Winter 2014 Acrylic Class

Winter 2014 Acrylic Class

Project:Arizona Color

Week 1

The project we will be doing in class is called a “composite” because we are using more than one reference source to create our painting. As artists we have more options than a photographer who has to go into photo shop to try and duplicate what we can create with just a few strokes and it can take a lot more hours to get a photograph even close to what an artist can do, though not impossible in this day of computers, but as artists, we are the ultimate in photo shop.

I chose these 2 photos from my trip to Arizona because I liked them both but I didn’t think that either of them was a strong enough subject on its own but I like the idea of the two together because I could do reflections. Had there been someplace for me to get the right angle I could have gotten a photo very similar to what we will be painting but there just was no place for me to stand to get exactly what I wanted but my artist’s mind was already solving that problem coming up with this composition.

Having good reference material is essential to any artist and if you want to grow as an artist you need to start building your own “library” so you have material that you feel drawn to, not what someone else enjoys painting. Digital cameras make it simple to store your own photos and go through them to find subjects, or you can go online these days to “images” and search on any subject your heart’s desire. Or cut things out of the paper or magazines and keep folders and you can collect postcards to put in your files. A word of warning though: If you are using

someone else’s photograph, you cannot copy it straight out then sell the painting. For your own use it is fine or you can give it away, but if you intend to sell your work at some point, use these photos only for reference. This is why we use my photos in class for learning purposes, the photos and the drawing are still my “creation” and I hold the rights.

When I was planning this painting, while I liked the one photo of the trees, the sky was a bit blah and the distant mountain wasn’t very exciting of one but it was also a color that wasn’t going to be repeated anywhere else in my painting so I used my artistic license and changed both the sky and the mountain color to harmonize more with the rest of my painting. Using the warm colors of yellow and orange they not only went better with the rest of the painting but they also suggested the heat of the desert. You don’t always have to follow the photo exactly and you really shouldn’t anyway.

I was using my 2” blending brush, the one with the very soft bristles, to start this painting. The first thing I did was to spray my canvas with water and with the blending brush make sure the surface of the canvas was coated with water, then I picked up some gesso on my brush and coated the top half with gesso using a circular motion of my brush to make sure I had a nice even coat of paint. Since this is all wet into wet, you will need to work quickly so once you get your canvas coated with gesso, on one corner of your brush pick up a good amount of yellow and on the other a small (less than a quarter of what you have for your yellow), streak it horizontally across the top of your canvas to about half way across, then with long flat “X” strokes, using the full width of your brush so it covers the full 2”s (not using it on its horizontal axis but its vertical one) and very little pressure on your brush (the bristles will hardly bend if you are doing it correctly), blend these colors together then blend them down to the horizon. The paint will blend with the gesso on the canvas to create a graded sky area (darker at the top, lighter on the bottom), this is what you want.

WHILE YOUR SKY IS STILL WET, pick up some more yellow and orange with maybe a tiny touch of sienna, this time mix on your palette to get an orange color that is just slightly darker than your sky (I was still using my blending brush). Using the full edge of the brush, I pulled down and created the edge of my mountain. Using the end of my brush and pulling in to the mountain creates a soft edge which is very important when you are trying to create distance, you can use any stroke to fill in the mountain but remember to keep your edges soft.

The sky, the mountain  and the gesso should still be wet if you want to switch to a #8 or #10 bristle brush you can but you still want to be working while the paint is wet on your canvas.

With my #10 bristle brush, I picked up my Hooker’s green, sienna, ultramarine blue almost any of my darker colors then stared blending them ON MY CANVAS not on the palette. This will create pockets of unmixed color that will look like rocks or bushes or whatever and that is a good thing for this area. When I get to the edge of that hillside, the wet sky and mountain color will mix with the paint on your brush to create a lighter color, that is a good thing also, it starts the highlighting process. Remember that the edge of the hillside is abunch of sagebrush, rocks and cactus not a manicured lawn, be sure to have an interesting shape creating the profile of the bushes and whatever else there might be. Look at the photo and see how much eye movement there is if you follow the edge of the hill.

Continue to paint the hillside with this dark color and use a variety of strokes, this is not a wall, you will want to keep in mind the rocks and bushes and cactus as you are painting. Most of the hillside is in shadow but we will be putting a few highlights where the sun maybe creeping over and hitting the tops of some of the taller brushes next week. This color should come down a bit below the center of your painting.

In class I stopped just the above the dirt and water so most of your canvases were dry when you started this next step, however, if I were painting this at home, I would have continued to paint and used the wet into wet to blend the bottom of my hillside into the shadow of the dirt along the river and finish with the under painting of the water. When you are comfortable with working wet into wet I hope you try to do as much as you can because in the long run, I think you will like the results better, plus you won’t be stopping as often, stopping and starting again breaks you concentration and your momentum that you have to get going when you start to paint again.

The dirt starts back at the bottom of the hillside in the shadows, so still using my #10 bristle brush, I picked up sienna, blue and purple, lightly mixed on my palette though I didn’t have to, using long flat strokes, I started painting the dark color up next to the dark green and lightly dry brushing some of this new dark color into the green and down a bit from the green, distance will vary depending on your painting so you will have to make a judgment call.

As I worked away from the green area I picked up more sienna and touches of orange that mixed with the colors that were still on my brush to create a lighter version of what I had before to finish the dirt before you get to the water.

The water is going to be similar colors but you are going to use just 2 strokes: either horizontal or vertical. Water can be tricky to make it look flat ad to it we are going to have reflections we need to be mindful of our strokes because they will tell the viewer the whole story of the water. The horizontal strokes keep the water flat, the vertical strokes help create the reflection.

Still using the #10 bristle brush with sienna, blue, purple and my horizontal strokes I start adding color to the water area. As I am adding these colors I also pick up other colors like orange or yellow of straight blue or green and lightly blend them in with the original color pulling across, then lightly pull down. When I say lightly I mean barely touching the canvas. While you want to blend the colors somewhat, you don’t want to totally blend them to create just one solid color, you want to see the variations which become the reflections or stuff under the water, this is also a good thing so even if the blending feels good, stop before you blend too much or you will have to start over again to create your reflections.

This is where we stopped so try to get your painting up to this point for next class. I will tell you as I sat and looked at my painting while I was writing this post, I saw a number of things I don’t like and need to fix so the beginning of the class I will be showing you how to fix things or change things that just don’t “feel” right, it happens in every painting and is nothing to panic about, you just fix it, so if you want to see how I handle the situation get to class early because I will have to fix things before I move on. See you all in class.

Winter 2014 Acrylic Class

Exercise: Wet into Wet Blending.

As all of you found out wet into wet blending can be a challenge but it is a challenge you need to take up if you want your art to move on to the next level. It will bring a looseness that most artists crave as well as a more spontaneous look and feel to your art. Since all of my students this time are returning and you have a semester or more under your belt, it is time to step out of your comfort zone so you can grow as an artist.

We started with the basic sphere shape or more to the point, we started out with a circle and with shading we turned it into a sphere at least that was the goal. Many of you found it a bit harder than I made it look, remember, I am the teacher for a reason, I’ve been doing this for years and I understand what I have to do, for most of you, this is not the case. I can just paint because I know what I am doing, what my paints will do, what my brushes will do and how to use them, I don’t have to think, I just paint. As students you are thinking about EVERYTHING! The paint, the value, what brush, how much pressure to use, where is the light coming from? How much water do I use? What did she say again? All of these things are running through your head along with countless other worries and concerns, even a lot of second guessing, it makes it hard to paint. I know it is difficult but you need to shut the conversation down in your head. Look at your goal – the sphere – and break it down into workable pieces. The first thing you need to do is find a place to start.

I start with my circle. It does not need to be perfect, close enough will do. Next: Where is your light coming from and where will it hit on your circle? I had mine, for this demo. Coming in from the upper right, slightly forward, but practice this from different light angles because depending on what you are painting the light isn’t always going to be come from the same direction every time. You should also practice on different shapes circles get boring.

Now that you have your circle and know your light source, where do you start to paint? This comes down to a personal choice at some point so I will tell you my reasoning for starting this the way I did from dark to light. I can mix my dark (blue, burnt sienna or umber and a touch of purple) or, for this exercise, you can use black if you have it, and it will be pure dark with no contaminants from lighter colors, then into this dark I can add touches of white and blend to my lightest area and with planning and careful painting, I will have the complete value gradient from my darkest dark to my lightest light.

Each layer will be done exactly the same so I won’t repeat the description for each layer so just repeat as necessary. I was using a #6 bristle brush but I could use any brush, the #6 was a good size for the area I was working on. I do suggest that you use the biggest brush you can work comfortably with, put the small brushes away when you are working wet into wet, you want to work quickly, small brushes are for detail, we are not doing detail here.

I took the dark paint I mixed (see above, but you should know this by heart) and I started painting at the bottom of my circle and using strokes that followed the shape of the circle I painted about a third of the left hand side with the dark value almost to the top. I wiped my brush out, I DID NOT CLEAN IT and picked up some straight gesso (white will work as well), then starting just a little above my dark area, I added the white, which will turn a dark gray with the paint left from the dark in your brush and painted another quarter or so of the circle’s left side following the curve of the soon to be sphere. Wipe the brush out again to get out any excess paint, then go back to the space between the dark and the next value and work the two areas together: the dark into the gray, the gray into the dark, just be careful not to go all the way into the dark or all the way into the grey and watch the pressure you use on your brush, to get a nice blend you will need to use a very light pressure or even your finger so soften the two areas together.

Wipe your brush out well but you still don’t need to clean it, pick up some more white and repeat the process with your next layer. When you are at your lightest light area, then you can clean out your brush well then with straight white for the highlight, finish your sphere. If you have worked the paint and brushes correctly, there should be no real discernable line between each value change with a dark shadow and a light highlight and your circle should now look like a sphere. Start to finish should only take you 5 minutes or so. Practice.

The second exercise we did was using our 2” blending brushes. We haven’t use these much in the past but they are very handy brushes to have and can create skies and distant hills in a hurry so you can get on to the detail you all love J.

Some of you still do not have a proper blending brush, if the bristles are stiff like your bristle brushes, it will not work for this technique, the bristles need to be very soft, I think they are goat hair, it feels like a blush brush, it is so soft when you blend with it, it looks like you did it with an air brush. It is also called a “haki” (hookey) brush. Stiff bristles will leave streaks and marks you will never get rid of so be sure you have a blending brush and feel it before you buy it. Some of the TV artists like Jerry Yarnell, Bob Ross and the Jenkins have great blending brushes, if you can’t find them in the store, you can go on-line check the links on the side, Jerry Yarnell’s you can call and they will send it right out and their prices are competitive with Cheap Joe’s or Dick Blick. Check the web sites.

 When every your wet or rinse you blending brush be sure to dry it well. I will squeegee it through my fingers to get rid of the excess water AND use a paper towel because they will hold a lot of water and that will cause you problems with your paint and/or gesso being too thin and running. You want a damp brush not a wet one.

I use my spray bottle to wet the canvas then take my blending brush and make sure the water is spread across the area I want wet, check your brush to be sure it isn’t dripping then pick up some straight gesso on your brush and apply it to your canvas so you have a nice thin layer of gesso across what will be our sky. You can wipe your brush or not before you pick up a bit of yellow on one corner and a bit of red or orange on the other, then streak this horizontally across the bottom of your sky. Remember we are working wet into wet so the gesso should still be wet when you add the yellow and orange.

When you have your color on you will start the blending process by using big, overlapping, long “x” strokes and very little pressure on your brush. As the late Bob Ross would say “Three hairs and some air” and that about sums it up. You may want to stand because you simply cannot get the freeness in your arm if you are sitting down. If you need to sit push your chair back from the table so you are at arm’s length to give yourself more freedom of movement and it will get you away from your canvas which is a good thing. Work quickly.

When you have these colors on your canvas, rinse your brush well, be sure to dry it, then pick up blue on one corner and a touch of purple and maybe a touch of sienna on the other – mostly blue – and streak these colors across the TOP of the sky. With the same “X” stroke as above, blend the blue colors down to almost where the warm colors are, then clean your brush again to get out all the blue and purple, with your clean, dry brush, start in the warmer area, again with the big “x’s” and lightly blend up into the blue area and back down. Don’t go too far up into the blue area or it could become too light (remember the problems with the sphere). You will need to wipe your brush out often so your colors don’t get too muddy, keep your paper towel handy.

I do need to mention if your sky turns green, you may be using the wrong blue. I use ultramarine blue because it is student friendly when it comes to mixing, if you are using Pthalo (thalo) blue, which tends to be a bit on the green side anyway, you will get this lovely shade of brilliant green in your sky, pick up some red and work it in, that should neutralize the green but a little bit of green won’t hurt.

This should only have taken you less than 3 or 4 minutes and everything should still be wet. No, I am not joking. If you have to lightly spray your sky to keep it wet and workable, be sure to blend in the water so it doesn’t leave spots.

Still using the blending brush, I mixed a color with blue, purple, a touch of sienna and white that was just a shade darker than my sky. It should be a purplish/gray color, then pull your blending brush through it on both sides to create an edge on the bristles of the brush. Using this edge, create the tops of your distant mountains, this will give you a nice soft edge combined with the wet sky, it will create distance in your painting.

The next layer is done much the same but this time add a touch more sienna and blue but only change it a value or two, this is still the background. The next layer, to the same color you have been working in, add some green and create yet another layer of hills or mountains, this is still wet into wet. The more layers you make the more distance you create in your painting, the more distant something is the lighter and grayer it will be.

For closer trees add more green, but this time turn your brush sideways and pull down and overlap your strokes, make an interesting edge, higher, lower, it isn’t a hedge. Nearer trees can have more detail, they are darker and have more color but will still be a bit on the gray side. Start to finish on this exercise should take less than 10 minutes, the sky should still be a bit damp.

Practice these wet into wet techniques and you will build up your speed as it becomes more familiar to you and it will open up a whole new world of possibilities for you. If you want to be more impressionistic, this is where you start. Have fun, don’t sweat the small stuff and if worse comes to worse – I’m sure it will for a while – there is always gesso.

Be ready to work when we come back from MLK break and I will see you all soon.