Winter Acrylic Week 7

ACRYLIC – Safe Harbor Week 6

By this time you should all have your under painting complete and should be working on finishing up this painting. We have one more week and still have a ways to go so if you can work on your painting before next class I encourage you to do so.

We are down to doing detail and this can be a very personal process so I do want to remind you if you are happy with your painting at any point and feel it is as done as you would like it then stop! You do not have to do as much detail as I put in some of which I am doing for the benefit of my students not necessarily how I would finish if it were just a painting I was doing, do not feel that you must put in everything I do, stop when you feel you are done.

I did a couple of side demos so I could make the image bigger so you could see the process one of them was the piling with the rope. I had under painted it at home so I could show the process of highlighting but I do want to stress that the process is the same if you have not under painted your pilings or are having trouble with them, it will benefit you to use a scrap canvas and practice this technique on a larger scale like I did so you know what to do on the smaller one of your painting, check the previous post on how I blended wet into wet to do the under painting.

The highlight for the post I started on the sunlit side picking up a bit of the tinted white

(gesso with a touch of orange), some yellow and orange on my flat sable brush (a good bristle brush will work but it needs to come to a good edge) and using the flat chisel end of the brush I made a series of vertical, overlapping strokes starting on the top edge and working a ways down and about an a quarter over lightening the pressure on the brush and picking up touches of sienna and mixing on the piling to get a graded color. I may have to brighten the edge of the piling again but for now it is okay.

 As I work my way around the piling I want to fade it into what is already there so I will be leaving some of that under painting as the texture and shadows, I did pick up some sienna with touches of red and orange to finish off the highlighting of the front to the side of the piling.

There is also something called a “reflected highlight” if you look you will see it on almost everything but especially round things like tree trunks or rocks, also if there is some reflective surface nearby like water, snow or buildings you will see a more pronounced reflected highlight in the shadows. This is a good thing to put in your paintings to help bring life to your shadows and to make round things look round. You will have to trust me on this because it is a bit scary the first few times you do this, you will probably hear your little voice screaming at you “DON’T DO IT!” but do it any way. If you really don’t like it you can paint it out but if you do it correctly, you won’t even notice it when it is done but you will notice a difference in the quality of your painting.

A reflected highlight is made up of scattered light and the last colors of light to be absorbed are the blues and purples so you start with your blue and a touch of purple and a little touch of white to make a soft lavender color. With the same brush you have been using to do the highlights, you will do a similar stroke in the shadowed side of the post. Keep it choppy and come around about a third of the way around the piling leaving a lot of the under painting showing. You’re done.

The top of the piling is just a light grey color and when it is dry, just suggest some texture with a bit lighter color. Don’t make it too detailed because you won’t see that much to worry about it, just suggest it’s there.

The rope can also be painted wet into wet using the flat sable brush which will give you a bit more control if you have one, the colors will just be a bit different. I tend to work in the same pile of paint on my palette unless there is a reason I need to avoid it but when I have a color that needs to be dirty any way – and these ropes are far from clean – I just add color to where I was working to get that muddied color, so I don’t have an exact mix but I do know I started with some of the tinted white, yellow, a touch of orange and purple to get the base color for the rope, it should be a dirty yellow grey. To make it cooler like in the shadows, I added more purple and touches of blue, to make it warmer I added more of the white and touches of yellow and even a bit of sienna. This color doesn’t have to be perfect and the less perfect the better, mixing in the colors on the canvas will give you texture, you just need to show a change in value from the shadowed side to the light side.

The most important part of painting the rope is the stroke you use. The rope is round so your strokes need to be curved or they can follow the twists in the rope which are more of a lazy “S” shape, still following the curves of the rope.

To start the finishing process of the water, you can still use the flat sable brush or a flat bristle brush the color will be the same colors you have been using in the water just lighter. You will use the flat edge of the end of the brush keeping it parallel to the top and bottom of your canvas as you make a series of strokes. Before you start this process, look and the patterns you have in your water area and try to use those patterns to guide you to hit the tops of lighter areas with the lighter colors. You can connect your strokes, overlap them, have short ones and long ones but try to keep the flat edge parallel to the top and bottom while you are doing this. It takes practice so you might want to practice on a separate canvas first. If you do this correctly, your water should look like still water with a bit of movement.

I also based in the masts and poles and “stuff” that are on the boat. Have your reference photo of the actual boat to sketch them in with charcoal before you paint them in. They all lean slightly to the back of the boat, just don’t overdo it. Mix a dark color using your blues, purple, sienna or burnt umber and a good brush like a flat or a round sable because it will give you more control than a bristle brush. If you feel more comfortable using a smaller brush, now is one of the times you can break it out just double check the photo before you start and keep a wet paper towel handy in case you don’t like what you have put down, just let it dry before you try again because the paint will fuzz out if it hits canvas that is too wet.

I will work on mine a bit before next time so I can get some of the detail in that is too small for you to see like the ropes, I will work on the larger sample for the demo. Try to get as much done as you can, the next class will be our last for this project and the semester. Keep painting and I will see you soon.