Summer 2011 Acrylic Class

Acrylic – Demo: Pelicans in Flight Week 4

PV Students, you are almost caught up with the Torrance students as far as the demos are concerned, you will need to go back to last weeks blog to review the under painting of the pelicans but the rest of this blog will apply to what we covered in class except for the highlighting of the birds, that is where I stopped with Torrance.

When I look at my paintings when I'm writing these blogs, I will often times see things at home that I don't when I am trying to teach the class. What I saw at home that I couldn't quite figure out in class was that the water and the island behind the birds were too plain, they looked too flat so before I started finishing up the pelicans, I wanted to finish up the water and Catalina.

Painting with acrylics you can go about things in a couple of ways: You can either go darker or lighter depending on what you think your painting needs in a particular area. With that in mind, when I looked at my water, I thought it was a bit too light and I needed to add some darks and some movement to it and could accomplish both in the same move.

I mixed up a color of blue, a touch of sap green and a tiny touch of purple. A reminder: you want your paint creamy like soft butter but not runny when using a regular brush however, if you use you liner for this step you will need to use enough water in your paint so that it is very ink-like, the choice is yours, I demonstrated both using my liner and using a #4 flat sable brush.

I turned my canvas so that is was in the vertical position and starting out with that dark blue mixture on the very edge of the canvas I made long vertical lines that were slightly "u" shaped. These overlapped or crossed each other but for the most part they were vertical and I painted about a third of the water color in these stripes.

Please take note and check the picture page: I DID NOT cover the entire under painting. The paint that was there becomes the highlights on the water. If that area had been darker than it was, I could have put highlights back in with the same technique with lighter colors but I would have left the dark blue as shadows. Too many of you still cover up all of your under painting when you could have left it to work for you as shadows then you have to work twice as hard to get the darks – sometimes lights – back in your painting. Let the under painting work for you.

After I painted that third of the water, I mixed in a bit of white and a little green into the same mix, I wanted it to be a bit lighter though it should still be a bit darker that the next area we will paint. Again, I painted vertical strokes but this time they were a bit shorter and closer together. I am trying to create distance in my painting keeping in mind that as things go into the distance they become softer, greyer in color and closer together. About another third was painted this way thought I did put some of this color in the border between the darker strokes and this color.

That last third was painted the same – vertical strokes – but I added a bit more white and barely skimmed the surface of the water so that the ripples in the water faded out as they went into the distance. Don't over think this, it is just ripples on the water it should be done quickly and be done with it. Turn it back to horizontal when done.

Next, I wanted to add some contour on the island hills, for this I mixed my blue with purple and a little touch of sienna and white to make a color that was just slightly darker that what was there. I just want a little value (darker) change just enough to suggest some detail in the hills. With a bristle brush (#6 flat), I scrubbed in this color where I wanted shadows. My light is coming in from the top left side so shadows will be on the right side of the hills. I have looked at hills and shadows all my life so I can figure out where the shadows go but if you need to see how shadows fall on hillsides, please find some reference of take some photos, those reference photos can be worth their weight in gold when you need to know how something looks, keep them handy and add to them.

When I finished with the shadows on the hills, the next thing I did was soften the line between the Island and the water so it wasn't as defined, to accomplish this I mixed a touch of gesso into some of that blue color and a lot of water this time, I want a very thin glaze of a light color for this effect. With my bristle brush I loaded this color on my brush and then I used my paper towel to remove any excess water from my brush, this is a dry brush technique with very little paint.

Right along the line between the water and the land, using a circular, scrubbing type stroke, I very lightly (little pressure on my brush) went over, under and above that line almost like making clouds. This haze that you are creating should be uneven as you go across. This does take practice but it is a good thing to learn because you can use it in many situations to soften distant hard lines or add some atmosphere to your paintings.

Torrance students we did get started on some of the details of the pelicans, though we didn't get too far, we have some left to do in our next class but you should all have your birds under painted at this point.

I started at the head around the eyes in the feather area, from an image of a pelican in mating plumage I found on the Internet, I could see that around the face the color started out as a sienna color and faded back to a soft yellow. I went back to the small flat sable for this step so I would have more control and will use it for all the work on these birds.

Starting with the sienna I pulled that color back away from the eyes, keeping in mind that I was painting feathers that followed the contour of the head, using short strokes. This color goes to the top where it ends at the bill and fades out under his chin. I just wiped out my brush and picked up some orange and mixing slightly into the sienna, made more small strokes just behind the first color. I did a similar thing with yellow and a touch of white. Again, I'm not trying to cover up all my under painting because that will give me texture and shadows.

I mixed a bit of grey by using what I had on my palette with some gesso to start, I wanted a lighter color than what was already on the bird for the top of the head, back and the top of the wing. Using just the edge of the brush I made short, choppy, over lapping, strokes to create a feathery look in the sun lit areas ALWAYS following the growth pattern of the feathers.

On the two smaller birds, I just put touches of color because they are too small in the painting for much detail.

Both acrylic classes we will be finishing up the birds in the next class and we have a few more weeks to go so please have something with you that you want to paint and I can help you get started. See you soon.