Winter 2016 Acrylic Class

ACRYLIC WINTER 2016:  Cozy Cottage Week 1

This week we got started on our English cottage in a snowy setting, I first want to reiterate you do not need to start on a toned canvas, I just toned mine to show you that if you have an old painting that you don't want to save and you want to repurpose it, you can paint it out and have a new canvas to work on, also some artists like to start on a toned canvas but it is not necessary for this project it was just an option.

Usually, when you start a painting, you want to start in the background when we are working an acrylic painting because you want to be sure that you get the things that are in the background of your subject included in your painting. In acrylics we don't have to worry about painting over anything so we can paint our backgrounds in as if there was nothing in front of them and then as we move forward in our painting and paint the things that are closer over what we have already painted so we don't have to worry that there might be halos around our subjects.

The sky area is about one quarter of the canvas from the top. If you need to mark it just draw a simple line, you do not need to do any other kind of drawing, use your soft vine charcoal and blow off the dust, the charcoal won't hurt your paint but it can be a little messy which bothers some people.

Next, take your gesso and put a coating on the quarter top of your canvas. You don't need to be exact you can go over your line if you drew one in but you want a good application of gesso, not real thick, you want it so that when you touch the canvas with your finger that very little of your skin color shows through the paint on your finger. If you need to, you can spray your canvas with water first, which I recommend, and then add a little water as you apply the gesso if you are using the thick gesso, we will be blending into this with our colors so your gesso needs to stay wet. I was using a #12 flat bristle brush to get the area covered quickly, however, if you are working on a smaller canvas a #8 or #10 will be big enough, just don’t get out the small brushes just yet.

On your palette you will next mix a gray color using ultramarine blue, a little touch of burnt sienna, and even a little touch of purple, along with white (gesso) to make a cool grey. If it looks too warm (brown) or too purple you will need to add more blue and white, you want a light, medium gray color. I was still using my number 12 flat bristle brush but if you are using a smaller canvas you might want to use an 8 or 10 bristle brush, again, don't get out the small brushes you want something that's big enough to put the paint on quickly.

In this area that you have put gesso about the top half of it will be this gray color and you will brush it on using comma-like strokes, going up into the sky. It's a rather push and swish motion, you want the sky to look like the clouds are windblown so start at the bottom and pull up or press and pull down as you're making these, strokes and lightly blended once you've gone across the top of your canvas. It doesn't need to be perfect you may even add other colors while you are putting the clouds, add in touches of more blue or more purple (be careful with the purple it is a strong color), we will be putting some red in there soon but just make the sky so it is not a solid, homogenous, gray color you want there to be movement in the sky which translates into lighter and darker variations in color.

Rinse your brush and then on your palette take alizarin crimson and white to create a pink color. If you do not have alizarin crimson use your napthal red or your cadmium red light with a little touch of blue to cool the color, it should still look pink when you add the white you.

Now starting at the bottom of the area you covered with gesso, start streaking this pink up into the sky just like you did the grey even pulling some of that pink up into the grey. You should be working wet into wet so that your colors will softly blend if you are careful with them, if you get too much gray on your brush wipe it out and reload with the pink, you do want a bit of blending with your colors.

While this area is still wet you want to continue painting. Right along the horizon line (the bottom of the gessoed area that is now pink) is a line of trees or it could be distant hills they are too far away to know exactly what they are, for this you need to mix a soft purple/grey color. I usually mix down in a color I already have so in that pink that you just mixed add a little more blue and maybe a touch of burnt sienna because you want a soft greyed/purple color and you want it to be about 1 to one and a half times darker than your sky. It should still be pretty light in value because it is in the distance so don't add too much of the blue or Sienna, if you need to you can add a little more crimson to purple it up and white to keep it light.

The area is of distant, deciduous trees, they have rounded tops and they are very uneven so when you are painting this area you want to be sure that you're not painting either a hedgerow or a cityscape, I saw a lot of that in class. You have to think of the shape of what you are painting before you put brush to canvas. I create the rounded shapes by using my brush on the end using one corner as a pivot point and the top corner to create the top edge, pulling in as I pivot on the corner. I do this rather quickly trying not to think too hard about what I'm doing other than to create an interesting shape. I leave gaps; I make some taller, others shorter as I am going across my canvas creating these distant trees. You may want to practice this before you start on your canvas, but it does help if you are working into the wet paint on your canvas so the colors blend and the edges soften.

I was still using my number 12 flat bristle brush when I created the distant trees cross the background but I did not cover up all of the pink, I maybe went up third of the way into the pink but that pink is important to show time of day so don't cover it up when you do your tree line. Once I put in this line of trees I took my brush on its side, using long flat banana-type strokes softened the bottom edge of the tree line so I had no hard lines this also becomes the snow in the background behind the cottage. Be very aware of hard lines and soften them before they have a chance to dry or they may come back to haunt you.

Once I had the distant line of trees in I let it dry. I wanted to put the next distant trees in, the ones that are right behind the cottage, but I did do some more underpainting of the snow that is on the ground coming down about to the top third section of my canvas. If you still have some of that grey you used in the clouds, you can add a little more blue and white to it. You still want your color to be a soft blue/grey and I'm still using my number 12 flat bristle brush and I was using it on its small side, using the long curved banana strokes as before. You also want a very dry brush which means once I load my brush with paint I want to wipe out any excess paint that I have in my brush and then squeeze the brush at the base of the bristles with my paper towel to get out any excess water, then lightly touching the canvas with the brush, I was scrubbing the color on with those long curved strokes. You will see some of the canvas or under color if you are doing it correctly, if you are working on white canvas you will want to cover all the white so press a bit harder. Take this color back to that tree line you just put in and come down with this color so about the top third of your canvas is covered. If you have toned your canvas ahead of time, you want to see some of the underpainting, it becomes more shadow and texture; if you didn't underpainting your canvas to start, you will want to cover this pretty solid though seeing some of the white canvas won’t hurt this painting. Let your canvas dry at this point.

While your painting is drying you could take the time to practice with your liner brush. This little brush does some amazing things but it does not happen as if by magic it only looks that way once you have practiced it - which I encourage you to do - because it is very hard to learn something when you are too focused on doing it right on your painting so take an old canvas or piece of paper or something other than the one you're working on, and practice with this little brush.

The key to the liner brush is getting the right consistency in your paint this is the one time I will tell you to add more water to your paint, it should be the consistency of India ink: Just a little bit slow in running but not like it's pure water you want a little bit of thickness not too much. The next key thing is loading your brush: You want the whole brush down into the paint, wiggle it around and then as you pull it off of the palette you twist it between your fingers and pull up so that you are forming a nice tip on the end of your brush.

With your brush loaded you want to hold it at the very back end of the handle and you want to hold it at a slightly downward angle so that the paint can flow out of your brush. You will be doing trees and to start a tree you want to press slightly on the canvas with your brush and as you pull up you are also pulling away from the canvas so that the line gets thinner and thinner and thinner. Practice this first before adding branches to it. Once you get the feel going from thick to thin then you start back in the thicker trunk and as you pull up then you literally branch off to create your first branch. It is better to start back in either the trunk or thicker branch and branch off rather than trying to start a branch somewhere along the trunk or the limb you just painted because you can end up with little X's or something that sticks out at an odd angle so follow your trunk or a branch and then go off in different directions you will get a much nicer tree that way.

The trees that you will paint in the background If you still have that purple color you used to make the distant tree line, add more blue and a little touch of burnt sienna to make a warm plum color. This color should be about one to one and a half values darker then you tree line, these are still in the background in the distance so we don't want them too dark or too colorful they can be a bit on the burnt sienna side and it won't be a problem.

Most of the trees that I made were just lines going in all directions. I did make a few that looked a little more like trees but for the most part I just pulled up lines and pulled branches across some of these lines these are too far in the distance to see much detail the ones that are closer to you should have some distinguishable branches and trees but the ones that are further back in your painting just need to be lines that look believable so don't waste too much time sweating over creating the perfect tree each time because if it’s a mile away you're not going to see that much detail.

This is where we ended for the day so I would like you to try and get your paintings to this level before next class again you want to practice with this little liner brush we will be using it again later on as we get into some of the closer trees and bushes and the grass is that are in this painting so keep painting and I will see you in class.