WINTER 2013 ACRYLIC CLASS

Project: Clay Pots and Chilies

I hope that you are all up to the point where you are done with the under painting because now we are going to start the highlighting process and everything needs to be under painted.

One of the biggest problems when we are doing a still life in class is being able to get proper lighting on the subject. There is a lot of ambient light in the room from several sources such as the overhead lights and the windows and all this “excess” light can confuse your actual light source which is the light I put on the subject. As an artist one of the things you need to practice is picturing in your mind where the light is coming from and how it is landing on your subjects, this skill can come in very handy when you don’t like a light source and want to change it, or there is more than one light source creating a flat lighting situation, if you do any plein air you will need to be able to remember the early morning or the late afternoon light you want or maybe it is over cast with no clear shadows… There are many situations where you can use the ability to “see” how the light hits an object and where shadows fall to make your painting more interesting and more dramatic.

My light is coming from the upper right.

I do this almost as a second nature because I love the drama one can get with the play of light and shadow, I know it can be confusing to my students who are watching me paint because they don’t see what I’m seeing in my mind’s eye, but because I do practice this skill all the time and I observe how light will fall under all conditions in the natural world, I can be fairly certain that the way I am painting the light is as close to seeing the real thing as I can get.

That said, I am assuming that I only have one light source (we only have one sun, so that is logical) and it is coming from the upper right hand side at about the 2 o’clock position, all other light I see on the real still life is not of consequence and I will ignore it. This means that as the light falls on my subject the brightest areas will be on the right side on the outside of the pots and chilies. I make that distinction because the light will hit on the left inside of the two vases/jugs, shadow will be on the left sides and fall towards the left.

More light on the chilies
and a reflected highlight
on the vase.

I mixed a beginning highlight color for the two vases with a base of burnt sienna, with touches of orange, yellow, white and even a bit of red on occasion. The taller of the two is a bit more on the orange side than the other which tends to be a bit redder so I adjusted my color accordingly. I was using a flat sable brush but you can use a flat bristle as well, I just have more control over the sable brush and I won’t be doing any scrubbing so the sable is perfect. Starting on the right hand side, following the contours of the vase (remember it is a rounded, curved surface), I pulled the color in and working across the vase and lightening the pressure on my brush as I got to my shadow areas to blend the highlight into the shadow. Your under painting in many areas will become the shadowed area so do not paint it out. THIS IS NOT MY FINAL HIGHLIGHT this is just the beginning of the highlighting process to create the shape and form of my pots. I was very aware of where the light was falling on the pots so I was sure to paint around the shadows.

The bowl was a bit different because it has some smoky color as well as the sienna color. To get that grey color I mixed my sienna with my blue and a touch of white just to lighten it slightly. Whine I was painting the inside of the bowl, I would pick up some straight burnt sienna and loosely blend the colors together so you could still see streaks of the sienna, looked almost exactly the same as the actual bowl when I was done. The outside was done the same way but I didn’t add any white to the sienna and blue mix so it stayed dark.

The rim of all the pots was a lighter version of the sienna and orange with a bit of the dark color to grey it a bit and white to lighten it. Still using a flat sable brush I put this color on the rims then with my finger, softened the edges because the edges are slightly rounded into the pots and the bowl.

Close-up of the ground. Note that the under painting shows through.

Going back to my #10 bristle brush, and mixing into that light rim color I was just using, I mix a bit more sienna into it and a bit of yellow and white (gesso) to get a soft peach color, using the long, flat strokes and the dry brush technique (very little paint or water on the brush) I dry brushed in another layer of light into the ground the pots are sitting on. Again, I am not trying to cover up everything I did before, just add a few more highlights to the ground, there will probably be at least one more round of highlights on the ground because acrylics always dry a bit darker and I want this to look like sun shine.

Lastly, I under painted the chilies in the bowl with alizarin and blue to make a very deep red color basing it in with my sable brush. I made sure that the edges were very random so it looked like chilies in there and not Jello.

Please try to get you painting up to this point when class resumes. We should have maybe one or two more sessions for the class project so you will want to be looking for your own project when you are finished with this one.

Picture page link -   https://picasaweb.google.com/110300529433736983967/Winter2013ArtClsses

WINTER 2013 – ACRYLIC CLASS

Project: Clay Pots and Chilies

I want to reassure the newer students in class that there is method to my madness. I heard comments to the effect that “It’s very dark!” Yes it is! And that is a good thing. In any painting you need to have dark to show light so with most mediums – with a couple of exceptions like watercolor – your under painting tends to be on the dark side for the first couple layers, this is true in oils and also pastels. You have to have that darkness so when you put lighter colors on it they will show up. Don’t panic, we will start to put the light into it next week.

That said, I finished under painting my bowl. I want you to notice that aside from the string of chilies, I have not painted the chilies in the bowl or on the table, also notice that on the inside of the bowl I painted it as if there were no chilies in there at all. I did not paint around the area of the chilies because I do not know where those chilies will be when I do put them in but I know the back of the bowl will need to be there when I get around to it.

When I painted the bowl, I needed it to be a different color, this bowl was probably closer to the fire where the smoke was (called a reduction fire) which added blackened streaks to the bowl and a grayer color to the natural clay. Burnt sienna is still my base but to it I added ultramarine blue, a touch of purple and a tiny amount of white. It should be a warm (color-wise) charcoal gray. (If you don’t understand color “temperature” here is an abridged version: visual warm colors are red, orange, yellow and all their variations such as brown [orange family], magenta [red family] ocher [yellow family]. The cool colors are purple, blue and green and all their variations such as lavender [purple], turquoise [blue], khaki [green]). If the color is too cool – to the blue side – add a touch more sienna.

Everything is now under painted.

Using my #4 flat SABLE brush (a sable will give you more control, just don’t scrub with it) and following the curves of the bowl, if you don’t have a flat sable use a flat bristle, it’s just not as springy as a sable. I filled in the inside of my bowl with the color I mixed. Down toward the bottom, inside of the bowl where the light will be blocked I kept it very dark, as I painted up into the area where light will fall, I added touches of white and orange or sienna to SLIGHTLY lighten the area, I am not up to the lightest lights yet but I can start the process. On the outside I used the same dark mixture I used on the inside of the bowl, same brush but I streaked it on following the curve of the bowl and picking up straight burnt sienna with the mud on my brush to add the streaks of natural clay color you see in the bowl.

Once I had the bowl under painted, I now had all of my elements under painted so I could proceed on to the first phase of bringing in the light. I started with the peppers, using the same sable brush and alizarin crimson. If you don’t have alizarin add a touch of your ultramarine blue to the napthol red to cool it down it should be a value or two lighter than what is there. Again, this is just under painting for the chilies but we will be a bit more specific, yet, the chilies are just shapes, the quicker you get them in the better they look. If you try to nitpick each individual chili, your chilies will look over worked and won’t fit in with the rest of the painting. You might want to practice before you do it on your painting, however, if you twist your brush in your fingers and lift as you make your shapes, you will get a more natural looking chili then trying to be too specific.

The chilies go in all directions, they are twisted, curled, turn up and down or both, they overlap each other, some come at you some point away, just be free with shapes  and be sure to get them down behind the  vase in front of them. The chilies near the bottom will be in shadow so add a touch of blue and/or purple but keep it just slightly lighter than your first layer of paint. When you are satisfied with that layer of alizarin, this time pick up either your napthol red or your cad red and do the same thing but keep this color more where the light might hit it, you can also pick up touches or orange to paint either new chilies or to highlight existing chilies. DO NOT COVER UP ALL THAT ORIGINAL DARK AREA that becomes the shadows on the inside of the chili string.

The last thing I did in class is to start the highlighting of the ground around my bowls. I am going to have my bowls sitting in the dirt, if you are doing something different and need help figuring it out, catch me in class and I will help you achieve the desired effect.

Back to my #10 flat bristle brush, I mixed burnt sienna with a touch of white and maybe a little orange for the area where light will be hitting, I will be adding color to my brush as I go but this will be what I start with. When I load my brush I wipe out any excess either on my palette or on my paper towel so I’m not dealing with a glob of paint, then with the flat end of the brush slightly on its side but entirely on the surface of the canvas I make a long, flat “u” stroke. The harder you push on your brush, the more paint will come off it, conversely, the lighter the pressure the less paint comes off so adjust the pressure of your brush to your needs.

I added the light color in over lapping strokes but still leaving some of the under painting show through, this gives texture and depth to the ground, that said, by using varying pressure on my brush, I did congest the area so it didn’t look like a Flat U convention. When I got to the corners and to areas where I wanted shadow, the stroke was the same but to my brush I added more straight sienna, along with blue, purple and a touch of red here and there and mixed the colors on the canvas and blended them into the lighter areas. This is only step one for highlighting the dirt but it is an important step.

We will continue the highlighting process next week, if you have questions specific to your painting please let me know, someone else might be having the same problem. You are all doing great, I hope you are having fun, I know I’m liking this painting. See you in class.

WINTER 2013 – ACRYLIC CLASS

Project: Pots and Chilies

Small acrylic "test" painting.

We are finally started on our project, this week we finished up our preliminary sketches to determine whether our painting would be vertical or horizontal, the design and composition and what kind of background we were going to put in now we do our first layers of under painting.

For my new students and for some of my returning students who are still struggling with this whole concept of under painting in acrylics I want to emphasize what I did this first step: the only drawing I did was to determine where the wall behind my subjects met with the ground they were sitting on, nothing more. I did not do an elaborate sketch or drawing of the pots because I am not ready for that step yet. While it is not set in stone, when painting in acrylic I recommend you start with what is furthest away or behind you subject so when you do get to your subject what is behind will look like it would still be there if the subject was removed without there being an unpainted hole.

What I see happening quite often is my students want to start at the end so they do this detailed drawing then carefully paint around each individual thing trying very hard not to go over their drawing, then they paint the spaces they left blank and at the end they are not satisfied because it looks like the subject has been cut and pasted onto the canvas. Usually there are “halos” around the subject either small gaps that didn’t get painted or there are brush marks that outline the subject and these hard marks can be the most difficult to correct because they leave ridges of paint that won’t come off without drastic measures.

Acrylic paint has its own unique properties as do all mediums, the one thing that is great about acrylics (the traditional kind not the new open paint) is that they dry within a few minutes, at least enough that you can paint right over what is there. This can be good news/bad news: good news in that you can paint right over an area within minutes, bad news is blending can be a challenge, unlike oils that will stay workable for weeks if needed. Once you learn how to blend with acrylics it isn’t a problem, it does take practice on your part. So start in the back and work forward.

I just wanted a simple background for my painting so I wasn’t spending weeks on the background, however, this is an option for everyone in class, if you want to do something different such as put an Indian blanket or a serape in the background, you will need to do research on your own to find what you want to do, I suggest this for my more advanced students, beginners should follow what I’m doing for the time being – gotta crawl before you can run.

I used my #12 flat bristle brush and a variety of colors (dioxizine purple, ultramarine blue, Hooker’s green, burnt sienna and optional color pthalo blue) but I ALWAYS put out all my colors because if it isn’t out, I won’t stop to put it out, it is just human nature.

For the most part, I want my background to be dark as if it is in shade or shadow, I am always thinking of how I can work light against dark or dark against light, even from the very first stages of a painting. This will give depth and drama to my painting and a sense of where the light is coming from so I will exploit the entire range of values my paint can give me.

I pick up 2 or three colors at a time on my brush, then scrub the color on to my canvas, this is called brush mixing and it give a more random mix of color then blending to a homogeneous color on my palette and that is a good thing. The variety of color makes it look more interesting and more natural, contrary to what you might think. When I have to reload, I may pick up the same colors or I may pick up another color or two instead as long as they are dark, and I loosely blend it in with what is already on my canvas.

Background and ground for the pots.

The stroke I use is a scrubbing or scumbling motion. I am using all sides of my brush – I usually twisting the brush in my hand holding it more like a knife not a pencil – and I am going in all directions with it. Even if you are painting a wall in your painting, it is much more interesting if your brush strokes are more random, it is a lot different than repainting the wall in your home because you have different goals. I am also not dabbing the paint on, this is a place that you can work out your frustrations and really work the paint into your canvas.

The area on my painting that will be the wall behind my pots I kept mostly to the blues and greens though I did throw in a bit or orange and red and worked it into the colors that were there. When you are working wet paint into wet paint it is call wet into wet ironically, and while the paint is wet you can make some nice gentle blends of color. In the area that will be the ground – and I want mine to look like dirt – I used burnt sienna with touches of purple, orange and red but again, I want a rather dark color especially in the corners and because I was working quickly enough, the blue of the wall was still wet and I blended the two areas together so there were no hard lines. If you are having trouble with this, you are probably applying too much pressure to your brush so lighten the pressure when you are trying to make a soft blend or transition. The stroke is very similar to what I used on the wall but this time it was more like long shallow, over lapping “u” shapes so the brush strokes help the dirt look flat.

This was my under painting and at this point I had to let it dry before doing my drawing. Once my painting was dry, because it was so dark, I used white chalk to sketch on my basic design. You don’t deed a detailed drawing because you will be painting over a lot of these lines, you just need their basic shapes. For instance: The string of chilies in the back, I just suggested the rough outline of the edge of the string, I DID NOT draw individual chilies, just the outside edge because that is all I need. Don’t make any more work for yourself than necessary, your efforts should go into your painting.

White chalk was used to sketch in the design.

I used a #8 flat bristle brush for this next part to fill in the elements of my painting. For the chilies I used alizarin crimson and a touch of blue and/or purple (if you don’t have alizarin you can use the napthol red with your blue and purple) this color will be very dark. The stroke was still a bit random within the string of chilies but when I got to the edge I made it very random. There should be a lot of ins and outs since these are to ends of the individual chilies. They will go in different directions, some up some out some down. Some will be longer, some shorter, some missing… please don’t make it look like the edge of a comb which is the tendency or to paint it solid, these things are sticking out all over so keep that in mind when you are painting the chilies.

On the pots I started in the lightest side with a mix of burnt sienna a touch or orange and/or red and a little touch of blue lightly mixed on my palette and putting the end of the bristles near the sketch line, I pulled in towards the center of the pots forming the edges of the pots with a series of brush strokes rather than an outline of the entire edge. Using this kind of stroke – pulling in to form an edge – keep your edges soft and it also prevents leaving a ridge of paint that once it is dry it is almost impossible to get rid of at least not easily or without damage to what is around it. This is in the “ounce of prevention…” category, so use this technique when you are filling in elements of your painting.

Also note that the tall vase is a bit different color from the smaller jug, it is slightly more orange the other slightly more red, take this into account when you are mixing your color.

As I moved from the light side to the shadowed side, I added more blue or purple to my color. Doing this while the paint is still wet allows you to get some nice transitions between your colors and starts showing where light and shadow fall on your subjects. Don’t be afraid to paint over the edges of one of the other pots if the pot you are painting is behind it, you can always fix it later and you won’t leave an unsightly gap between one pot and the other that will be much harder to fix.

I just got the vase and the jug under painted and will do the bowl next time. Please note that I DID NOT put in any of the lose chilies on the ground yet. That will be one of the last things I do because there are things I need to do to the ground before I worry about the chilies.

Please have at least your sketch on your canvas for next time and if possible get some of it under painted, we will continue with this next class. It should take 3 or 4 classes to finish. See you all soon.

For any of my students who are interested in taking a workshop, Jerry Yarnell will be having a workshop out in Rancho Cucamunga in March (3/13-14) and an open workshop that follows (3/15-16). If you want to see more about his workshop, go down to Lerri's Links and click on the YarnellSchool link. 

I have signed up again because he won't be back in Calif this year and he is a very good teacher. I figure the more I learn the better off you are, however, it is always good to get other perspectives and I encourage you to take workshops or other classes because you can always learn something or hear something that said a different way that finally makes sense.

Just wanted to pass along the info. See you soon.

Happy New Year!

I hope that everyone had a good holiday and New Year and are now ready to get back to work.

I have had many requests to do another still life, your wish is my demand. I spent part of my vacation looking for what I hope is a perfect setup for the still life but you need to be aware that because it is a still life - meaning that you work from the actual things - there will be no line drawing for you to copy or transfer. I do suggest that for the first class that you have paper and pencil to do some sketches to determine whether you want to do vertical or horizontal, a camera, preferable with a zoom, to take a photo  from where you are when you start the painting and maybe get a couple smaller canvases to do some small quick paintings to work out design problems before you start painting.

This is good practice for all paintings including if you want to do plein air. It is a lot different working from a subject that is in the 3 dimensional world and working from a flat 2D photo, even under the controlled setting of a studio. This will be a challenge for many of you but one I'm sure you are up to.

I am posting a couple photos here to show that there is a difference between a vertical and horizontal composition and you may use them as reference only because they won't be in the same position you will see them in class. I'm not even going to use them for the painting I will be doing in class.

Another thing you may want to think about is what kind of background do you want? This is a suggestion especially for my students who have been with me for a while, yes, you can follow along with what I do but you may also want to find something different for your own needs. I will talk about that more in class.

I am looking forward to the start of class, I really want to get started on this project. See you all soon.

  

Fall 2012 Acrylic Class – Scotty’s Truck Week 3

Once your truck is under painted you need to start the highlighting process. The problem most beginning students have is they want to go to the final highlight straight out of the gate when there are usually several more subtle layers before you get to the final highlight. On this truck there are shades of orange, yellow and red that need to be dry brushed on to get the truck a more rusted look, you can start with the base color you mixed up if you have any left, or just use burnt sienna with touches of the above mentioned colors, the key is to “dry brush” the highlights along with some of the darker areas and shadows.

The newer students in class may not have heard the term dry brush but it is exactly what it sounds like: A brush with little water and little paint on it. First, if you have washed or dipped you brush in water, it needs to be dried really well, if you need to add touches of water to your paint and you use your brush to add and mix the water into the paint, squeeze the bristles of the brush with a paper towel before loading your brush with color and again after you have loaded the color wipe the brush on the towel to remove any excess paint, there should be very little paint on your brush.

With you brush now loaded, start in the lightest areas with this color and work out. Use very little pressure on your brush when doing this technique, the harder you push the more paint will come off and you want the color of your under painting to come through. Also, use all sides of the brush and move it around in all directions like a scumbling stroke as you follow the form of the part you are painting. The size and type of your brush matters here, you may need to use a smaller bristle brush if you are working on a smaller sized painting. Be sure you are using a bristle brush because a soft sable not only won’t work very well, you will destroy the brush using it to dry brush.

Before you get too involved with details on the truck there are a couple of things you need to consider, the first is putting the shadows on the ground under the truck and the second is adding some things in the background like some rocksand or bushes in the background. If your truck fills up most of your canvas, this may not be necessary but if you have space around the truck like I have, you might need something to set the truck in its environment. I used a slightly darker version of the ground color which is yellow, white and touches of purple to give me a warm gray rock color. While it was still wet, I also added tiny touches of purple or orange or yellow or white, just to give it some life, mixing the color right on the canvas.

The wood frame in the cab has both shadows and highlights visible but just like the rusted parts of the truck it will look best if you dry brush color on but this time using a small bristle brush and making strokes that would follow the natural grain of the wood. The colors are similar to what you used for the under painting to make the color darker add more blue and purple maybe touches of sienna to grey it or touches of white to lighten the shadow color, to make a light color blue and white.

Depending on where the class is at the end of next session, we may finish this project in class this time. If you feel you are getting close to being done, please have another project of your own to start with you, I will do mini demos for specific needs. See you all in class.

FALL 2012 ACRYLIC CLASS – Scotty’s Truck Week 2

Thanks to Gary we found out that this is probably a 1928 Ford dump truck. Leave it to a guy to be curious about an old rusted out truck. Thanks Gary, I do appreciate your efforts.

In the last class we under painted the truck and the rock, as always, we start out with a mid-tone version of the final color to that we can add other colors to make it lighter or darker. My basic mix of color for the rusted parts of the truck was burnt sienna, orange and a touch of purple. That is a good basic rust color. If you need to make it darker you can add blue and purple to it if you want to change the sun lit color a bit you can add more orange, or yellow or red.

When you under paint the truck, use a brush that will fit the truck size you are working on. I’m on a 16 x 20 canvas and my truck is fairly large in the frame so I started out with a #6 flat sable and went down to a #2 flat sable for the finer detail, if you are working on a smaller canvas, your truck it going to be smaller as well. You may want to start with a #4 either a sable or a bristle and use a small round brush for the detail, don’t try to use a jack hammer when all you need is a tooth pick.

Be sure to have the reference photo IN FRONT OF YOU. That photo has all the information you need to finish this painting, not the photo of where I was in class, that only lets you know where I stopped for the day, the reference photo is where you are headed and helps you see where you are in relationship. Get it out and use it.

I know it is tempting to just put paint on the brush and follow along those long sweeping lines of the fenders and truck body but please resist the urge. Remember that you want to keep the edges soft for now. It may be hard in some areas but do the best you can. Using the flat edge or you brush, place it on the outside edge of what you are painting and pull in. Move down the entire edge of what you are painting in this manner to keep the edge soft. The inside can be scumbled – strokes going every which way – rather than smooth strokes, it will add texture to the area and this is an old, beat-up truck, it has lots of texture.

I had mixed up a pretty good sized amount of my base color to start out, when I got to lighter areas I added more red or yellow, to the darker areas I added touches of blue and/or purple depending on how dark the area was. You can mix the colors on your canvas or you can pre mix on your palette just using a corner of your base color to mix in saving the rest for other areas. For the real dark areas I added a lot of blue, mostly, and some purple, this dark can also be used to paint the tire. Some of my students who have been with me for a while need to start working a bit more wet into wet to blend colors, it will give you more variation.

Also notice that I wasn’t worried about what I was painting. I didn’t try to figure out all those parts and pieces yet, I just under painted them with the base color for now, I will pick them out later – if I feel so inclined.

The rock was under painted with a different type or gray mix than I usually use, this time I used yellow with touches of purple to get a warm gray color. These are complimentary colors and together they make a very nice gray. To make it darker I added more purple with touches of blue. Remember it is not a wall but a rough rock, dab and poke and scumble the color on, this is a good place to practice wet into wet, start with the warm gray color and – without cleaning your brush – pick up touches of purple and blue and work it into the shadowed areas under the truck.

The wood frame inside the cab is a bit on the blue side if you have cobalt or cerulean blue, you can use either of those with a touch of purple and sienna to darken and gray the color if you only have ultramarine blue, add a touch of green, purple, sienna and white to get a soft blue/green color, this is for the shadow areas of the frame and the whitewall of the tire. For the sunlit parts of the frame mix more white and blue with your dirty brush to get a lighter version.

You should have your whole truck under painted at this point; we will start on the highlighting and shadows next class. See you soon.