Acrylics 101 Wet intoWet

Another name for wet into wet is brush blending, it is when you blend colors on your canvas and not on your palate. In our last class we learned how to mix a dark color by mixing ultramarine blue, burnt sienna and purple to create a very dark color. We did not mix any white into this color this time because for our lesson we mixed this dark color with white on the canvas to create shades of grey.

Because I have used my canvas often for demonstrations I paint it out so I can use it over again and when I do very often I will add a color to it so my canvas is blue to start which meant I had to paint both circles white so you could see the demos. If your canvas is white you do not need to paint it blue or any other color you just need to draw two circles. If your canvas is repainted and you have added some color you may need to paint one of those circles white with your gesso. The circle needs to be dry for the next technique I will show you.

On 1 of my circles I took my dark color and I painted the bottom the right side with the dark color about a 1/4^th of the circle following the shape or curves of my circle, then I picked up some white (gesso) and going just inside the margin of the dark, not all the way to the bottom, I started painting another band of color. I did not rinse my brush so I had dark color on my brush when I picked up the white and I blended these colors together at the overlap and blended the color up to about third of a circle. I wiped my brush a little bit, picked up some more white went into the top part of this new grey color I just painted and blended the new lighter color together where they over lapped and painted up about to the 2/3rds point of the circle. Now I rinsed my brush before I picked up white, which is my gesso, then starting at the top of the circle away from the last color I painted, because I want my white to stay clean. I painted down to the last color and then blended the colors together at the margins.

What you are trying to achieve is a smooth transition between the colors so that you do not see we're one color starts and the other one stops, this takes practice so don't be discouraged if you don't do it on the first time. The key to this is to not go all the way back into the previous color, you're just blending the margins of the colors together where they overlap leaving some of the original color so that your dark area stays dark and that your lightest light stays light but you have a nice graded color in between.

Wet into wet blending is what oil painters must do all the time but it is a good technique or acrylic painters to create color that isn't so even. This technique creates colors that you can see bits and pieces of the colors that are making up the blended color in this case you might see bits of white or bits of dark it is a wonderful technique for many parts of your painting.

The last thing we did before the end of class was to practice using the brush blending -  or wet into wet - to work on some clouds. Clouds are very fluid, if you watch the news when they have the time lapse clouds and you will see that they bubble and boil as they grow and dissipate so working wet into wet can create the look of clouds.

Practice this at home and try it with other colors see if you can create circles that end up looking like rounded objects or see if you can make clouds that go from dark to light to dark. Also, I want you to study things: look at clouds, take pictures of clouds have them for reference later on. Look at objects see where the sun is and see where the shadows are and see what happens between the lightest part and the darkest part of the thing you are looking at. The more you can see the better your painting will be.

In our next class we will be using that second circle for dry brush blending because acrylics dry so fast we need to have a way to blend them when the paint has dried so be sure to have your bristle brushes with you because dry brush blending is very hard on the brush so you do not want to use your sable brushes or you could ruin them. Keep painting and I will see you in class.

Acrylics Garden Fantasy week 2

This week we under painted the rocks around our waterfall. The key to creating interesting

rocks is painting in a mass color underneath with a scumbling stroke using various dark colors. Don't worry about the individual rocks yet they all need to be under painted, we will come back later and find the individual rocks with lighter colors right now what you need to do is create interesting shapes with in that dark color to give texture and it will also help you find rocks within the strokes. I used my basic blue, sienna, purple and white as the base of my rocks.

Be sure when you are creating your rock shapes that you remember the rocks contain the water. They need to look like they come in front of some of the water especially the water in the pool areas and along the sides otherwise the water doesn't look like it is contained and should be spilling out all over the rocks.

This underpainting color shouldn’t one color it can be shades of grey shades or brown or both, it just needs to be a darker version of the final rocks. You can even add other colors like green or blue reds and yellows or oranges and blend them into the grey or brown colors. Look at rocks and you will see the even a rock that is basically grey has many colors in it so don't be afraid to add other colors. Also paint this area a bit larger than it appears in the drawing we can paint over the rocks to make them smaller with bushes but when we do paint over them if some shows through it will look like the rocks are behind plants that we put there and we won't have gaps we need to fill in.

Once you have this underpainting in let it dry. Be sure that you have the reference photos before you start the highlighting process you need to see the actual rocks not what I have done on my painting because that could change if I think I need to change it.

Now you need to mix a lighter color use the same colors as you did for your rocks but this time add some white to it. You do not want a bright white color yet this is just part of the highlighting process this gives the rocks shape and form and it starts the process of defining individual rocks.

The lighting in thereference photo is very subtle however, it looks like it is coming from the upper left hand side of the photo, this means that your brightest highlights will be on the top left side of your rocks so this is where you need to concentrate your highlighting of your rocks. I did a separate demo on rocks showing how to take a mass of color and add highlights to create individual rocks with in pile of rocks it's not difficult but it does take some

practice so you might want to take another canvas and practice your rocks before you start working on your painting.

Because rocks always tend to be challenge for students this is as far as we got in the last class we have more to do on our rocks so if you are struggling I will go over it again in class. I still have not really put in much of my drawing that will come later for now I'm just concerned about the underpainting the first highlighting of the rocks. Do the best you can, keep painting and I will see you in class.