Notice the pockets of the blue under painting showing through.

If you need to sketch in the area for the middle ground tree tops, use your soft vine charcoal to indicate where you will be painting. This is just a suggestion so no detail and blow off the excess charcoal dust when you are done. If you need to make changes, use a wet paper towel to wipe it off.

Still using my #10 flat brush, I wanted to mix a darker, grayer color so again I used my blue and sienna and enough white to gray it and like the background trees I loaded my brush up by tapping straight down to mess up the end and using a similar tapping created the tops of the trees and also the bushes and bramble at the bottom of the trees. Be very conscious of the fact that all of these are natural trees and they grow at different rates so are different sizes, same with the under growth, vary the sizes and shapes. Also note that in the upper left hand corner the trees go off the canvas so it can be filled in pretty solid.

While that was drying, I started highlighting the area just in front of the middle ground trees. Again with the same brush and mixing the white with a touch of orange, I dry brushed in my first layer of highlight. I didn't come too far forward, I will do that later when I dt my other main trees in but I needed to get it started.

Now for the tree trunks and branches. If you don't want to do the very distant trees, that would be okay, if you do, with your script brush you will mix a blue/gray color that is just slightly darker than the color that is there (white, blue and sienna), remember lots of water and just suggest the trees trunks and a few major branches, they are too far in the distance to see much detail.

In the middle ground trees you will use a much darker color. Little or no white, blue sienna and a touch of purple this time to make a dark color. If it seems too dark, add a little gray from your palette rather than dipping into the white or you could get lighter than you wanted.

When you are making your trees remember to vary the size, the shape and the placement. Thick trees next to small trees. Trees that lean. Trees by them selves. And also that they are all behind and in the undergrowth. Don't forget the branches and don't get carried away. It can get to feeling so good that you do more than you should, you want to see some of the snowy hillside behind this clump of trees, it will give depth to your painting. Change the color as well by adding touches of white to make grayer tree trunks or branches. When you are done, go back to the bristle brush, add a touch of white to the color you were just using to make a lighter gray and similar to the technique you used to apply the darker grey, lightly tap over some of the branches and trunks. Note the words "lightly" and "some" this is just to make the trees look like they belong in that clump and the gray color is part of them. I also added a bit more white with my liner to make the brambles of the undergrowth and some of the snow covered branches of bigger trees.

Depending on how fast the class works next week, we should get this done during the class time so start looking for something you want to work on, I will give demos on various things in the coming weeks and some of what I demo depends on what I see you working on. Keep painting and Ill see you in class.

Winter 2011 Week 1

ACRYLIC SNOW DEMO

This project is really an exercise in how to paint white. It won't make any difference whether it is snow, a white cat, a table cloth, a wedding dress or any other thing that is basically white, everything we will be painting for the snow is applicable to any other white subject you might paint so even if you really aren't interested in snow – and with it being so cold lately I don't blame you – these demos and projects are designed to give you information and practice painting a variety of things so that when you go to paint your "masterpiece" you will have the knowledge and the skill to accomplish your goal.

A basic mistake that a lot of beginners make is starting out trying to paint white with white. A blank canvas could be titled "Polar Bear in a Snow Storm" because that is about as much success as you will have when you paint white on white. A key thing to remember in all your paintings is: You must have dark to show light. This is part of the value system and values are the lightness or the darkness of a color.

Some colors like yellow will never get very dark on a scale of 1 – 10, 1 being the lightest; yellow might get to a 4 if the color is straight out of the tube. On-the-other-hand, blue can get all the way to a 10 depending how much white you have put into it and the hue or color of blue. I think we will do a value scale next week so you can see what I'm talking about. Again, not the most exciting thing in the world but value is so important for you as beginners to understand and for any one who is trying to be a better artist. Value lets you create depth in your painting, it can also creates excitement in your painting so it shouldn't be overlooked.

That said, the first thing I need to do is make the background darker. In class I had a canvas that I had already toned with a grey/blue color however, I showed how to mix colors on your canvas to cover the white to create a darker background so your white will show up later. What I may not have explained as well as I should have, was direction of brush strokes. The direction of your brush strokes are so important in acrylics, oils, pastels and to a lesser extent, watercolor because as subtle as they are, our eyes pick up on the movement of those brush strokes and can send conflicting messages to the viewer. Trees grow vertically so we want our brush strokes to be mostly vertical (up and down) as opposed to horizontal (side to side). As the different paint colors mix on your canvas, those vertical strokes can suggest a forest of trees without you ever thinking about it; keep this in mind when you are painting your background. Think about what you are painting and how your strokes can mimic the texture or direction of the thing you are painting.

I used my #10 flat bristle brush, some ultramarine blue (since this is the only blue I use I will just call it blue from now on), some burnt sienna (sienna) white (either titanium or gesso will work, my gesso has gone bad so I used titanium this time) and a bit of the dioxizine purple (purple). Rather than mixing a homogeneous color on my palette, I "brush mixed" on the canvas picking up paint as I went along, using vertical strokes and a "scrubbing" action and the flat side of my brush (I was pressing pretty hard on my brush so I could get the paint into all the texture of the canvas). I ended up with a medium dark blue/gray color. I also showed how you can lift out some shapes of trees using the same brush by first cleaning it then wiping out all the excess water and using just the edge into the still wet paint and "lifting" out tree shapes. This is more a watercolor technique but it will work in acrylics as long as the paint is still wet.

Once the background is dry, using my soft vine charcoal, I made a simple sketch of a tree trunk with the snow piled up around it. You do not need a detailed sketch, just some guide lines, also I should mention that we usually sketch as we go so don't draw an elaborate sketch on your canvas before you start because we are going to paint over most of it.

Once I had my sketch on, I had to determine where my light source was coming from. This is important because it is how we determine what gets highlights and what gets shadows. I selected my light coming in from the upper right hand side of the canvas. Now I know which side will be lighter and warmer and where my cool colors will be.

Still using the #10 bristle brush, I picked up some orange and sienna and holding the brush perpendicular to the canvas and the edge of the brush was vertical, I used short choppy strokes along the right edge of the tree. Again, I am thinking of what I am painting: Rough tree bark that runs vertically up the tree, so my brush strokes need to mimic the way the bark grows. As my brush moves away from the light source, I pick up just the sienna (I'm about in the middle of the trunk now), work it in to the lighter color a little bit, still using the short choppy stroke. When I get to about ¾ around from the light, I pick up some blue along with my sienna and a tiny touch of purple to finish off the tree trunk. There is also a part of a tree root that you can use this same color on just remember to follow the direction it is growing because it is not vertical but at an angle with a bit of a curve.

The under painting for the snow is next and while the base color will be white, we will be adding mostly blue with touches of sienna to gray it and touches of purple. Depending on how dark your background is, you will want the first color for your snow to be maybe a shade or so lighter than the background (values again). Still using the same brush but this time on its flat side using a stroke called scumbling, which is basically any and all directions, start scrubbing this color into the snow area.

While this scumbling stroke is kinda wild, you should remember the "rule" about direction of your stroke. This snow is piled up over the roots and there may be rocks under it and there may be depressions between the roots so when you are going over a root this stroke can be an upside down "U" shape, in the depressions a regular "U" shape. It may not show it now, but in the next layers you will start to see how effective this is, it is also good to "get in the habit" of thinking about what you are painting and the goal you are trying to reach.

I think I did another layer on the tree to give it a bit of detail, still using the same brush and the same stroke I used orange with a touch of white again starting on the sun lit side and working my way around, I don't want to cover up everything I did before, I am just adding texture. As I moved away from the light source I picked up more sienna with the orange, then sienna and blue and lastly I picked up some purple and a little touch of white for the reflected light on the shadowed side of the stump. Then on the trunk where the snow was casting a shadow I used blue, sienna and purple to create a dark color for the shadow.

This is where we stopped for the day, we will do a bit more so you can see a bit more of the process, it will come in handy when we get to the trees on our project. Have your paints and canvas ready and remember you can click on the slideshow to get to the picture page to download the reference photo. There are two similar but slightly different photos either one is fine or if you have your own photo you want to work from that is fine also. Next time we should get started on our project.

Winter 2011

Hi Everyone

I just wanted to post the link to the winter project so you can see what we are doing. I had a request to do snow and I think it is a great learning opertunity, snow isn't just white and what you learn about white with this project applies to almost everything white that you will ever paint.

http://picasaweb.google.com/artistlgp/Winter2011#

BTW, you don't have to paint this particular scene, if you have a scene you want to paint you can watch the demo and apply what I am teaching to your picture.

I also want to point out to Torrance students that the class is closed - WE FILLED IT UP! I have 15 students signed up for the acrylic class so it will be busy the first couple of days.

See you soon.