ACRYLIC FALL 2015 CLASS Project: Cool Refuge Final

 My finished chair. Added more cracks, changed the way the vines hung, added highlights to the plant under the chair and the cobble stones.

 Added more cracks and highlights to the chair especially the front facing parts. Added rust around the nails and more color to give it some life.

 

 Highlights on the plant are cool highlights using soft greens and blues and slightly darker versions under the chair. I also added touches of orange and sienna because if you look at the photo you will see those colors.

I just suggested detail in the distant cobble stones. They are too far in the background to see much detail and those of you who have done detail, it takes away from your subject the chair.

 I took out some of the vines I had going across but left them in the corner, it suggests an arch. I also added shadows under the vines.

If you put cracks in your wall do not get carried away. Cracks are mostly thin and few. Some of you had scary spiders on your walls with big hairy legs. Practice with your liner brush so you know how to make the thin lines. Also, the wall is behind the chair so if you have lines going toward your chair don't make they look like the are avoiding the chair, they actually go behind the chair.

This finishes up our Fall project, I hope you learned a lot about warm and cool areas and how to make things look old. I hope to see you again in the winter session so until then, keep painting and I will see you in class.

ACRYLIC FALL 2015 CLASS Project: Cool Refuge Week 5

This week we worked on under painting some of the plants and more dry brush on our chair. I am hoping that we can finish this up at our next class so please try to have you painting to this stage when we meet again.

I started in the background cleaning up my windows and adding a bit of detail. Using blue, a touch of purple and sienna and white to make a medium blue gray, I used that color to fill in my windows and to clean up and shape the edges of the frame of the window panes. While that was wet, I added some more white to the color to lighten it then suggested curtains in the window. Remember that the fabric of the curtains will fall vertically, if you suggest that the curtains are tied back, they will curve to where they are tied then fall straight down. Please look at curtains BEFORE you do this, you really need to know how they will fall.

I added plants to the planter and some vines hanging down over the door, using my Hooker’s green and a bit of blue and a touch of orange adding yellow as I put them in.

Using the corner of my brush (you can use either a bristle brush or a flat sable) I quickly put in my plants with a series of OVERLAPPING dots. The overlapping part seems to throw most of you because when I come around I see: Dot.    Dot.     Dot.  – all lined up and evenly spaced. You want more of a shotgun effect: doDotOTdoTDodtot – so that your

strokes are on top of each other. Pick up yellow along the way and lightly blend it in using these overlapping dots. Also create interesting edges so they are not all lined up and even like topiary. If you put in the vines going up the window or over the door remember they are fatter where they attach to the plant and thinner to the ends as well as being irregular in shape, you don’t want them looking like garland.

The same applies when you do the plant under the chair. It is a mass of color first then later you can sort out some detail. Use the same colors but add a bit more blue to the green when you need it darker and yellow to make it lighter. The plants on the ground are coming up through the cracks in the walkway so again, please don’t make this into a shapeless lump.

On the chair there seemed to be problems with getting the back of the chair dark enough, it isn’t black dark but it is darker than the front of the chair especially the left side where the arm and leg overlap the back of the chair. You may need to fix both parts of the chair using the dry brush technique to add texture as well as either dark color to the back of the chair or lighter, warmer colors to the front. If you squint at the chair you should be able to see separation of the colors.

I know I have said it many times before, but if you want to be a better painter you need to learn to draw. Some artists take months of research for a future painting by gathering photos and doing sketches and thumbnails long before they ever start on their masterpiece. With all that preparation it usually does turn out to be a masterpiece. I have asked you, and

even taken time in class for you to practice a new or difficult technique before you try it out on your paintings, about half go straight to their painting and of those who actually do take more than a minute to get the feel of the brush and paint, I would say half of those only practiced for a minute or two before going to their paintings. I can see who practiced and who didn’t. It does make a difference, just as drawing a simple sketch can help you understand what you are looking at. The sketch I did below took all of maybe 10 minutes but it lets me see detail in the wood I may not understand in my painting but when I get to the ends of the chair parts, I know what to expect. This is important and I don’t know how to convey that message so you will understand, just give it a try for a few months and see if you paintings don’t improve, you might just surprise yourself.

Do as much as you can to get to where I am in the painting, I really don’t want to take more than another class to finish this. keep painting and I will see you in class.

ACRYLIC 2015 FALL CLASS Project: Cool Refuge Week 4

This week I started working on some of the detail of the chair, this will be a process and will take more than one layer to do it correctly. The first thing I did was too darken the mold behind the chair using my Hooker’s green, some ultramarine blue and a little touch of burnt sienna to make a dark, ugly green color. If you look at the reference photo you will see that the chair is lighter than the wall behind it so that is what I'm trying to accomplish.

Most of the rest of the class was spent doing dry brush. I had to dry brush texture on the chair, I also dry brushed some of the highlights and details on the window frame and the planter box. If you have not mastered dry brush I would hope that you would practice before you started on your chair. It is much easier to practice on an old canvas or a separate canvas even on paper before trying to work on your masterpiece because if you mess up on an old scrap of canvas it won't matter but I will hear a lot of crying and pleas for help if you start working on your project first. I make doing dry brush look easy but if you attempt to do this you will find out that it is not as easy as I make it look because I've been doing this for nearly 30 years and I know what I'm doing, so please, I encourage you to practice at least for a few minutes so you can get the feel of the brush and how the paint is supposed to go on.

The key to dry brush is, obviously, a dry brush but that also means that your paint should not have a lot of water in it as well. If you rinse your brush and clean it be sure that you dry it out completely and when you pick paint up off of your palette be sure to squeeze near the bottom by the metal ferrule and squeeze out any extra water you may have picked up when you were picking up paint, then squeeze the bristles to widen them and lightly at first, go across the canvas remember to follow the grain of the wood. If the wood is horizontal your strokes will be horizontal; if the wood is at an angle your strokes will be at an angle. This is important so that your wood looks like it has wood grain, your eye picks up a lot of information and your brush strokes are critical to conveying the right information to your viewer.

I did a demo on how to create old wood but I have also taken some photographs of an old picnic bench I have in my yard so that you can see what I'm talking about. I know I tell you to look and to take pictures of your own for reference but I know from experience that most of you will not do this, I cannot teach you what you cannot see in your head and if you can't see it in your head you need to have some reference in front of you, that is where photographs are important to your art education.

Look at the photographs as well as the demo I did for wood: When you have a piece of wood that is cut and you can see more than one edge the grain and any cracks that are in the wood will change direction when they get to the end of the board. Note this on the reference photos I have posted and understand what you are seeing. If you must, and I do encourage this, do some sketches, this will cement it into your head. Also I've included some photos of looking down on the wood so that you can see it at a flat angle, notice the grain of the wood and also the texture and the cracks in the wood the cracks are much darker than the grain which are the dark in the light streaks that runs through the wood. The texture is caused by weather, wear and tear so there are several values and colors that you use to create old looking wood.

When you are working on the chair please look at the reference photo and noticed that the back of the chair is darker then the front of the chair, this is critical show the difference between the front and the back it gives it depth. If you are having problems seeing this, squint at the photograph and then squint at your chair if the front does not come forward or the back recede you need to get lighter in the front and darker in the back.

Try to get your painting as close to what I have from our last class and we will continue working on the chair and we should start getting into the detail in the flagstones and the background next class so keep painting and I will see you in class.

ACRYLICS FALL 2015 Project: Cool Refuge Week 3

We had a lot to do on the project this week: First thing I wanted to do was start filling in some of the spaces in the back like the windows, plants in the pot... any little thing that I can do. I'm not trying to finish it but I am trying to get it closer to finished before I base in the shape of my chair.

For the window frame and the planter box underneath it I mixed up my burnt sienna with a little touch of blue and a little touch of purple to make a darker brown color this is the underpainting for the window frame and planter box. I should have added a touch of white because it is a bit too dark so we will have to make it lighter to fit the plane that it is in on the painting.

Remember when you are painting something that is supposed to be straight up and down, the  vertical lines must be parallel to the sides of your canvas so that they don't angle, only the horizontal perspected lines go at an angle, the angles of the window are a little bit confusing because the street goes up and the angles of the window and planter box go down slightly because of their position below and above the horizon line respectively, but the vertical sides will always be straight. I'm not looking for perfection but you do want them to look believable.

The plant in the pot by the front door is painted much the same way as the pot was except instead of using warm colors like orange and burnt sienna you'll be using greens. The first thing I did was I mixed my sap green with a little touch of yellow and orange to make it lighter and warmer then I tapped that color on the sunny side of the plant. As I moved around the plant I picked up sap green and Hooker’s green and mixed it into that warm green color, tapping and blending into the first green – wet into wet – to the sides and back of the plant. When I say tapped I was using my flat bristle brush and I was using the corner of it to create little roundish shapes that overlapped and were very congested, I could blend the colors as I went. Going into the shadowed side of the plant I added blue and a touch of purple into my green to create cool shadow color. Remember when you were painting your plant, you want the outside edge to be a regular, more organic, looking shape because it is a living thing and it grows in irregular shapes this is not a piece of topiary sitting by the door.

I hope everyone has their reference photo out so they can look at it as they are sketching in the outline of the chair. If you don't have a way to enlarge drawing that I provided you will have to do this manually and you must have photo in front of you to see the angles. Again, it does not have to be perfect but you do need to be very aware of the angles. This photo is not straight on the chair its slightly at an angle away from the viewer, there is some definite foreshortening in both the arms in the back slats are angled as they come into the rest of the chair. Do the best you can and don't worry about the small stuff. Look in the side bar for the page on enlarging an image for suggestions.

Once I got the chair sketched in I looked at my reference photo to see where the values changed on the chair. If you notice, the back of the chair is darker than the front of the chair and the legs are a warmer color than the rest of it. These are the things you need to look at before you start mixing paint or painting. The more you can see these values and color changes the more life you will be able to paint into your future paintings as well as this one.

I mixed up a base color of burnt sienna, blue and purple keeping it towards the sienna side because I want it to be a warm dark brown color. I mixed up a lot of paint because I will use this as the base color of the chair I will mix into it other colors to change either the value and/or the color but this will be my base. I suggest you mix up enough so you won't have to remix every few brush strokes.

I put this dark, warm brown color on the back slats and in the dark support under the bar armrest. There is also a very dark part of the leg in the front that is under the chair where I used this color, then I added just a little bit more sienna, which will slightly lighten the color, and I painted in the lower support that goes into the back leg. I also used a little bit darker version for the outside of the left leg. Please look at your reference to see what I'm talking about.

The front of the chair is not only a little bit lighter it is also a little bit cooler so I took some of my base color added a little touch of white and a little touch of blue to make it a lighter color. I don't want it white light, I just wanted at least one value change lighter than what the back of the chair is. If the back of the chair is an 8 on the value scale the front of the chair at its lightest would only be a 6, so it's not a real big value change, however, it is necessary.

I like to work wet into wet so while I had this lighter color on my brush I worked some of that lighter color into both of the arm rests and then I picked up some of the darker color - my base color - and worked that into parts of the arms as well. Again, look at your referencephoto you will see that the arms have light and dark areas on them, that's all I'm painting. I like to do it while the paint is still wet because it gives me a more even blend.

The front legs of the chair about the same value as the front of the chair but they are a little bit warmer so to the color that I mixed for the front of the chair I added more burnt sienna in a little more white to make a warmer gray color and I painted in the legs of the chair. They extend from the armrest down to the ground in places and where there was a value change, I added just little touches of white and blended it in because to create the illusion they have three dimensions. This is where your value system comes into play, use it to your advantage.

We probably have at least another couple of weeks on this project so please try to get as much of this done as you can. If you need help I will help you in class, I know this is a challenge but you will learn a lot about light and dark, cool and warm, and how to do dry brush to create some beautiful old wood. Keep painting and I will see you in class.

ACRYLIC CLASS 2015 Fall Project: Cool Refuge

You should have your entire canvas under painted at this point, now we're going to start working on some of the details.

First I wanted to add another layer of color to the shadowed wall it's very similar to what is there but just slightly lighter than the original shadowed yellow color. Remember that color started out with the yellow and white and a little touch of orange plus a little touch of purple to gray and cool the yellow color. If it gets too dark you will want to add just a bit more white so that the color is lighter than the wall is now and maybe a little more yellow, you just wanted a little bit lighter than what it is.

I was using a number 6 flat bristle brush and I had very little paint or water on my brush, this is called dry brush. The key part of this is very little water. If you can squeeze the bristles and see moisture it's too wet and you need to take your paper towel and dry it off even more before you pick up paint, even after you've picked up paint if your paint was rather soupy you will have to squeeze at the base of the bristles with your paper towel to get off any excess moisture.

Using a scumbling stroke I lightly went over my stuccoed wall with this new color it will make it just a little bit lighter but I don't want to cover up everything that is already there I just want to add a lighter color to help create the texture of stucco do not cover everything you want some of that underpainting to show through.

While this was drying, I did a demo on how to paint the little pot by the door. Working either way from light to dark or from dark to light, it’s your choice, (I have done it both ways on many occasions) for this purpose I will start with the light colors and move to the shadows I will be working wet into wet, but this is by no means the ultimate in how to create this effect.

Starting on the light side I used orange with a touch of burnt sienna and even a little yellow and scrubbed in the color starting at the outside edge and working to about a third of the way across and about two-thirds the way down the pot. While the paint is still wet you pick up more burnt sienna then starting just at the edge of the area you just painted start blending in the burnt sienna to the previous area and about another third of the way across all the way down and back up the bottom of the first area blending in that lighter area to make the bottom part of it darker. Next, along with the burnt sienna pick up a little dioxazine purple and mix that starting at the edge of the burnt sienna blending the darker color in and blending blending it all the way around to the shadowed sided and also blend that color on the bottom of the pot to create the shadow on the bottom side of the pot. At the very edge of the pot, pick up a little more purple and a little touch of blue for your darkest areas which will be the backside of the pot and where the pot is sitting on the walkway. This should give you the illusion of a round pot. Remember, I didn't paint this like a wall, my brush strokes were very irregular, more like dabbing and scumbling but I followed the curves of the pot, this is as important as the gradation in color. If you want to put a little highlight on the pot, just used a little touch of yellow and white into the light area of the pot where you want the highlight to be.

I want you to look at your reference photo, that is the actual photo of chair not anything we have done in class or the prototype I did before class, but the actual photograph. I want you to notice right behind the chair there is some nasty looking mold or something growing on the side of the building, things like this add character to your painting and while you do not have to do this if you don't want to I like to do it because it creates a more natural looking environment. It's very organic in shape and nature, also note that it is not a nice solid evenly spaced square on the wall it is very irregular, that is our goal when we paint this.

With hooker’s green as my base I added touches purple, blue, Sienna, orange, yellow… just anything to make a really nasty looking green color that is perfect mold color. Again this is going to be a dry brush technique so once you load your brush up make sure that there is little paint on it and no water, you're going to scumble this on as well. You want breaks and irregular sides to this shape and darks and lights, it's not a solid thing it's a living thing, some of it's been there a long time some of its been there only months and has not covered completely so don't feel that you have to cover completely when you are painting.

Once you have the mold on your wall we are next going to start putting in the idea of cobblestones or flagstones in the walkway. This is by no means the finished look to this walkway we're just starting to create the effect of a rough cobblestone walk we will do this in layers as with everything else.

Starting in the back by the stairs I was using my number for flat bristle brush which has morphed into more of a filbert because of all the scrubbing that just means it has more of a point than being flat it's perfect for this if you want to use a round brush it might help you create this effect but use a bristle brush not a Sable brush at this point.

Using the yellow and white I had mixed earlier - that is gesso with just enough yellow in it to tint it - add a little touch of orange, you want a nice bright sunny color. You will be making small flat strokes that will be closer together in the back and as they come forward they will become a little longer and a little further apart. Remember: When things go into the distance they get smaller and closer together and grayer in color. Right now we are just going to concentrate on the smaller and closer together. Make the shapes irregular and don’t line them up in perfect little rows, if these are cobblestones or flagstones they are not going to be nice, even well-spaced tiles, they are going to be random in size and shape so you want your brush strokes to also be random in size and shape.

There is a shadow being cast by the shadowed wall on the left hand side so you will have to be aware of this and when you come to the shadowed area, you're going to be adding more orange, touches of red, touches of Siena, and the more you come into the shadows you will add touches of blue and purple to your color. You want a gradation of value and color starting in the lightest area and then transitioning to the cool shadows. Also, as you are coming forward remember to make your strokes a little bit longer a little bit further apart, they're still flat so you don't want to make them to round, you do want to make the more oval shapes or long so they remain looking flat.

In the shadow areas you're going to continue this textured pattern, but start adding some other colors as you go. You can add green; you can add some blues or purples; you can even add reds and oranges and sienna, you're just going to make shapes in this dark part of the walkway, we will come back later and define the stones better, for now all we're doing is creating some interesting shapes and textures again this is not the final look to this just part of the under painting.

Try to get your painting to this point because next class we may be sketching in the chair we need to get as much of this done now so that the chair can go on in the next lesson or two do the best you can keep painting and I will see you in class.

ACRYLIC FALL CLASS Project: Cool Refuge

I'm working on a 16x20 panel canvas and the only drawing that I did with soft vine charcoal was just the edges of the building walls and where it connects to the walkway. On the bright wall I used a mix of cad yellow, a touch of orange, even a little burnt sienna and I scumbled and scrubbed the color on. Scumbling means my brush was going in all directions, using all sides of the brush in a jumbled way, I want the texture in the walls because this is a stucco wall. This is just the underpainting for this wall we will put some brighter highlights on it later.

On the wall behind the chair we are going to under paint with a cooler version of the yellow wall. To get that color we're going to mix in the same area of the palette that we were just using with the yellow, orange, and sienna but to that we are going to add a little touch of purple and even a little touch of blue. When I say “little” I mean a very tiny amount especially the purple because it will dominate the lighter colors. Blues and purples are your natural shadow colors and if you are painting shadows you must include them in whatever color you are mixing this will give the color a cool look visually. Be careful when you add the blue and the purple because you don't want to add too much it will make it too dark, you just want a cooler version of yellow.

Again you are going to be scumbling this color on to the wall because you want to have a lot of brush strokes on these walls because they are stucco and old stucco at that so they've probably patched plus they weren't put on smoothly to begin with and that's what your brush strokes will do for you: Create that look of texture.

Once the lighter wall was dry, I sketched on the door and windows but I think it would have been easier for me and for you if I had waited until after this next step, if you are having trouble or you haven’t gotten this far yet you might want to mix the highlight color for the wall which is white or gesso with a touch of yellow and orange to tint it. Using the dry brush technique (no extra water in your brush an little paint also), scumble this color over the  sunny wall even where the door and windows are, you can draw them in after and not have to worry about painting around them.

The doorway on the sunny wall is made by using your yellow again plus a little purple and white, you want a light mauve color. Don't get this color too dark because it is in the background and you don't want to have a really dark spot back there in the middle of a light surface remember when things go into the distant they become softer and grey in color and value you can also use that color to base in the steps add just a touch of white with yellow for the top part of the step.

To under paint the walkway starting up near the door you will take your burnt sienna, orange, a little yellow and white and with horizontal strokes start scrubbing it in where the walkway will be. You want to be sure that your strokes are parallel with the top and bottom of your canvas so that the walkway looks flat. As you come down towards the side of your canvas start adding a little more orange and burnt sienna and then little touches of purple,

Note how the shadow falls over the texture of the bricks.

there is a shadow that the wall is casting down this walkway and it comes off at a bit of an angle, look at the photo, that's where you want to start adding those little bits of purple eventually you will be switching to burnt sienna, purple and blue with touches of almost any other color on your palate including white/gesso to create a dark underpainting for the walkway.

The border between the sunlit part of the walkway and the shadowed part of the walkway is not a hard, straight line. These are flagstones or cobblestones they have texture and elevation that shadow is going to be very irregular so please make sure that when you are in that area that you blend some of the light into the shadow and some of the shadow into the light to create a soft interesting edge. Look at the photo of the palm tree shadow I too as it goes across the uneven bricks. See how it falls over the edge making little scallops? Also notice how soft the edges are, there is little distinction divides the dark parts from the soft outer part of the shadows. The more you can see in the World you live in – and understand why – the better a painter you will become.

Once the door area is dry you can mix a red - either the cad red light or napthal red or the alizarin crimson - with a little touch of your ultramarine blue to create a dark burgundy color for the door and just put a sliver of that color where the door will be, it is recessed into the wall so it needs to be dark.

The windows were just a blue color, almost straight ultramarine blue with maybe a little touch of white. We're going to be doing more to everything but this just bases them in so you can see them. This should get you caught up to where we are in class look at all your angles check to make sure you have soft edges and we will start working from there you should have your whole canvas covered in paint at this point.

Keep painting and I will see you in class.

Acrylic Project: TJ’s Bouquet Final

At some point you have to call a painting done and that is where I am on this project. The last class I worked on finishing details so there was much instruction because my painting is different from each of yours and I have different ideas of how I want it finished. This is a decision each of you will make on your paintings so it will fill your needs.

When I am looking to finish a painting one of the things I look for is where I can add contrast first and then add color. It is the contrast between dark and light that will “punch up” a painting. I also look to see that I have everything finished, it is easy to get focused on one area and leave other areas to die on the vine so be sure you look to see that all the elements of your painting are at the level they need to be where they are in the painting.

Using my small sable flat brush I went back in to my small yellow flowers and added the red edges pulling the color from the edge to the base lightly and using a bit of yellow to help me blend. These are very light touches to gently blend the colors not mash them together. You want to be able to see both.

I used this same technique of lightly blending colors to add some highlights and transparencies to the roses. Using my gesso for white and my cad red I lightly blended select areas so they looked more transparent or reflected light. Mixing white and red will give you pink and I didn’t want that so I took my time lightly blending. Practice this before you work on your flowers.

I also added a bit of reflected light near the top of the bouquet on the area that would be the wall much like what I did on the surface it is sitting on, this gives a bit more to the “glow” around the flowers. I used a mix or blue, purple and a touch of white but if your background is a different color from mine be sure to use those colors only just a touch lighter.

Adding a bit of the complimentary color to a painting is also a good thing. Since there is a lot of yellow in this painting I mixed a color for the reflected light in the shadow areas of blue, purple with a touch of sienna to slightly grey it and a touch of gesso to slightly lighten it and added this color to some of my shadowed leaves, dark sides of the roses and to the top of the basket behind the overlapping leaves. Little touches of purple will bring life to you painting as long as you understand the term “little touches”.

Before

Lastly and only because I really wanted to see how it would look, I took what I call my magic color which is Quinacridone Gold with a little touch of gesso and using my bristle brush and a lot of water, lightly glazed the surface mostly around the bouquet fading the glaze just beyond the flowers to the existing dark. You do not need to do this! Let me repeat: YOU DO NOT NEED TO DO THIS!!! I just wanted to see what it would look like so I could show you alternatives to finishing your painting, if you want to try it fine but if you like your painting the way it is, please just leave it alone, it is your painting and if you like it that is all that matters.

After

We have 3 more weeks before the end of the semester so I hope you find something you want to paint, I will help you get started and do demos as needed. Keep painting and I will see you in class.

Summer 2015 Acrylic Class

Acrylic Project: TJ’s Bouquet Week 6

Mostly we worked on brightening and detailing the flowers in our bouquet. Because we are working on black it sometimes will take 2-3 coats of paint with gesso to cover the canvas.

I also went in and based in the ferns which I will add highlights and shadows in the next class. The base green I used was a mix of sap green, a touch of orange and gesso to dull it a bit then to lighten the green I would add yellow and gesso to lighten and blue to darken it it is the painting of the fern that will be the challenge here so they don’t look like green fish bones.

The one thing you need to do before you start painting is to LOOK at the fern to see their shape and their structure so you will understand my description and it is best if you practice on another canvas BEFORE you work on you painting. You will notice that each frond of the

fern has a basic triangular shape being wider at the top, branching out to smaller and smaller limbs to nothing at the end and they curve. Each of those limbs also branch out being wider at the point where they connect to the main stem getting narrower to the ends. You must see this to paint it even it is just a general wedge shape. Draw a guide if you need to with your chalk or charcoal so you have something to follow and be sure to look at the reference photo or find some asparagus fern and study it before you begin.

Using a smaller flat bristle brush – my #4, you may need to use a #3 or #2 if you are working on a smaller canvas – I worked the paint into the bristles by pushing it into the paint on my palette the wiping the excess lumps off on my paper towel. If you have an older, worn down brush like mine, it will be the perfect shape for this, if you brush is newer, you will need to use the corners of the brush.

I started at the top of the fern and worked my way down doing each limb by lightly taping my brush in a series of overlapping irregular dots. Think fuzzy as you paint so you don’t get a whole frond of neatly placed dots, your strokes should overlap, congest in places, thin out in places, the limbs themselves will over lap at times or be shorter than the opposite side pair and tap lightly don’t smash it into you canvas. As you do this you can add more green or blue to make it darker or yellow and white just by picking you those colors and tapping them into the existing color, but this is going to take some practice to understand and perfect so get out that spare canvas first.

We will be finishing up this painting on Monday our last class is Aug 24^th so you will have a week to finish this up or start your own painting. I know that people have been taking vacations and other various commitments throughout this summer session, just do the best you can and I will see you in class.

Acrylic Summer 2015 Class Week 4

Acrylic Project: TJ’s Bouquet Week 4

This week we worked on flowers, getting them based in. Because of the transparent nature of acrylics we will probably have to do several layers to get them thick enough so the black canvas doesn’t show through. Another way you can do this is to under paint with gesso first then add your color but it would still take a couple layers so it is 6 of one and half dozen of another for the way to approach this, both ways will work.

I hope that everyone practiced their brush strokes for leaves and flower petals BEFORE you start working on your project, you won’t be happy with yourself if you don’t, once you feel a bit confident about how the brush strokes work, I started basing in the sunflowers with my sable bright (similar to a flat sable only the bristles are shorter and my bright is better than my flat brush, either works the same) with a mix of cad yellow, gesso and a touch of orange and/or cad red. You are looking for a richer deeper yellow but not an orange. The gesso in the paint will change the value (lightness) of the color but you need it to opaque the color to help it cover the black canvas, just like you did with the leaves.

Before you start painting the flowers look at the reference photo. Pay attention to how the petals twist and turn on the sunflowers and how they overlap each other or bend, they don’t

just stick out from the sides like a child’s version of the sun, they're more like solar flares. Again, if you haven’t practiced this twisting and overlapping it is important that you do.

Another thing to be aware of is the way each of the flowers face. They aren’t all just looking straight at you, they are looking in all directions, look at thereference photo to see what direction the petals go, that reference photo has all the info you need for your painting.

The smaller yellow and red flowers, while a simpler form – 5 petals as opposed to many – you still have to be aware of their shape and direction, they have a trumpet shape and look in all directions.. Also, along with the above colors to get that deeper yellow I added a tiny touch of green to gray the color. Adding purple will dull the yellow too much but the green will mix with the red that is in the orange and just dull the color a bit. Please note, I said a

TINY amount of green, these are still yellow flowers (I will do the red parts later). If you are going to go straight into the red before I demonstrate how I am going to proceed, be sure that you get the little flower with enough substance to their color that they aren’t transparent and do this BEFORE you add the red. I say this because I know that there will be those who will try to get ahead and then run into problems; otherwise, I WILL do the red parts at a later time.

The roses are a more challenging flower. They have a cup shape and layers of petals that unwrap from the outside in. If you have roses of if you have pictures of roses you may want to study them before you start painting them to understand them better when you paint

them. That said, still using the same brush, I mixed my crimson and cad red and/0r orange a tiny touch of gesso to make it more opaque – remember that gesso is white and too much will turn your color pink -  and found the top edges of the petals. My strokes are still angling down to the stem but they may only be little short strokes for the very edges of the petals. The centers of the roses are just touches of the end of my brush and if you need to add more dark color for shadows and creases, use ultramarine blue with your crimson to create a dark color. Look at the reference photo as you paint it has the information you need to paint the roses.

We left off here, next week we will do more detail on our flowers, add more leaves and maybe do a bit on the background depending on how far we get. Try to get your painting to this point as best you can and I will see you in class.

Summer 2015 Acrylic Class

Acrylic Project: TJ's Bouquet Week 3

I hope that you have been practicing your leaf and petal strokes because you will need to use them in this part of the project it is also critical that you have your reference photo of the actual basket bouquet before you start painting, you can't paint this if you can't see what you’re painting.

Because of the transparent nature of acrylics you may need to add little touches of gesso to your paint before you start painting. Gesso will change the value of your color so you want to be sure that you only add little touches of it to opaque your color but not enough to change the value too much.

You will need to mix up a base green and that is going to be your sap green with a little touch of orange, a little touch of the gesso to opaque it and you will add to that color, as you go, touches of blue to make it darker, and touches of yellow to make it lighter, this will give you 3 different values of color to work from: you'll have the base color as your medium color, with the blue the dark color and with yellow, the lighter color.

This is a good place to use your flat sable brushes and depending on the size of your

canvas choose a brush that is not too small but will do the job quickly. Don't get out your teeny tiny brushes, try at least a medium size flat sable brush.

Before you start to paint I want you to study the reference photo and look to see where all the greens are the greens are the leaves and stems of all the flowers in the bouquet some of them are actual leaf shapes others are just spots of color, that's all we are concerned about right now, where they look like leaves you will have to use your brush accordingly and where they are just color fill up the space.

Where you start is up to you. You may want to start where it's just more solid color or you may want to get the smaller leaf structures around some of the sunflowers or where you can see definite leaf shapes and get those out of the way and then just fill in with color. When you're done with that, please note that I have not started the ferns yet. We will get to the

fern later but right now just concentrate on the leaves around the flowers. Remember that the technique to create these leaves is a matter of pressure and twisting your brush, so if you need to practice again, do so! You can start out on the end of your brush and then twist and press and pull up for longer leaves or you can start by pressing and twisting and pulling quickly for shorter leaves, but please practice this on something else other than your painting or you won't be happy.

The last thing I did was I added some light around the basket of the flowers. This needs to go in first before we start adding the ferns that will hang over it. I used my gesso with a little touch of orange and starting right at the edge of the basket I put the color down and as I scumbled and scrubbed away from basket with my bristle brush, I lighten the pressure and it became more of a dry brush technique so that it became lighter and lighter until it faded into the dark. Please note that there is a definite shape to the shadow of the basket its narrower coming off the bottom then as it moves away from the basket it starts to spread out and get softer in color. Also note that the shadow of the basket the sides go in the same direction towards the right because of the angle of the light behind it. Check your reference photo before you start so you can see the angles.

In the shadow area I mixed a dark color which was my blue and purple with a little touch of burnt sienna just to gray the color slightly, then starting at the very base of the basket I put in this dark color and I started moving away from the base I started adding little amounts of the gesso to lighten the color slightly. Don’t add too much you want it to remain dark but you also wanted to lighten a little as it moves away from the basket. A shadow is always darker right next to and underneath an object then as the shadow moves away from the object because light reflects into the shadows.

This is where we stopped for the day so please try to get your paintings to this point and always have that reference photo in front of you when you are painting. Keep painting and I will see you in class.

Summer 2015 Acrylic Class Week 2

Acrylic Project: TJ'SBouquet Week 2

Last week we under painted our background and we also started working on the basket. Before continuing, I needed to make some changes to my metal basket because I thought it was too high in the picture and I hadn't extended the sides so that's what I did for the first few minutes took me about 5 minutes to fix the problem and it's better to fix a problem when you see it rather than try to live with it and hate it later.

I wanted to get the basket more or less done but I did need to let it dry so while it was drying I under painted the centers of the sunflower and under painted the roses. For the roses, I used two different colors red one was a deep dark red which was a mixture of alizarin crimson and of ultramarine blue. This is for the dark color in the centers, where you can see the centers, and then alizarin crimson with a little touch of blue for the outside petals. Centers for the sunflower were a dark rich brown you can make if you have burnt umber mix that with a little bit of blue and purple for the color, if you don't have burnt umber just use your burnt sienna, blue and a little touch of purple, you want to deep rich brown color.

Have your reference photo in front of you before you start and refer to it often. To paint the centers of the sunflowers using either a flat bristle or a flat sable, your choice, I started from the outside and just pull in with the dark brown color. Don't worry about getting the exact shape you will do that with the pedals when you put those on, for now you want to create where the centers are located and if it's a little larger that's fine we will we will cut them down with the lighter pedal colors. Be aware of the shapes of all of these flowers: the sunflowers look in many directions as do the roses so be sure when you're basing these in that you don't have them all looking in one direction. Think tilted ovals and not just flat circles.

When I based in the roses I started at the outside edge and I pulled in and down towards the center of the flower. Whenever you're painting flowers you have to remember that all of the pedals go to that central spot where they connect to the stem you want your strokes to follow that natural direction of growth.

Once the basket was dry I started on the detail of the basket you can use the dark brown color that you used in the sunflower centers for the dark brown rust on the basket. Look at the photograph and see how irregular the paint has chipped off the bottom of the basket this is what you were trying to recreate when you put in this dark. If you need to you can use your chalk or charcoal to draw a shape that guide you or you can just freehand.

The rust that is leaking through into the paint that's left on the basket is done with burnt sienna in the middle with a touch of orange on the right and a touch of blue on the left so that you get aggravated look to the rust that is in the paint on the basket. Use a bristle brush and the dry brush technique to lightly apply these colors, you just want to skim these colors on.

Before we move on to putting the leaves into the basket around the flowers it is important that you understand and practice creating leaves, this will also work for the flower petals in the sunflowers. Find a spare canvas or an old canvas you can paint out and practice making your leaves and petals. Use your flat sable brush for most of these although you can use a round sable brush, both will require that you practice with them before you start on your painting.

This is where we left off in class so please practice those leaves between now and our next session and be ready to start work when we meet again, keep painting and I will see you in class.

Summer 2015 Acrylic Class

Acrylic Project: TJ’s Bouquet Week 1

I want to preface this by saying that you do not need to use a black canvas if you do not have one or if you don’t have black gesso or paint to make one, you can do this on a white canvas but to get the dark colors you will use a lot more dark paint to get the same results.

I am working on a black canvas and I started my painting by deciding where to put the table (horizon) line because I don’t want my flowers to look like they are floating in air, I decide to make the line a bit more than a third of the way up from the bottom (aprox. 6 ½” on a 16 x 20 canvas). I want a subtle background for my flowers and I want to keep it dark so I won’t be using much white except in certain areas around the basket and flowers.

For the most part, acrylics are on the transparent side and at times we need to we need to add something that is more opaque like gesso to give them more substance, keep this in mind during this project because if you have trouble with your colors fading into the background you may need to add little touches of gesso to opaque your colors.

Starting out the background on this project I was using my #10 flat bristle brush because I am going to be doing a lot of scrubbing to get the color on and the bristle brushes are designed for this kind of abuse. Please don’t use your good sable brushes or you will ruin them with this technique. It is not to say that you can’t use the sable brushes to do the back ground but it is a totally different technique.

I started with my gesso - white acrylic is also transparent and my not give you enough substance to your colors – to the gesso I added thalo blue, touch of purple, ultramarine blue and sienna but you can also either add Hooker’s green or other dark color what I was looking for was a cool gray blue color about a medium value. A note here: If you know where you want to hang a painting you can tweak colors to match the décor’ or if you aren’t sure what color you want, go with a muted version of the complimentary color to the predominant color of your subject, in this case we have deep yellows and reds so a gray green or blue/purple would work well.

What I am trying to create is the idea of a dark room with the only a small window for light which is back lighting the flowers, everything else is in shadow. Starting where I think the most light should be, which is the center third of the canvas, I started in the center of that area with this lighter color. When I say lighter I mean in comparison with the black canvas, this should be a mid-value color but it will look much lighter because of the black canvas until we get lighter things on it. I scrub this color on my canvas just above the table line, scrubbing in all directions. If I need more of this lighter color, I start in the same place and work out, I want the color to fade to little or nothing as I move to the corners. On my 20 x 16 (landscape) canvas that was an area of 9 x 5, I then wiped out my brush, I did not clean it, and then just picked up the dark colors on my brush no gesso or the gray color and starting just outside the area I just painted I scrubbed in these dark colors then worked them back into the edges of the lighter area. You must work quickly so you can get a nice graded transition from light to dark. Only use the dark colors as you cover to the corners of your canvas.

The table or counter area is more of less the same thing except you want to keep you strokes horizontal. Start in the center of the light area like you did for the top but this time you can scrub in a suggestion of a line where the wall meets the counter. Let it fade to nothing on the ends this just suggests a surface for the basket to sit on. The light will hit the surface a bit different than the wall which is more reflected light, the light on the counter “V’s” out from the center but quickly fades. Scrub the color in but use horizontal strokes, whip your brush and add the dark colors just as before, we can always make adjustments later but this gets us started. Let this dry before starting to draw your sketch.

You can use a light colored chalk to draw your design on your canvas and it does not need to be a detailed sketch but you do need to fill the canvas with the design. Too often when you are learning to paint you will get a canvas and put little tiny subjects in the center of a virtually blank canvas, you need to make your subject important and fill you canvas with it so it becomes important. Also, make sure that your design has interesting edges. By this I mean that the elements in the design have different heights or lengths so if you were to take a pencil or the end of a brush and just trace around the edges  of the design it would have a lot of in and out movement not all confined to one centralized basic shape. Be bold, no one will die.

 

In class we got as far as basing in the rusting basket the flowers are in, I switched to my #6 flat bristle brush and made a mix of gesso, ultramarine blue, a touch of purple and burnt sienna to make a very warm medium, gray color. Even though the basket looks white, it isn’t. On the gray scale it is about 40% to the black side so you do not want this to be too light at this point. Starting in the middle of the basket with this color I started to fill in the basket, as I filled in toward the left side it is a bit darker so I picked up more of the blue, and sienna and a little purple to darken the color, when I went to the right where it is getting a bit of reflected light I added a touch of my white mix which is mostly gesso with a teeny, tiny touch of yellow to tint the white and blended that into lighten the base color on the right side. I used this lighter version of the basket color to paint in the handle.

Lastly, through the flowers we can see the light inside of the basket, this is an oval shape not round or pointy on the ends. Using that white mix I stated above, I filled in the inside of the basket. A lot of this will go away as we add leaves and flowers but some of it will show through and help with the sense of light. This is where we ended class I hope that everyone can get their paintings to this point before next class. Keep painting.