Winter 2020 Acrylic Class

Project: Desert Refuge Week 3

In our last class I started by sketching in the outside shape of my rows of trees with my soft vine charcoal to use as a guide as I paint. The charcoal will wipe off with a damp paper towel if I want to make changes.

I under painted the trees using my #6 flat bristle brush. This will be a dry brush technique so be sure to get any excess moisture out of your brush before you start painting.

The brown color was burnt sienna, ultramarine blue and a touch of white (gesso). The green was Hooker's green, UM blue and either the mud on my brush from the brown color or a touch of the gray I have saved from last week (UM blue, burnt sienna and gesso) to gray the green.

The stroke is a scumbling stroke. What that means is your brush is going in all directions. I was mostly using the side of my brush which was very dry, and sometimes the flat part of the brush if I wanted to fill in the area quicker. Look at the photo to see where you are going with your colors and don't forget to leave ragged edges and sky holes. You can put them back in if you need to but do try to leave them first.

Both sides get the same treatment the lighter bushes in the front is just the brown with a bit more white in it. 

Adding the reeds and the reflections are similar dry brush strokes using and still using the #6 flat bristle brush.

Use the same colors as you used in the trees for the trees, the reeds are a bit darker and greener than the tree green: Hooker's, UM blue and a touch of the gray.

When creating the above water reeds, it is a quick "flip" stroke. Place the edge of the brush on the canvas then pull and flip. The longer you pull before you flip the longer your reeds will be and don't be afraid to overlap things that will be behind the reeds, that will create depth in your painting.

The reflections are the same but you pull down instead of up and when you have the reeds reflected, lightly pull straight across to create movement.



This is where we left off and I think we now have all of our under painting finished. From here we will start to refine our painting so I hope that you can get your painting to the same point.

Keep painting and I will see you in class.