ACRYLIC CLASS SUMMER 20013

Acrylic Class Project: Moonlight Fishing

Week 4

This week we added some highlights to the foam of the crashing waves, more highlights in the moon track and added some foam to the shore.

The highlights on the foam will be done in stages and that deep lavender blue that you have for the under painting will be the shadows in the foam. The next layer of color is going to be just slightly lighter using the same color (thalo, purple and white) just adding a bit more white to is to lighten the color. If you want it a bit bluer, add a bit more thalo just be sure that the value is lighter than what you have on your canvas.

Load your brush (I used my #4 flat bristle) by tapping it straight down in your palette to “fuzz” out the end to give it an interesting shape, then lightly tap or using the side of the brush, roll this color into your wave foam. When you are tapping on your color be sure to overlap your strokes to soften them as you go and when you reload you can pick up touches of white or blue or purple and tap them in to blend them together to create a soft blend. This is called wet into wet and it can create some beautiful effects. Keep lighter colors to the top darker colors to the bottom. I also want you to think about what you are painting: Bouncing, boiling, tumbling foam. Try to recreate that violent action with your brush strokes, use your fingers to blend if you have to, practice on a scrape canvas or piece of paper if you are uncertain, just don’t be timid. The worst thing that can happen is you have to paint it over again, no big deal. Every artist has to redo something in almost every painting if not a lot of somethings, it is the nature of the beast and with practice you will get better in time.

At this point if you feel more comfortable working on a dry canvas, you can wait for the foam to dry or you can start right into the bright highlight doing more wet into wet, choice is yours either way you will mix your highlight color which will be very similar to the color you used for your moon: Mostly white/gesso and a very tiny touch of thalo to slightly tint the white. Mix enough to have for later because we will use this for the base on the next layer of highlight on the water. Load you brush the way you did before for the foam so you have an interesting shape at the end of your brush, then lightly tap mostly along the top part of the wave. Create shapes of the top of the foam or create little pieces of foam that have broken off flying through the air be creative but be careful not to get too carried away, the highlight is just along the top where it might get hit by the moonlight. Less is more in the case of highlights here. Again, use your fingers to blend if you have to, this should be a soft looking area.

Once you are satisfied with your foam, if you have some shore line (sand and foam) and not all of you did and that is okay, but if you do, you can under paint that area now so it can be drying while you work on something else.

Wave and shore demo

The shoreline sand is sienna, purple and ultramarine blue, I prefer to mix this on my canvas but you can mix on your palette, just to mix to well, the variation in color is a good thing. I was still using my #4 flat bristle brush and just scumbled the color on go into the area where the water with foam will be (almost up to the wave) and be sure that where you end the color the edge is soft, you don’t want any hard lines. When you get the area covered you can use either the same brush or a bigger brush to LIGHTLY pull straight down, then LIGHTLY straight across, you don’t want to remove all the brush strokes just suggest others, this is starting the reflection process.

While that area is drying you can add some more highlights to the moon track. In the paint you mixed for the highlight on the foam add a bit more thalo and a touch of Hooker’s green, you want a color that is a shade or so lighter in value than the last layer of highlight you put on, however, you do not want it to be as bright as the moon just yet, that will be the next layer. 

Again, I used my #4 flat bristle but if you want you can use a flat sable brush as long as you keep your strokes reasonably flat and the edges of your light track uneven. And PLEASE do not cover up everything that is there already, the dark under painting is the shadows of incoming waves, the last highlight was water that is only catching a bit of light, this highlight is water that is catching a bit more light and the final highlight will be just the very tops or waves that are catching the moonlight. Think of it as a pyramid with the dark color at the bottom the first highlight about a third of the way up from the bottom, this next highlight is about 2/3s up and at the very top is the bright final highlight. Each time there is less paint leaving a bit of what you painted before showing, this is important especially in a night scene where light is limited you don’t want to flood an area with light.

Close-up of foam  and sand

Back to the shore to put some foam in. This is the residual foam that washes up to the shore, it is not clean and pristine like what is forming on the crashing wave, it is full of dirt and algae so you can add a lot of different colors into the foam and it will look right so if you still have any of that color you were just using for the highlight on the water, you can use that as a base but mix into it more Hooker’s, a touch of burnt sienna and a little touch of purple, you want sort of a grey green color. I was still using my #4 brush though this time when I loaded it I wanted to have the bristles more together so I pulled it through the paint on both sides to bring the bristles together. On my canvas with the end of the brush, I made a series of flat, overlapping strokes that were more or less parallel to the top and bottom of the canvas. I left some holes in this area so that the sand color showed through. I would occasionally pick up other colors like Hooker’s or sienna or blue or purple and work it into the foam area. When my strokes got back to the wave, I changed direction because the wave is building up and will drag the foam with it, just curve your strokes with the curve of the face of the wave (see picture page).

If you want, you can put a few dark shadows under the edge of the foam where it hits the sand and in a few places where it is floating in the water, this will give it depth also, you can take a bit of cobalt blue (or ultramarine with a touch of white) and dry brush it horizontally across the sand area, it is just a soft glaze, then quickly pull the color straight down with the end of your brush, it will look like a glaze of water.

Next week we will be adding a few highlights to the foam and the glow of the moon and maybe get the pier based in so please try to be caught up to this point so we can move forward. See you all soon.