FALL 2013 ACRYLIC CLASS

ACRYLIC PROJECT: Water Lily Week 7

We are getting near the end of our project which usually means detail and the more detailed you want to be the slower the process which is why we haven’t made as much progress the past couple weeks. I don’t want to rush you and there are things that need to be understood to get right, I do hope that with the long break that most of you were able to get caught up so we can finish up in the next class.

I did add in the front petals to the flower again using that base color from my water and just adding a bit of gesso/white to it to lighten it and I used my #10 flat sable to paint them in. A word of caution here: These petals are what is called “foreshortened” what that means is all or parts of the petal are coming straight at you which gives you a challenge with the perspective. Look at the petals very carefully BEFORE you paint them. You might want to do what I did and that is using your charcoal, sketch them in then check it against the photo of the real thing. Some of you got them too short others got them too long, this is a trick of your brain. It knows that all the petals should be about the same length but because of the foreshortened perspective it over compensates one way or the other.

Another thing to be aware of is even though the front petals have a different perspective the one thing that doesn’t change is that they all grow out from the center, so once again, you strokes need to follow that growth pattern and lead back to the center.

There is also the petal that goes under the water and it is a slightly different petal as well. I

believe that it was one of the outer petals that covered the whole bud before it opened so it is a bit larger and a bit thicker than the others not to mention a bit greener and darker in color, you will want to take the color you have for the other petals and add touches of sap green and a bit more blue so it is a gray green color.

Still using the #10 flat sable brush, I started up near the body of the flower and pulled down to the waterline. Because of the refraction of light through water, I skipped a little space and moved the brush over just a bit and finished the stroke to the end of the petal. I repeated this process until I got the whole petal painted in. Skipping that little space is important, however, if you painted it in one stroke not to worry it can be fixed.

I have not painted in the shadows yet but I do hope to get to them during the next class. The reason I waited to paint in the shadow reflection is I wanted to know exactly where my flower was going to be so I could paint the shadows to match the flower above it and not the other way around. I did notice that many of you skipped on ahead and tried to paint in the shadows and from what I saw the shadows/reflection had too hard of lines so if you look at your painting and your shadow lines are hard (sharp edges) you might want to paint them out and try again.

The shadows/reflections and the final highlights should finish this painting up so I hope that everyone will be there at our next session, there will only be one more week after the next class before we break for the holidays. See you all soon.