Fall 2018 Acrylic Class

Acrylic Class Project: Dancing Boots Week 5

This was the final week for this project, so if you have finished you will need to have something else to paint for the rest of the semester or if you haven't finished you can continue to work on the project.

I do want you to know that what I am doing with the painting now is finishing up my project, you do not need to do everything I do if you like your painting as it is, at this point it is up to you ow you finish your own painting.

I added some of the dead flowers around the blooming flowers because I wanted to, I thought they added to the character of the cactus. I was using a round sable brush, burnt umber and blue for the under painting and burnt sienna and orange for the highlights.
I also used the round sable brush to clean up the tips of the flowers using yellow and white and for the centers I used crimson and white.

Remember last time I said I wasn't happy with the dirt around the boots? Well I added some lighter color with my #4 flat bristle brush using white, a touch of yellow and burnt sienna and dry brushing it around the boots and the boot shadows then blending it into the darker dirt by lightening the pressure on the brush  to fade it out.

Next I used my tooth brush to splatter paint into the the dirt, keeping a wet paper towel handy if they went where I didn't want them. I used almost all the colors on my palette for the splatters, not just the browns. When the splatters were dry, I looked for some of the bigger splatters or made some of them bigger and touched the top with some white, the used some of the shadow color (blue,sienna and a touch of purple) and made little shadow coming off the back of some of these larger pebbles.I was using the small round sable again or you can use a liner brush.

I worked a bit more on the boots, putting in some of the seams and accent highlights. Be sure that if you add the seams that you don't make a straight line, the seams follow the bumps and dips that are in the boots, this is important.

Last but not least I gave the poor cactus some attitude by adding the thorns. I was using my liner brush and a mix of red (any red will work here) with a touch of burnt sienna and white. The thorns come out of those gray areas at the top of the ribs and you can't put too may in. Use this lighter color where you are working against a darker background...

...against the lighter background on the side of the cactus you use a darker mix (more red and sienna, no white). Remember that there will be thorns coming out of ribs you can't see as it goes around the cactus of from behind the boots. If your strokes over lap, that is a boot thing because the cactus needs a good defense. They are also longer than you think so don't make them too short.

I may work on this in class to clean up some things I think need work or to finish it a bit better but overall, this is basically done. Finish yours as you see fit and I will see you in class.










ADDENDUM:

I added some more detail and cleaned up a few edges as well as making the thorns look more intimidating. You can finish up your painting the way you want to, you don't need to d detail unless you want to, I just wanted to show you how I finished my painting to my needs as an artist.

I cleaned up the edges of the boots and added stitching to the seams. I also added a few more pebbles to the dirt. 

I made the thorns look more like cactus thorns with the same colors and a small round brush and using the paint a bit thicker and being a bit more precise because I was going over what was already there.

I used the same brush to clean up the edges of my flowers as well.

This is my finished "Dancing Boots" painting.