Spring 2018 Acrylic Class

Spring 2018 Acrylic Project: Magnolia Week 4

This week we really got into some of the finishing detail of this project, I think one more week should finish this up.

This week I started adding a warm white to the sunlit areas. Note I said WARM white, not white out of the tube because white out of the tube can look cold and chalky if you use too much of it so you want to be careful how much pure white you use in a painting. For this I used my gesso and a tiny amount of orange. The orange warms up the white just enough to give it a warm, sunlit look.

This warm white only goes into the brightest areas of the flower so look at the reference photo to see where the bright areas are. Most of what you will be doing is the dry brush technique - little paint or water and scrubbing the color on. Start in the brightest area to start your scrubbing (I use the side of my bristle brush) and as you move away from the brightest area, lighten the pressure on the brush until the color just fades into the shadow colors. If you look close, you will see how if you are doing the dry brush correctly, it is only hitting the top of the canvas threads, leaving the darker previous color in the deeper parts of the canvas, this is what gives you the soft blends in acrylic.

I added the center cone and some detail to the stamens coming up from the center. In the photo, the center cone seems to be lighter in the middle and darker top and bottom. Most important when you are adding centers to flowers be it cones or other structures, they need to follow the direction of the stem that the flower is growing off of, if you have to, use your chalk or charcoal to continue the line of the stem up through the flower so you know where all those inside structures need to go to. Also note that the stamens are longer than you might think and they curve up and around the cone radiating from where they all attach at the bottom of the flower.

I added a brighter highlight to the tops of the sunlit parts of the branches and filled in the new buds and the ends of the new growth. I used the warm white and added a touch of sienna for the stem color and for the moss I added yellow to my sap green and a little touch of the warm white. There is also some highlights on the new growth that are yellow, orange and sienna.

Do as much or as little detail as you want such as the scar marks on the branches (round things on the branches), if you don't want to put them in - don't. Do try to get your painting close to where I am so we can all finish this up next class.

Keep painting and I will see you in class.