ACRYLIC CLASS SUMMER 2012 – P.V. Bunny

This week I basically finished up the bunny. My under painting was as far as I could take it on the rabbit and the background, all that was left was to under paint the rocks and foreground  add some highlights and weeds and I have a finished rabbit sitting in the rocks.

I know that sounds way to simple but really, that is all there is to it. It only seems like more when you make it out to be more. One of the pitfalls most beginning students fall into is making mountains out of mole hills. When you start a painting project you don’t envision an end to your journey and as that end starts coming into view, you want to take side trips and detours because you can’t imagine that the end is within grasp. You need to embrace this part of the process to work to a natural end of your painting, otherwise, if you keep making work for yourself, your paintings become overworked and uneven, the term “less is more” is very apropos in this case, it is better to feel that you painting could use just one more thing than to think “I should have stopped an hour ago”.

The first thing I needed to do was to under paint the rocks in front of the rabbit. These rocks are light so my under painting doesn’t need to be too dark but it does need to be a darker version of the final highlights. I used orange, with touches of sienna, white and yellow and in the shadowed side I also added touches of purple to gray the color and cool it down. I just scumbled in some rock shapes and I didn’t care if it looked like what was in the photo or not, I did try to get close at least in size. I also brushed mixed a lot of these colors on the canvas. That means I picked up the colors and either went directly to the canvas or only lightly mixed on my palette before applying it to the canvas, this allows for more variation in color and that is a good thing.

While I let that dry, I worked a bit more on the rabbit, brightening or intensifying a color to give it a sunlit look. I try to avoid white when I can and use it only when I’m up to my final highlights because white can make your colors look chalky. Add yellow to sienna to lighten and brighten the fur on the back. The same goes in the weeds at this point, pure color like yellow  or yellow mixed with a bit of orange or sienna for foreground weed highlights is a good thing.

However, before you get to the foreground weeds be sure that you have enough weeds in the background. These can be weeds of all colors from browns to grays to blues and purples, these will be your shadowed weeds and the darker colors will allow the foreground weeds to stand out. I used both my ½” flat sable brush and my liner to make these weeds.

If your rocks are dry you can highlight them with a mix of white (or gesso) and touches of yellow, orange or sienna or a combination of these colors, this will be a very light color and remember that the sun is coming from the upper right hand side so the rocks will have their highlights on top and on the right. Don’t spend too much time making your rocks “perfect” because you don’t want them to detract from your rabbit plus you are going to be pulling weeds up in front of them and in between them, they are just there to put the bunny in his environment.

The foreground weeds can go in much the same way as you did the background weeds the only difference is they can be a bit lighter because they are in the sun – remember this is just under painting so not too light – and use colors like yellow and sienna as well as grays. Another thing to be careful of when doing any of the weeds is to make sure that they go all different directions, not just straight up lined up like a fence. They should bend, have breaks, some should be almost flat, some curled, some split…These are dried weeds and anything goes.

I also added some greener bushes in the corners and middle-ish to suggest other plants in his environment, but it wasn’t straight green. I used hooker’s green with touches of purple and/or sienna mixed in to gray the green so it wasn’t too different in color from the other weeds. With a liner brush I added some twigs to the green branches to give them some support.

At this point you might want to call it done and that is up to your, however, as I looked at my painting there were some things I really think – for me  - need to be done to finish it off the way I want it to look so I will be showing you how I would detail out the rabbit and to make changes when you need to. I will see you all in class.

ACRYLIC CLASS SUMMER 2012 – PV Bunny

This week I started to get some detail in the bunny. It is absolutely essential when you are trying to make something look reasonably real that you have your reference photo in front of you, many of you were looking at what I was doing and trying to follow along but that is not your best reference. I can show you technique but I don’t always get the subtle changes in color right, which doesn’t bother me because I will go back over an area but if you don’t see that step you can get lost in a hurry. That photo I provide is your map and you need to have it out so you can look at it and find your own way through the color and fur direction.

Basically, I mixed up blue, sienna and a touch of purple as my base color, to it I added more sienna, orange and/or yellow to lighten and make it browner, more blue and a touch of purple for a dark color or white if I needed gray. Those are the only colors I used.

Most of what I did was dry brush with a #4 flat bristle brush, what that means for the new students is after rinsing my brush, I dry it off to get out as much of the water as I can before loading it up with paint, and I also wipe off excess paint before I start to paint. Then when I actually do paint, it is with very little pressure and I want the bristles to separate to give me a “furry” look to my bunny. These are light quick strokes IN THEDIRECTION OF THE GROWTH OF THE FUR. I put emphasis on that because as I walked around I saw several people painting the fur on in one direction but even if it is part of the under painting, it is important to follow the way the fur is growing on the animal or you can and will have problems when you get close to finished, the eye will see those strokes unless you hide them well (read “repaint”) and it won’t look “right”. All our strokes have a purpose from beginning to end, if we try to cut corners it could come back to bite us in the end. Just so you know.

One thing I did after a layer or two of fur, I looked at what I was doing and compared it to my photo. What I was most interested in was making sure that I had enough contrast in places so that the rabbit would stand out from the background in the end. When I did this, I noticed that behind the back of the bunny, the rock was a bit lighter than the back of the bunny so I added some lighter gray to the area behind the bunny so its back would show. Under his chin and down his front the fur is very light from the back lighting of the sun so I needed to darken behind the rabbit around the mouth, under the chin and a bit on his chest, when I do the final highlights this dark area will help me make the rabbit stand out.

This was fairly repetitive and time consuming though there are some things you need to watch out for, one of them is the use of white at this point. If you are working in a gray area adding a bit of white is okay, just don’t go to your lightest lights just yet, still should be shades of gray. In the sunlit areas on the back and face, however, it is better to lighten with yellow or orange rather than white because white can make your color look chalky. You may eventually use a touch of white for the brightest highlights but we are not to that point yet, that will come at the very end and you need to have these other colors present for a more natural look.

I also want you to note that I added just a few touches of lavender gray into the darkest areas of the shadows on the bunny. There will be a lot of reflected light coming off the rocks that will reflect back into the fur but please, these are just “touches” don’t make you bunny butt purple, a little goes a very long way.

Depending on where everyone is and how much I get done, I may be able to finish up the bunny during the next class so start looking for your own project when we are done with the bunny. We will have a make-up class at the end, I do want to thank everyone for your support and understanding during this trying time in my life, it was a great comfort to get back to class.