ACRYLIC CLASS SUMMER 2013

Acrylic Class Project: Moonlight Fishing

We are getting close to the finish line on this project, I think one more class and I will have done all I can do but not to worry if you have missed classes you can finish it up if you want in the remaining classes for this semester and I will come around and help where it is needed.

The last class I demonstrated how to put a glow aroundthe moon, however, I do want to reiterate that if you don’t want to add the glow or anything else, you don’t have to, details are up to you. I show how to do something so in case you feel so inclined you will know the steps, same goes for the pier, if you don’t want to put in the pier or you want to put in something else, it is totally up to you. What I show you is part of my vision and I am sharing it with you, you need to decide if it is the direction you want to go.

That said, I started with the moon glow and final highlights on the water. You will want to mix a color very similar to the base moon color and that is white (gesso) and a tiny, tiny touch of thalo blue. You just want to slightly tint the white so sneak up on that thalo blue with caution. I had about a table spoon’s worth of gesso (what I use instead of white) and to that I added maybe a double pin’s head size of thalo and I ended up adding more white because the blue was so strong even that tiny amount was more than I needed so don’t go jabbing your brush into the thalo, just lightly touch a few bristles to it and check to see how much you actually picked up, you may need to wipe some off. Your color should look just slightly bluish.

Once you get your color mixed, this is going to be a dry brush technique so you will need to wipe most of the paint off your brush. I was using my #4 flat bristle and using the small side of it. My brush was very parallel to the canvas and I was using very little pressure, plus, I used and over-hand hold, not like a pencil, so I had more versatility when moving my brush.

 

Glow can go over clouds.

Glow fades out.

On my canvas, starting just inside the edge of the moon, I started making little, dry brush circles then working my way out into the sky creating the glow. The further away from the moon you are, the lighter the pressure should be on the brush so that the glow just fades into space. If you have clouds going over the moon, go over them as well with this dry brush color to soften them and give them a more transparent look. You can also use this same color and same technique to highlight a few of the clouds but just the top parts that face the moon. Do as much or as little as you want but make sure that you are doing dry brush, you may want to practice on a spare canvas if you are unsure of how to do this technique. The amount of paint and the pressure you apply to the brush are critical. It is also better to have to go over an area again to build up the density thant to try to do it in one step because you can get too much and that is a harder problem to fix rather than building up the color in the first place.

The bright highlight in mostly in the
center and on the top of waves

When you have the glow the way you want it, switch brushes to either your liner or a small sable – I used my #4 flat sable brush but a small round sable brush will also work – and starting right under the moon start adding dips and dabs or this color and apply it pretty thick. This color will stay mostly in the center of the light track from the moon but it is only going to be hitting the tops of waves. Just like the previous colors we added to the light track, you want the edges of this color to be very random, it shouldn’t look like you could draw a straight line from the moon to the shore on either side. In the distance the dips and dabs will be smaller and closer together and as you come to the foreground they will be a bit longer – though not all of them vary the size – and further apart. This color can also be used to add the final bright highlights on the ver tops of the foam and waves.

When you have finished with the glow and the highlights NOW you can add the pier or whatever you were going to put in your painting. You may need to use white or light colored chalk to sketch in your pier because it might be too dark for charcoal to show up, either way be sure to blow off any excess dust when you are done.

You will need to mix a dark color for the under painting of the pier, to do this use all your dark colors: thalo blue, Hooker’s green, purple, burnt umber if you have it, burnt sienna if you don’t, even ultramarine blue, any two or three of these or all of them make a very dark color, the 3 I underlined will be good enough, the color will look black and that is what you want. You may also want to use the same small brush you used for the wave highlights for this part of the painting because it will give you more control than a bristle brush of similar size to get the pylons under the pier the right size and to add details.

The detail is just shapes.

A word about the details under the pier or on it for that matter: They are just shapes. The quicker you do the “details” the better it will be. Straight thicker lines will look like boards thinner lines will look like pipes or whatnot that hangs down under the pier, let the viewer do some of the work, your job is just to suggest that something is going on the person looking at your painting will fill in the blanks. Even the people are just going to be just dots and lines, they will be suggestions not portraits.

That is where we stopped in class; I think we can finish up in the next class. If you want to get something else started before the semester ends bring your reference material and canvas to class and I can help you get started if you need help. See you all soon.