Winter 2019 Acrylic Class

Creating a Composite Painting

Many hobby artists go their whole life painting exactly from photos or someone else's work and they are perfectly happy ans somewhat successful in their painting and that's okay. No one can tell you what you should paint to make you happy, and there is benefit to copying other works or photos, but at some point most artists feel there has to be something more, something that is their own, that is where the adventure begins.

There are many classes on different mediums and the various ways to use them that can open up that creative vault in your heart that can bring great joy to your life, it you give yourself the opportunity to to try. One of the ways you can add to your artistic toolbox is by doing composite painting.

A composite painting is where you take elements from 2 or more sources and create an entirely new image, you can even do this with a photo editor in your computer but I prefer the old fashion what of sketching out my ideas first to get an idea more solid in my mind before I try to create it on my canvas. A simple sample below.

The first thing I did was to start looking through the folders I have made in my computer over the years to see if anything inspires me. You can also look through magazines, newspapers, postcards old photo albums, online, along with creating your own reference files you should be creating.

The first image I found that perked my interest was a picture of some small, grass baskets I had taken photos of on my counter because it had good natural light from a nearby window, now I needed a background as the back of the microwave really wasn't optimal.

Next I found an image of some rocks I took pictures of when I was hiking with friends in the deserts of Arizona. I take a lot of photos of just "stuff" that I think I could use later in a painting. Things like skies, clouds, rocks vistas, trees, you name it, it is looks interesting I will take several images of it so I have it for reference later. Since these baskets had been made by Native Americans in Az and Utah where I had bought them, I like the idea of placing the baskets in this setting, like someone had finished the baskets and left them to dry on the rocks. So now I have my subject and the background, I just need to put them together. That's where sketching comes in.

I have several sketch books that I will either sketch or draw in. Sketching is, well, more sketchy than drawing which can be refined down to minute detail if you want, sketching is as simple as a few lines to place things within either a vertical or horizontal format to see which works better. Because the baskets are lined up in a horizontal format to begin with and the rocks are also very horizontal it was only natural to do this painting horizontal.

Once I had the idea on paper, it doesn't mean that it can't be changed. When I did the watercolor version the baskets were more supportive of the rocks than the other way around because they were very small in comparison to the rocks so in my acrylic, I switched the story around and made the baskets more prominent on my canvas and made the rocks the support in this story.

I sketched my design on my canvas with my soft vine charcoal and under painted the background rocks first then the baskets with very loose, impressionistic strokes  and that is as far as I got in our last class.

I do hope this encourages you to try to create your own paintings because it is much more satisfying to have a painting that is totally your own rather than a copy of someone else's work. Remember, no one dies if it isn't perfect and it does take time to understand how to create the best marriage of the elements but practice will make perfect and drawing will help you be a better painter. Good luck and keep painting.