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.