Final Week Acrylic Spring 2011

Acrylic – Utah Fall

Try as we might, we just needed one more week to finish this project, if this was the summer class we might have made it, as it was we got a lot done so that most of our painting was covered with an under painting and that is something I want to address because as I walked around class there are a lot of you who struggle because you want to finish and you skip under painting whether it is the large areas like for the grasses or mountains or smaller areas like the trees, I saw many of you going straight to the highlight color then wonder what went wrong!

Your under painting is like the foundation of your painting, if you skip this step it is like skipping the foundation of a house and just painting the drywall hoping that the house will stay standing with the next breeze. Like the house of straw, your painting just won't hold up and you end up doing more work trying to rescue it than if you had just under painted in the first place. I show you this step by step for a reason, if there was an easier way, trust me, you would be the first to know, for now, you need to trust me when I say everything gets under painted until you can see it for your self.

Last week I talked about glazing areas of your painting to soften and create distance in you painting. It is a wonderful technique to use in many situations but really works well pushing areas back in your painting. When I looked at my painting again when I got home, I thought it needed another layer of glaze, my hills just didn't look far enough away. Always let your glaze dry before assessing it because it looks totally different when it is wet.

I added more glaze starting just above the foreground trees where dust and haze will be most concentrated and went over all my hills, then I added in some blue and purple to slightly darken the color and glazed the areas between the hills to add a hit of shadow, it helps to separate the hills slightly. That is the only thing I did while you were painting that I didn't mention because it is totally optional. You painting may not need it or you may not want to do it but I thought I'd mention it here so you know it is an option.

We did add some preliminary highlights to our trees. You will need to mix a color for both the green and the red trees so you can go back and forth between them. This is NOT the final highlight on these trees, we didn't get that far, but they are important if you want to give your trees depth.

The color for the green trees is sap green, yellow, a touch of white and occasionally a touch of orange. This color should be a shade or two lighter than what you have already and more on the yellow/green side, the orange just slightly modifies the green so it looks more natural so not too much. The color for the red trees is yellow, orange and a touch of white and an occasional touch of red just to change up the color.

I used the flat, bristle brush to lightly tap on these colors keeping in mind that the leaves of these trees grow in clumps. Please, look at the photo or go out and look at trees before you start painting and really LOOK at how trees grow and how the light plays on the leaves. I can show you haw to load your brush by pulling it in one direction thru the paint to create a twisted end and I can tell you that you lightly tap your brush to create the appearance of many leaves and that they grow in clumps and you need to be aware of that, but unless you actually see this in Nature and understand it, I know you will just paint over all your under painting – it becomes the shadows of the trees - until you have a solid color then wonder why your trees look flat. Do the best you can but go out and look at trees and see how the light plays on the leaves, that is the best advice I can give you.

While that was drying, we added in our road. The road that shows in the distance we don't need a lot of detail, I just took my yellow, white and a touch of orange to make a light, sunny color and applied that color to the road. While it was still wet, I did pick up a bit of sienna and a touch of purple and at the end of the road that goes in between the trees, I slightly darkened that section of the road, lightly blending the two colors together. The closer road was painted starting with that light color with a touch more sienna in it but the key here is to use flat "U" or upside down "U" shapes that are parallel to the top and bottom of the canvas. If your strokes are at an angle your road will look like it is slanted. As I came forward on the road, I added more sienna and orange even a touch of purple in the corner.

A cautionary note here: Make sure that the edge of your road does not come straight out of a corner of your canvas, either come out above or below the corner of the canvas otherwise it will look like an arrow pointing out of your painting.

While the road was drying, I started adding some shape to my rocks. Using my gray mix (sienna, blue and purple) I added enough white to make it just a shade or two lighter than what I had for the under painting. Using a dry brush, I started shaping my rocks referring often to my photo. I left some of that dark under painting to be the beginnings of the shadow areas so don't paint it all out, this is just the next darkest color and it shows the shapes of the rocks.

The grasses and bushes next to the road on both sides will require a lot of paint to do it correctly, you can't put out a pea sized blob of paint and think it will cover all of the area, get your paint out and have it ready.

The colors were basically mix on the canvas, I double and triple loaded my flat brush with paint, Hooker's green, sienna, blue and purple where my base colors but I did add in orange, yellow, red just to change the flavor occasionally. I scooped up the paint, and with the flat side of my brush I patted the color on. It is more like pat, push and lift motion that gives the texture of grasses. In the area in from of the rocks to get that gray straw color I used mostly, yellow, white, the mud on my brush and touches of purple.

A couple more things before we quit first the ruts in the road. They need to be flat "U"s and as they go back into the distance they become lighter in color and closer together. Again, keep the "U" shapes parallel to the top and bottom and don't have one rut coming out the corner, they can look rough, that will be a plus but they need to look flat. Initial highlights on the road need to be flat as well and can be a combination of flat "U"s and inverted flat "U"s using yellow, white and orange and the dry brush technique.

I started suggesting bushes using the same technique I used to make my trees and the same colors, the grasses were made with the flat brush and using a "flicking" motion. I will repeat this until I get my point across: Don't cover up all your under painting, it becomes the shadows in your painting.

Well, that is as far as we got, there was a lot of work to do. If you are taking the summer class bring it in to work on the first day when I have to do orientation for the newbies, I will try to finish up and post between classes. I hope to see you all soon.