SPRING 2013 ACRYLIC CLASS

Project:Az Wash

This past week in class we did a couple of techniques to our study then we started our project. The techniques we learned were how to do a wet and a dry glaze. Both are very handy to know and can be used in a wide variety of situation.

The dry brush glaze is great when you need to work in smaller areas or add areas of haze or mist. It is great for fog, smoke, dust anything that might be in the air that is soft and hazy, even clouds are made with this technique. The key is a brush that is just damp – you shouldn’t be able to squeeze any water from it - and very little paint.

After you rinse your brush squeeze it in your paper towel until it is mostly dry. The bristles will be damp but there should be no excess water in the brush. When you load your brush with paint, work the color into the bristles then wipe the excess off on your paper towel, the color should be mostly in the bristles not on the bristles (no visible lumps). To apply the color (whatever color you are using depending on your subject), using the small side of your flat bristle brush, with very light pressure on the brush, go in small circles, you should be able to see the color that is underneath this glaze, if you press too hard or go over and over the same area, you will lose the under color, if that is what you want to do fine but it is better to sneak up on it and stand back often to see if you are getting the desired effect. Also, if you rub in one place too long you run the risk of rubbing a hole in the paint, so a light touch and keep moving.

The other form a glazing is a wet glaze. This is a technique that you use over a larger, broader area usually. It can instantly add distance to you painting by adding a visual atmosphere to the areas you apply it to, you can also use a variation of this technique to add a shimmer to still water again, it is a good thing to know and practice.

You usually will need your wide blending or hake brush for this technique because you will want to cover the area quickly and evenly this brush works great for doing just that sort of thing. The color may vary depending on what you are trying to accomplish but it usually includes a bit of gesso (gesso as oppose to regular white because it is on the opaque side which you will need in most cases) and some color. If you want it warm you use the warm colors of the palette (I’m talking visual heat such as reds, yellows and oranges) or if you want to cool it down use the cool side of the palette (blues, purples, some greens) this color is totally dependent on what you need it to do. To this color you will add A LOT OF WATER. I don’t usually tell you to add a ton of water on the contrary I tell you to be careful not to add too much water to your paint but for this technique to work correctly the color needs to be thinned down so that when you apply it, it is more a haze of color so you can see what is underneath. Keep this in mind though when you are loading your brush, you don’t want it to be dripping off your brush so soak up any excess with your paper towel and if you get runs on your canvas, quickly clean them off with a wet paper towel and smooth out the color in the area so it looks evenly applied. This will be kinda scary because when it is wet it looks very thick but as it dries it will be just a haze of color if you did it correctly, which is why we practice.

You can also use this technique to tint all or part of your painting. I sometimes will want to warm the entire painting up and will use a very diluted color (quinacridone gold) and go over my entire painting with this color (no gesso). You can also “antique” a painting with umber same thing and lightly wiping. Please practice this before you try it on your “masterpiece” so you know just how much you need to do.

 

Start of the Az Wash project

This is where we started the actual project, since I have already gone over those techniques I’m not going to type them out again, just go back to the earlier posts for the sky and the mountains, the same things applies to the actual project so use the posts as a review. See you in class.

SPRING 2013 ACRYLIC CLASS – More Practice

Picture Page - https://plus.google.com/photos/110300529433736983967/albums/5859327791094922657?banner=pwa

 

Creating distance in the landscape.

We are finishing up some of our practice studies for now but don’t leave your spare canvas at home it will be used again when we get into other areas of the project and it is always good to have when you need to test a color or to practice a brush stroke so it is handy to keep close. We have really only covered the background of our project and there is still a glazing I want to do on this before we start the project so be sure to bring your study to class.

I started with the highlights on the cliffs and while it is a brighter value than the shadows around it, the highlights are still slightly gray because they are in the distance. You don’t want to make them bright white or any bright color because it just wouldn’t look right. I still have the gray I mixed (Ultra marine blue, burnt sienna and white) on my palette so I added a touch of that gray to white (gesso) along with a touch of orange, it should look like a soft, warm gray color. I used my #4 flat bristle brush but you can use a #4 flat sable if you have one, the key to both brushes is very little paint, this will be a dry brush technique regardless of which brush you use. Mix enough paint so you don’t have to remix we will be adding to this color for other highlights.

Load your brush so that you have paint in the bristles, then lightly wipe off the excess from the outside. I turned my brush so the flat edge was vertical to my canvas to highlight the vertical rocks at the tops of the cliffs. Like everything else in painting, this takes practice, observation and trust. Practice because you need to get the right amount of paint and pressure on your brush; observation so you look at your reference before you start painting so you see exactly what you are painting and why, and trust that what I am instructing you to do is for your best interest.

The trust part is especially true so that practice and observation make sense. You need to trust that when I tell you that the quicker you do these strokes the better. They are just shapes. The more pressure you put on your brush the more paint come off and the area will look brighter, the lighter the pressure, the less paint comes off and more of the under painting comes through so the same color can look darker in value because it is visually mixing with the color underneath.

Shear rock cliffs give way to hills.

Observe in the reference photo (ALWAYS have your reference material out when you are painting) that the brightest area is on the right hand side of that rounded cliff. These are shear rock faces reflecting light, other areas are more subtle probably because they are made up or broken rocks. Also notice that the rock faces only come down so far before they change in to softer mounds or eroded rocks/dirt that have piled up at their bases. Where these two areas meet is where your brush strokes go from a vertical stroke to a more diagonal stroke. You want your brush to follow the shape of the thing you are painting. When it changes from solid rock to softer hill side the color also becomes softer and not as bright so less pressure more dry brush.

That rock face on the rounded cliffs is the brightest highlight on the ridge, the other highlights are done the same way with the same brush but I added a touch more orange and gray to my highlight color. There also some detail in the shadowed sides of the cliffs that are done in exactly the same way but with shadow colors. You can leave the original under painting as your brightest areas in your shadows and mix a color that is slightly darker than the under painting. Remember that this cliff is in the distance you will not see any really dark colors so this shadow color should still be a medium dark, blue gray. This color becomes the shadows and cracks between the rocks. Look at the reference photo to see where this color goes, it is done just like the highlights, very dry brush but now instead of painting the bright areas (positive painting) you are painting the shadows (negative painting).

 

You can always go back an improve your sky.

Several people in class asked about the sky. Some were not happy with it some just wanted to give it more clouds I showed how to change your sky by adding to what I had and not painting it out. I added some of that dark blue gray I used as my shadow color from the cliffs and using the same #4 bristle brush on its little side and making a circular, dry brush stroke I added some darker clouds to my left corner. While it was still wet I took some of my lighter gray color and added that into the darker gray to soften the edges and again with white this time softened the edges eve more blending wet into wet. I added some whiter clouds with what I had on my brush and just a touch or white along the tops. This added more drama to my sky and it was another good thing to practice.

The last thing we practiced was the tree line on the other side of the wash. Once again – and I will be saying this often – look at your reference photo. The trees on the other side of the wash form a pretty solid looking barrier from a distance but it is not a wall or a hedge. No one has come out and pruned those trees so they are one perfectly manicured, same height mass of trees, these trees are only pruned by Nature so they can be ripped out by the roots in a flood or have branches blown off in a wind, their height and spacing will vary greatly, when you sketch in your tree line, keep this in mind. There should be a lot of ups and downs, ins and outs as you sketch. There should be gaps, tall trees, short trees, missing trees just no hedge trees.

 

The highlights on the trees are subtle the  shadows
are a blue gray, not black.

Even those these trees are closer to us, there is still distance between the foreground and the trees across the wash, the color we will be using is going to be green but it is going to be a very gray green in color. If you need to mix more gray see the formula above (burn this in your brain) because we will be using this color as our base. To that gray color add sap green, a touch more blue and a touch of purple. You should have a dark khaki or military green color, this will be the base color for your trees.

I switched to a #10 bristle brush to cover the area quickly but keep your smaller brush handy. Just like I did when forming the mountain ridge, though this time I used my brush more vertically to create smaller shapes, starting near my sketch line, I pulled down to form the tops of my trees. You can scumble and scrub the color into the trees once you are away from the top shape of the trees to get the area covered as quickly as possible. While it isn’t necessary, if you want you can add a touch of orange and a little touch of white to make a highlight color this color should be more orange than white, most of you were using either white exclusively or predominately and the highlights looked too chalky, use your smaller brush and while the under painting is still wet, you can suggest highlights in your trees on the right hand side. Smudge with your finger so you don’t have hard lines. You can do this when it is dry but I like the wet into wet look. You can also add shadows the same way either wet into wet or dry brush but instead of lighter colors add more blue and purple to your base green to make shadows under the trees in between trees and limbs (look at your reference photo or go look at trees).

I want to show you how to glaze this before we start the project so bring your study to class and a blank canvas to start the project. PLEASE do not do any drawing or sketching, we will do that as we go and as needed. I will see you in class, be ready to get to work.

SPRING 2013 ACRYLIC – Practice

 (Class Picture Page Link)

A bit of background so you can understand the process: When I am looking through my photos looking for something I think we can paint as a class project I am looking for something that is not only interesting but also doable in both acrylics and watercolor as class projects. The photo I chose for this semester’s class project was one that really interested me but I had to see if I could break it down enough so it wouldn’t intimidate my students too much. I want to present you with challenges, not brick walls so I did a couple of studies you may have seen in class.

 

Reference Photo

As I was doing the studies – one in acrylic and the other in watercolor – I saw that while it really wasn’t hard to do in either medium there were some areas that might cause some problems for students because they look complicated if you don’t know what you are doing, however, with a little practice I think we can muddle through and learn a lot in the process. So with that in mind I decided that for returning students it would be good review and for new students it would give them some practice with their equipment and paints if we did some practice studies the first couple of week. Once you have done it, it takes away the fear and I know most will not practice this on their own.

Since we always work from the furthest to the closest I thought we would start with the sky. This sky on the day I took the photo was after a rain so there were broken clouds that were white to almost charcoal with patches of blue shining through. The first thing I had students do was to mix up some gray. My standard gray – this should be committed to memory BTW – is ultramarine blue, burnt sienna (this makes a very dark color), white or gesso to change the value to a medium gray and sometimes just a tiny touch of purple but not so much that the color looks purple, the purple goes a long way so when I say tiny, I mean tiny. The color you end up with should be a nice medium value, cool gray. Mix enough because we will be using it in the next step as well.

I was using my #10 flat bristle brush to do this step and it will work better for you than a round brush of similar size.

Acrylic Sky (see Picture page for bigger image)

With my bristle brush and gesso, I coated an area where I will paint the sky and a little more. While you don’t have to paint the whole canvas with sky, you also don’t want to paint just the sky’s area because you want to be sure that when you put something, such as out mountains, in front of it, you want to be sure that your sky covers enough of your canvas that you won’t leave blank canvas showing when you paint your mountains in. I actually did that in class so we all are prone to not covering enough area for our sky. It can also look “cut and paste” because of canvas showing or hard lines between the two areas.

While the gesso is still wet, I streaked in some blue areas along with some gray areas and leaving some of the gesso for white cloud areas, to suggest clouds with breaks in them – same brush – then I rinsed my brush and wiped it out, then using a kinda flat “X” stroke with very little pressure. I lightly blended the areas together. I mean lightly. If you use too much pressure it will be too streaky and you will drag too much of the colors into each other and loose the distinction between them until all you have is a streaky gray color. You can pick up more of a color and add it back into an area, again using a light pressure on your brush.

This takes practice and patience learning how to hold your brush (it isn’t a pencil or pen), how to mix color, how to get the consistency right (your paint should be like soft butter)…So many things to think of all at once, doing these little practice studies are very important in your learning process so don’t overlook them. This was only one way to make a sky and it will be a more “painterly” sky than other techniques but I think it will work with this project.

 

Mountains based in.

The next thing we did was learn how to paint in our mountains. Keep in mind that as things go off into the distance they become softer, lighter and grayer in color and less detailed. Mountains that are 100 miles away won’t have much detail if any. You might see snow or where the sun is hitting them but that is about it, further away you won’t even see that much. As things come closer they become darker in value until you start to see some color of rocks and/or trees even closer you might see tops of trees or rock outcroppings and still on the grayish side but that is about as much detail you will see until they are right in front of you.

With that in mind, these mountains are about 10 – 15 miles from where I took the photo so you can see a little detail but the color is very blue gray, which is where your gray mix comes in to play again, if you have run out, mix up some more, it doesn’t have to be a perfect match as long as it is gray. I was still using my #10 flat bristle brush loading it with my gray and working it into the bristles, on my canvas I used my charcoal to sketch the outline of the top edge of the

Note the soft top edge made with the flat end of the bristle brush.

mountains then with the flat edge of my brush on that charcoal line I pulled down to form the top edge of the mountains. Because acrylics dry so fast you don’t usually want to outline with your brush or you can leave a hard line the reason I use the end of my brush and pull down to form the edge. In the body of the mountain it is just a matter of filling it in just keep in mind it is not a wall. Do not use long flat strokes, they can and will show in the final painting, instead use what is called a scumbling stroke which basically means your brush goes in all directions and you can scrub the color in as well. Be sure you bring the color down far enough to be behind any trees and that the bottom edge is soft, no hard line.

Next week we will practice adding some detail to the mountains, adding some foreground trees and doing a wash to push the whole thing back. If there is time we may practice with the liner brush or we may wait to do that when we get closer to that part of the project. Keep your practice board handy, you may need to use it as you go along.

I also want to remind/encourage my returning students to consider being a part of the Torrance cable project that Hope presented in class last week, it could help encourage other people who have retired or are thinking of retiring and wondering what they are going to do with their life to get out and try something they may have thought they were too old to do. I think my mom would have been up to it if she were still alive, she was learning new things almost to the day she died and she was 94, so not only would you be doing a good deed encouraging other seniors, you can show your friends and family what you do. Think about it. See you in class.

ACRYLIC CLASS SPRING 2013

Project: Desert Wash Walk

Here is the link to the Picture page for this semester.
https://plus.google.com/photos/110300529433736983967/albums/5859327791094922657?banner=pwa

Feel free to download both the reference photo and the drawing to be used in class. Let me know if you have problems with the link, Google has been messing with things again now there are two places I have to tell it to share, at least the 2 that I could find.

See you in class.