Fall 2017 Acrylic Class

Acrylic Class Project: A Fall Proposal Weeks 3 and 4

Week 3 I started adding the flowers and this time I was using my flat sable brushes. You can get similar effects with round brushes but practice first.

Think about what you are painting and the shape you are trying to make. flower petals at both ends are rounded and narrow but fatter in the middle, by using the end of the brush, twisting, pushing and lifting you can make the shape of the petals so you don't get straight pointed skinny petals. The petals are also a bit curved as the go into the centers of the flowers.

Change the colors of red like you did with the background and box by adding orange or blue to brighten or darken the color. the centers are burnt sienna and blue and don't make them just round and smooth the edges are ragged.

This is the under painting for the sunflowers, I will do more later. The technique is the same as for the rend flower, notice the different angles the flowers face, you don't want them looking in the same direction.

Withe brighter colors I started to define the leaf shapes though most of those are only parts of leaves. I also added some dark between leaves to separate and also help define the leaf shapes.

I didn't work on the roses yet, but I did work around the roses to get dark areas around the roses. Remember if you want to show light you need to have dark around it for the contrast. I used the dark colors to define the petals of the rose as well as separate  leaves from each other.

This is where I left off on week 3, I have most of my under painting in for everything in my painting, the next week I will start refining these elements by adding intermediate highlights along with shadows and some detail.

Week 4. this is what happens when you are trying to explain what you are doing and trying to paint at the same time. I am not happy with the highlighting I did on my red flower because I got it too light and I got some of the petals too long, I will fix this in class so you can see what I do. It is always helpful to know how to get yourself out of a problem or to change something without completely painting it out.

To the yellow sunflowers I added a bit of orange with red to cut down on the bright yellow but leaving some of the yellow as highlights. I was using the flat sable again with a similar stroke, just not as long.

While the roses are looking more white, they are still not pure white and they never will be. I mixed gesso with a little tint of yellow. It take surprisingly little yellow to tint the gesso so be careful when you pick up the yellow.

With the sable brush and looking carefully at the photo, starting at the outside edge of a petal, I added this lighter color where I see in the photo the light areas on the rose, then smudging the edge that goes into the center of the rose with my finger to blend it into the under painting (the blush of pink was because I had red paint on my fingers when I did this, happy accident).

Don't cover up all of the under painting because this now becomes the shadows on the rose. use the corners of the brush to do the centers and smaller petals and work your way around the rose. You might want to practice.

I continued on the paper wrapping adding highlights and shadows. some of the medium shadows are pure reds while the paper that gets light has a touch or white in it just don't let it get too pink. Again, look at the photo or get some tissue paper and wrap it around something to see how the wrinkles form before you try to paint them.

The bottle was done by using blue, alizarin, Hooker's green and touches of white. Use a bristle brush for the bottle. The darker  part was the blue and alizarin (before the label was added), dry brush blending the colors together, then adding the green around the outside edges with touches of white (teeny, tiny touches of white), blending these colors on the bottle itself using the dry brush technique and follow the shape of the bottle as you blend.

The cap was Hooker's, a touch of white and blue to darken, again dry brush blending on the canvas.

The highlights are a little blue, green and a touch of gesso, very dry brush, then start in the center and with very little pressure on the brush, make tiny circles and move out from the center, losing pressure on the brush as you go. You may need to do this a couple of times and also practice. If you press too hard it will look too solid.

The label was a mic of yellow, sienna, gesso and blue. It is darker near the red paper and lighter as it come into the light.

I keep brightening the little box using the napthol and orange in the brighter areas, alizarin and blue in the shadow areas, a bristle brush and the dry brush technique, scrubbing in the color to create soft blended edges which gives it the velvet look.

I also brightened the fabric around the front of the box with napthol and touches of orange to bring focus to the box.

This is where we left off in our last class and should get you caught up with what we have been doing in class.

We (I) are getting close to wrapping this up in the next couple of weeks so I hope that you can get caught up to this point. We should have a week or two to finish before the end of the semester if you get behind.

Keep painting and I will see you in class.