Spring 2018 Acrylic Class

Spring 2018 Acrylic Class Project: Magnolia Week 5

This was my final week on this project. I think it is done as far as I am concerned you will need to finish your projects to you own liking.

To the center of the flower I added some lighter pinks and yellows along with so darker shadows. This is the stage where you look to see where you can add some brighter highlights and some dark shadows, just keep in mind these are subtle additions - dots and dashes - not huge swaths of color or darkness.

On the petals I did a couple of things: one was to add my brightest white to the sunlit edges with my white (gesso) with a teeny, tiny touch of orange to warm it up. This color went on the edges that got the most sunlight so not all edges got this color.

I also added "bug bites" or those damaged areas all flowers have. First I mixed orange and yellow for the dying part of the petal and softened the inside edge of this color a bit. Then I took just burnt sienna to make the next darkest color and finally a little burnt umber for the really dead part (sienna and blue will make a good dark color if you don't have umber).

When I did the dying area on the shadowed petal, I didn't use the yellow and orange mix just the sienna and umber.

On the branches I added a little sienna and blue to the white to make a very light warm gray for the brightest highlights on the branches. This color hits the tops of some of the bumps to suggest the bumps a bit more. I also used a mix of yellow with a touch of sap green and white for a bright green highlight for the mossy parts.

This is the final image for this project. Remember this was about negative space (the background spaces around the flower) and how to paint white by starting with a soft lavender under painting. If you look close you will see that even though this flower looks white, there is very little - if any- actual white on this flower, it is mostly light lavenders with even less warm whites.

Next time you can start your own painting as we have a few weeks left so you can get started and I will be doing some short demos on various things. Keep painting and I will see you in class.