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Project: Apple Turnover Revisited Week 7
This was the final day for our project and the end of the semester but we got it done and that's what counts. Everyone did a wonderful job on their own versions of this project and I was going to post photos of it but I have lost my camera =-( If I find it again, I may update this post but under current circumstances, I just want you to all know what a great job you did on a challenging project.
To finish up our apples, we did do a few things, first, we added leaves to the branches we put in last week. I was using my #6 flat sable brush and I mixed a color for the leaves using Hooker's green (you can use sap green just add more blue), ultramarine blue, a little sienna and a little white. The sienna will gray the color and the white changes the value, for this stage you want a medium dark color on the blue side. This is the under painting for the leaves.
Creating the leaves is a bit tricky but with a bit of practice before hand, you will get the hang of it. Load the brush and bring the edge of the brush to a nice chisel so the end is nice and sharp. Start on that edge, holding the brush perpendicular to the canvas. Start to drag the brush then twist, press and pull, the twist back and lift. You should have a leaf shape that starts thin, gets wider, then ends thin again. Like I said, practice.
To make the highlights add more white and a touch of yellow to the darker mixture and highlight a few of the leaves especially around the table. The brightest highlights are white with just a touch of the same blue/green mix to tint the white and I used my liner brush to just hit a few of the edges of the leaves.
The shadows on the table are a mix of ultramarine blue, a touch or purple and a touch of white to make a cool lavender color. I used my #4 flat bristle and scumbled on the suggestion of shadows using flat strokes to make the shadows look like they were on the table and I only suggested the shape of some of the leaves. You do n't need to spell out the leaf shadows.
I also added leaves to the table using the previous technique and brush, just remember to add a darker shadow under the leaves to set them down on the table.
To some of the apples I added leaves (see above) remember to add shadows from the leaves, this will also help give dimension to your apples.
This is the final result of all our hard work. I hope that you learned a lot and apply what you learned to your own paintings. Until next class, keep painting.
I found my camera! So as promised here are the photos of what you did in class. I am so very proud of you.
Project: Apple Turnover Revised Week 6
In our last class, I started the finishing detail to my painting and will finish it up next week.
This week we worked on the finishing details to make our paintings come alive.
First we worked on adding the final highlights to our apples. For the green apples I used a mixture of yellow, white and a tiny touch of sap green. I wanted a bright yellow green.
I was using a #4 flat bristle brush and tapping this color on, starting in the brightest area of the apple. This is NOT the final highlight or the shine, this is next level down and shows up mostly around the tops of the apples.
Tapping allows you to gradually blend it into the mid-tones of the apple, use your fingers to soften between the light and darker areas. If you reload, start in a bright area around the top and work down. Remember the lighter the pressure you put on your brush, the less paint comes off, this is how you blend.
Once that area is dry, you can take a little bit of pure white and lightly tap where the sparkle is, just remember to tap and not dab or paint a circle of white or it will look fake.
For the highlight areas on the red apples, I used orange, yellow and white and the occasional cad red or napthol red depending on the apple (have your photo in front of you), again, I was tapping on the color, some blending with my fingers and using the white after the area was dry.
I brightened the highlights on my basket again because acrylics do dry lighter and I wanted the sun lit areas to have a bit of sparkle, it also helps define the weave of the basket.
I worked a bit on the table adding cracks and chips. The cracks need to have some blue and/or purple in them because they are usually in shadow and usually where you have a crack, the edges of the crack are a bit higher so catch a bit more light so will need a bit of highlight, I used white with a touch or orange and sienna. I was using my liner brush.
Finally, using my liner brush I added some tree branches and twigs to give me an idea where my leaves will be. This is not the finished product and that white smudge will go away, this is just the framework for what I will be doing in our next and final class.
Be ready to work, I am hoping that we will be able to have a show and tell by the end of class so we can see how we all did. It won't be as painful as it sounds, I think you will be pretty impressed, I know I am, you are all doing great.
Keep painting.
Project: Apple Turnover Revised Week 5
In our last class we started working on the detail to finish our painting. Be sure to have any corrections you see that bother you done before you start detailing your painting, it will save you time and frustration in the long run and, hopefully, any corrections you do see will only be minor ones.
I wanted to do a demo on just one apple so you could see the process. The apples in the painting are small and hard to see unless you are the one painting them. I used the previous demo for the under painting of the green apple and just to be clear, the techniques I use are the same regardless of the color of the apple, I just use different colors.
I started in the highlight area with my #4 flat sable brush. I am using the sable brush to detail because I have more control over it and the ends don't frizz out.
I started with cad yellow and added a touch of sap green and a little gesso to make a light yellow/green. I use a series of short curved strokes to add this color to the apple, starting in the brightest area, so have your reference photo where you can see it. In the red apples use the napthol red or cad red with orange and/or yellow to make a light color with only a small touch of gesso only to give the color more body. If you use too much gesso it will turn the color pink and that's not what you want.
Be sure to make your strokes follow the curves of the apple and you can brush mix (adding color to your painting and mixing on the canvas) doing wet into wet as the curves of the apple get darker by adding more sap green then sap green and blue as you go into the shadows. Or, you can take part of the light color you mixed and on one side mix a medium green with the sap green and a little blue and in another part of that light color have a darker version with more blue and a little green. You should end up with 3 values (light to dark) of apple green, you can do this will the red as well. You have
another green apple to do so you may want to use this technique if you are worried about matching colors.
You can also clean up edges and define shapes better at this point as well.
Inside the basket, don't get too bright with the apples. The basket is casting a shadow on them so you won't see but a few with bright highlights. I have also made one of the apples in the back a green apple just using the dark version of the green I mixed.
The basket also needs to have some highlights, shadows and detail added but you really need to pay close attention to the weave of the basket. I saw many of you just doing your own thing and, while I don't want to discourage originality, I know you want it to look like a basket. Look at the area you are going to paint in the photo. If you are doing the handle, note how it twists and spirals around and how the spirals change as they go from one side to the other. Or if you are ding the basket, look how one reed twist as it goes over and under others. These can be simple marks you can make with the end of the flat sable or if you feel more comfortable using a round sable, use that, just be aware of the shape of both the light and the shadows as you make them.
The highlight on the basked was white (gesso) a tiny touch of orange and a tiny touch of sienna. You just want to tint the white. In the mid tone colors of the basket I added more orange and sienna and in the shadows I added more blue to this same color. Again, I can have several values of a color on my pallet so I can go back and forth between them though I usually start in the lightest area so my color stays clean.
This is where I left off in class. I am hoping that I can finish up this project at our next meeting as we only have 2 more classes to the semester. While this project looked simple - apples in a basket on a table - I think you have learned the lesson of looks can be deceiving but if you take it one step at a time you can work your way through even the most challenging project.
Try to have your paintings to this point by next class, keep painting and I will will see you in class.
