Summer 2018 Acrylic Class

Acrylic Project: Marsh Madness Week 6

This was the official final week for out summer project, I did a bit of detail to mine that you may or may not want to do to yours, it is up to you how you want to finish your own project. You may want to look at the reference photo to decide what you want to do.

The branches on the right I highlighted with a lither version of the under painting: sienna, a touch of blue, white and I added just a touch of orange to warm it up. I used my #4 flat sable brush on the larger parts of the branches rather than paint a line, I touched the end of the brush to the edge of the branch, pulled down in a semicircle and lifted at the same time. This will give you a rougher look like it has bark. In the smaller areas, I just touched the edges of the brush along the twigs letting the canvas take what it wants, again to suggest a rough surface. I also made up a reflected light for some of the shadows on larger parts of the branches.

In the corner I used sienna and orange to suggest some dead leaves, but I also used a little of this color in the trees to the left and also added a touch of white to highlight the trunks of the small trees behind these branches.

I wanted to get just a bit brighter highlight in the small trees/bushes on the right as well as some intermediate greens on the sides that aren't quite in shadow. I started out with yellow and added some green for the brightest highlights, then added a little blue to slightly darken the color to the sides of these trees. You can also use these same colors up in the branches of the other trees on the left as well when you are done with this side. Again I was using my #4 flat sable, but used the corner of the brush to suggest the clumps of leaves.

You may need to practice making smaller individual leaves with your flat sable brush before you do the single leaves and small clumps but it is easy if you don't think about it too much, same goes if you are using a small round sable brush, practice first. Both brushes require you to touch, push and lift and do it quickly to get a reasonable facsimile of a leaf. No, the do not need to look perfect because the leaves are going in all directions so you will see blobs, fat ones, thin ones, curved ones etc, it just needs to look like it could be leaves. Don't clog up the area too much and try to get them coming off your branches and twigs.

On the left side I added more dark clumps of leaves then I used the same mix of light green (see above) to highlight some of those clumps. Even in the dark shadows there is a possibility that there is a hole in the canopy above that will let a little light come through, just don't get carried away, these are just touches. I used the slightly darker version to also add more leaves and to suggest the algae on the surface of the water, keep your strokes flat if you want it to look like it is floating on the surface.

I also added some dead branches in the trees and some more grasses at the bottom of the trees to set them into the water. 

Finally, in the water I did a very dry brush glaze over most of what is water using my #4 flat bristle brush. This was a very watery mix of white (gesso) and a very tiny touch of orange just to slightly tint the white, it should look like cream so it is a bit warmer than white alone.

Remember, after loading your brush to wipe most of it out (dry brush), then used the small side of the brush and lightly glaze over the water areas using horizontal strokes. You can go over the reflections with this glaze bout avoid actual things. The reeds can be tricky but try to get some of this glaze over some of the water. You can switch to your liner brush or a small round brush and around the bottoms of some of the reeds suggest ripples and also along some of the edges of the sand bars in the back and around the base of the small trees.

Do as much or as little as you feel comfortable with to finish up your project. I hope you learned about green and reflections and that no matter how complicated something looks, you can only paint it one stroke at a time so anything is possible to do.

Keep painting and I will see you in class.