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.