Acrylic Project: From My Garden

Week 3

By this time you should have your background done and veggies based in. Some of you have created your own designs with different fruit or vegetables you will have to get your own reference as far as color and highlights just keep in mind that the light is coming from the front, upper right hand side as if there was a window opposite from the set up illuminating the veggies.

Once you have things based in you can start bringing shape and life to your veggies with more color and shading. This is not the final shading so please do not try to finish as you go, you want to try and keep all of your painting to the same degree of effort throughout the painting process so you don’t overwork one area and under work other areas, so move around your painting and you will like the results much better.

All of the veggies have a base color such as orange or yellow or green, this will be where you start with your color and to that you will add color to darken and slightly gray the colors for now, like I said, this is not the finished painting, we still have some work to do to establish our values.

To gray a color or to create a shadow or form shadow color, you will need to add a form of the colors compliment color. For those of you who are unfamiliar with the color wheel there are 3 primary colors: Blue, yellow and red and they are on the thirds of the wheel. If you mix equal parts midway between each of the primary colors you get secondary colors: Green, orange and purple. Green is between blue and yellow, orange is between red and yellow and purple is between blue and red, these secondary colors are directly across from a primary color: Red – Green, Blue – Orange, Yellow – Purple. This is the simple version, there are whole courses on color and color theory and volumes of books if you want to know more, but for our purposes this is what you need to remember. So when I say to create a shadow color or a grayed color, what I mean is to add its compliment or some form of its compliment.

Most of you don’t have any trouble mixing mud, it is very easy to do your color just needs to have all 3 primary colors present and they cancel each other out creating a muddy gray color, usually not the color we want. The way to create a softer grayer color is to start out with the color

you want – say green – to gray the color you will need to add red or something with red in it like sienna or purple, depending on what you need. The red or sienna, which is in the orange family, or orange these will gray the color but not change its value too much (values is the lightness or darkness of a color), purple will not only change the color but can change the value to a darker form of green. Conversely, if you are working with red, you will add some form of green to gray the color.

The key to color mixing, especially when you are learning, is to sneak up on the color you want. Some colors like sienna and purple or pthalo blue or pthalo green are very potent colors and little amounts go a very long way, for instance if you were trying to add purple to gray the yellow for the zucchini you would NOT want to mix them in equal amounts or you would get a grayed purple, even 10 yellow to 1 purple may be too much but it is a much better place to start than 1:1.

I’m not going to give a stroke by stroke description for each element in the painting, you will have to look at what your are painting and mix paint accordingly but do keep in mind that where

the shadows are. I was using a synthetic sable flat brush because it gives me more control, I started in the shadowed areas with a darker color and on some of the veggies they have grooves where they are darker in the recesses, then as I worked up to lighter areas, I added the lighter version of the color I was using and in some cases just a little gesso to lighten. I am nowhere near the highlights so this is just to create the form. My brush strokes followed the shape of the object and all of these things are rounded so watch your strokes.

The last thing I did was I darkened the background corners even more. This is a personal choice, I like dramatic light, however, if you don’t want it as dark, you do not have to make it as dark as mine. Finishing up a project is always up to you to fit your needs and your likes, I just show you how I finish a project like this to show you one option in an infinite world of options, you will make your own choices.

There is a possibility we/I could finish this project in our next class or possibly the following class, in either case we are getting close to the finish line so you may want to start looking around for something you want to work on for the rest of the semester and I have help you get started. See you all in class.

Acrylic Class Project : From My Garden

Week 2

Once you have your background in you may sketch in the veggies or whatever you have decided to paint. For now we have stopped working on the background but that is not to say we are finished with it, as your painting progresses you may or may not want to go back in and “fine tune” the background as needed.

I am not going to go with a blow by blow narrative of every veggie on there because besides the color, everything will be pretty much the same for each thing you paint, I will point out the things you need to keep in mind.

First off your brush, the size of your brush will depend on the size of your canvas. I was using my #6 flat bristle brush and was working on a 16 x 20 canvas, however, if you are working on a smaller canvas you might want to go to a #4 flat bristle, the general rule of brushes especially when you are just basing in your painting is to use the largest brush you can comfortable use for the size canvas you are working on. At this stage you want to cover things quickly and without too much fussing, so put away the smaller brushes and save your sable brushes for later and get out the bristle brushes and find one at a size that will cover quickly.

Next your paint. I am still seeing some of you put out just the paint you think you might need, then you struggle to mix your paint because the paint you need isn’t on your palette and you try to find an alternative but it doesn’t exist because the colors just aren’t there. If you can’t find meat tray, get some cheap plastic plates at the $.99 store and a plastic bag to store them in and put ALL your paints out! There are many times when I will add almost every color on my palette just to change the “flavor” of something so I don’t have just one boring color and in this case, every color will be used at some point when painting the veggies because they run from purple on through red with every color in between, so put out your paint. If you keep it moist and sealed in between uses it will stay good for weeks.

Watch the water you add to your paint. Your paint should be the consistency of soft butter to go on smoothly, if it is too thick, it is as much a problem then if it is too thin, you just use a bit more. If your paint is too thin, it won’t cover well, it will run it will cause you problems galore! Get into the habit when you rinse your brush that you dry it out completely. If you need to add a bit of moisture to your paint, look on your palette for drops of water or get it from another wet brush before you dip the brush you are working with into the glass of water. It takes very little water to get the results you need so it is better to sneak up on it than having to add more paint to thicken up paint that is too wet.

Keep in mind your brush strokes when you are painting. Everything in this painting is basically round, some have multiple curves, your brush strokes need to follow the curves of each thing you paint. This is not a wall, nothing is flat, you need to follow the shapes you are painting. Watch the outside edges of things as well so you don’t have hard edges with ridges of paint, these are very hard to get rid of without the use of sandpaper. It is better to use the end of your brush and pull in to form the edges than to try and do the whole edge in one fell swoop of the brush. On the insides of the shapes, you can use a scumbling stroke which simply means your brush can go in all direction, just not all in one direction.

The color of the veggies to start will be basically the middle tone of each veggie. In acrylic, we start with a medium dark and work to the dark and the light areas. It will look pretty bad when you get this stage done so don’t be discouraged. This is what I call the “terminal ugly” stage when you think there is no hope to salvage the painting but in reality, it is a good under painting.

You can start almost anywhere but I do like to start in the back and work forward so I will start with the pumpkin in the behind the yellow zucchini:

Note: I will be working in the same pile of paint and just adding or adjusting the color as I move from shape to shape I also did not wash or rinse my brush until noted.

Pumpkin – Orange with a touch of red and green for a burnt orange color.

Table queen squash – to the above color add some yellow and a touch more green.

Yellow onion – I added some burnt sienna and a tiny touch of purple to the color.

Cantaloupe – Added back in some more green and yellow with a touch of blue

Green Zucchs – added more hooker’s green and blue for a muddled green color

Purple peppers – I did rinse out my brush well and dried it off before I changed to this new color.

I mixed purple with either the ultramarine blue or if you have cobalt that will work as well.

Garlic – to the purple mix I added a touch of white (gesso) and a little of the orangish color from before to give me a soft grayed lavender color.

Rinse out your brush completely for the tomatoes and be sure to dry your brush well.

Using either the cad red (if you have it) or the napthol red, add some extra orange and a touch of either green to slightly darken and gray the color.

The cherry tomatoes can be easily done by loading your brush with paint, put the whole brush on the canvas with one corner at the center of the tomato, then pivot the rest of the brush around the centered corner. Be sure to overlap the small tomatoes, they will look more natural if you do.

I did not put the stems in yet, I will do that probably next class but I did add the green sprouts coming off the yellow onion with a bit of Hooker’s green and a bit of blue.

If you are painting other veggies or fruit, look for a middle valued tone  and that will be what you use to under paint your painting.

Good luck, I will see you all next week.

SPRING 2014 ACARYLIC CLASS

Week 1: Project – From My Garden

For my new students and for my returning students who forget, the best way to start an acrylic painting is from what is behind the subject and move forward so for this painting the background and the table the veggies sit on are behind everything that is where we start.

At this point in time you really don’t need to do any drawing other than maybe a horizon line about a third of the way up from the bottom and that is only to let you know when to change from background color to table colors. When we are done, our whole canvas will be covered. This will prevent the “cut and paste” look that can happen when you try to avoid painting where things are in your painting, this can be done even in oils where the oil paint scraped away where things will go or wait for it to get tacky, with acrylics, we just let it dry and then paint right over it. It creates a much smoother, coherent background.

This is the watercolor version

We haven’t used our blending brush too often though this is a great place to use it. The blending brush is the big, soft bristled brush we use to create almost airbrush-like backgrounds and is perfect for this background. However, I know that many of you have not found a blending brush yet so not to worry, you can use the largest bristle brush you have and while it may not be as smooth as using a blending brush, you can get a very nice “painterly” background following the same steps, and/or you can start off with the bristle brush then soften the brush marks with the blending brush, it all depends on what equipment you have or what look you are going for.

The background color here can be any color you want or need it to be, I just used green because everyone seemed to like the green version I did in watercolor but if you have an area where you think you might like to hang this when you finish or if you want to give it to a friend who has a certain color in their home, you can modify the color to fit your needs, the technique will be the same, the colors will very.

I will warn you now that you need to work quickly once you start because all of the following narrative only covers about 5 minutes worth of time, otherwise, the paint dries and it becomes a different technique.

The first thing I did was to wet my canvas. This will help the paint go on easier and will give you a bit more blending time. Keep your spray bottle handy just in case you need a bit more water to finish your blending. Next, IN THE AREA THAT WILL BE THE LIGHTEST I applied gesso to that area and just a bit beyond. The gesso will help make the area light as well as help blending but I don’t want it in the dark areas because it will make them too light then you will have to go back over with darker colors when this layer has dried. It isn’t a problem to fix, it just makes another step.

I start in the gessoed background area with yellow or a touch of the color you want to use, and blend it out from the center using crisscross strokes – big “x’s” – or scumbling, which is going every which direction with your brush whether you are using a bristle brush or a blender. The worst thing you can do here is to paint it like a wall with flat strokes, mix it up, put some life into it. This color should go down into the table area.

You don’t need to rinse your brush yet, just pick up a bit of sap or Hooker’s green or whatever color you are choosing , start on the outside of the light area and work your way in towards the center, blending and lightening the pressure on your brush as you get closer to the center. This is the tricky part because most of you over blend because you are either going over it too much or using too much pressure or both, you goal is to make a nice graded transition from the darker outside to a lighter inside so you don’t see where one starts and the other ends. This takes practice and trust in yourself. If you get the center too dark, wipe out your brush, pick up some gesso and start in the center and blend out to make it lighter. Everything can be fixed so don’t panic, just do your best.

Now rinse your brush out really good because you will want to get out all the white gesso. Be sure that you dry it completely so you don’t have any excess water in your brush or it will thin your paint too much.

I usually double or triple load my brush when I am doing this and you may want to as well, even if it seems a bit scary at first, it gives a much more interesting background when you blend colors on your canvas. for my painting I picked up Hooker’s green, a touch of blue and purple, if you are using a different color scheme, you will want to use the darkest version of the color you have and add blue and/or purple, then start in the corners away from the light area blending the color just up to the light area but not going into it yet, you want to get all the darker areas painted in first, then rinse your brush out good and dry it.

Starting at the edge of the lighter area, using crisscross strokes and a very light touch (no pressure on your brush) start blending into the dark area. Wipe off your brush often especially when you go back into the light area. You want a gradual transition of color but in the process you don’t want your light area to become dark or your dark area to become too light. Practice make perfect, this will come in time.

You will do a similar thing where the table will be but you will use some different colors. Once again, if you want it to be a table cloth instead of a wooden table, the choice is yours, I’m doing the wood because I like wood.

It has taken you longer to read all this than it should take you to get to this point, if your light area is a bit tacky lightly spritz the area with water then quickly blend it in. Depending on what you decide to make this area, you might want to add a bit of yellow or warm color into the light area to add a bit of sunlight, rinse your brush and starting on the outside edges of the table area and this time using long flat crisscross strokes (this CAN be painted like a wall) start in the dark area and blend across until you get to the light area and do just what you did above when blending the 2 areas together. I was using sienna and purple in the corner adding sienna as I got closer to the light area.

This will come easier each time you do this. If it is not perfect this time, don’t worry, mine isn’t either but I’m not worried about it. I know I am going to have things in front of it so no one will notice anyway. This is a great background technique for many things beyond still life such as portraits or when you want a vignette, even starting a landscape, I can see in mine coming out from a dark forest into a light meadow, the possibilities are limited only to your imagination. It is a good thing to learn.

For next class, if you can draw your veggies on with your charcoal or chalk that would be a good thing, be sure that you fill the canvas with the subject, if you have problems, wait for class and I will help you, I want to see your drawing before you start painting because I have been seeing a lot of 8 x 10 drawings on a 16 x 20 canvas. See you soon.