Acrylic Summer 2015 Class Week 4

Acrylic Project: TJ’s Bouquet Week 4

This week we worked on flowers, getting them based in. Because of the transparent nature of acrylics we will probably have to do several layers to get them thick enough so the black canvas doesn’t show through. Another way you can do this is to under paint with gesso first then add your color but it would still take a couple layers so it is 6 of one and half dozen of another for the way to approach this, both ways will work.

I hope that everyone practiced their brush strokes for leaves and flower petals BEFORE you start working on your project, you won’t be happy with yourself if you don’t, once you feel a bit confident about how the brush strokes work, I started basing in the sunflowers with my sable bright (similar to a flat sable only the bristles are shorter and my bright is better than my flat brush, either works the same) with a mix of cad yellow, gesso and a touch of orange and/or cad red. You are looking for a richer deeper yellow but not an orange. The gesso in the paint will change the value (lightness) of the color but you need it to opaque the color to help it cover the black canvas, just like you did with the leaves.

Before you start painting the flowers look at the reference photo. Pay attention to how the petals twist and turn on the sunflowers and how they overlap each other or bend, they don’t

just stick out from the sides like a child’s version of the sun, they're more like solar flares. Again, if you haven’t practiced this twisting and overlapping it is important that you do.

Another thing to be aware of is the way each of the flowers face. They aren’t all just looking straight at you, they are looking in all directions, look at thereference photo to see what direction the petals go, that reference photo has all the info you need for your painting.

The smaller yellow and red flowers, while a simpler form – 5 petals as opposed to many – you still have to be aware of their shape and direction, they have a trumpet shape and look in all directions.. Also, along with the above colors to get that deeper yellow I added a tiny touch of green to gray the color. Adding purple will dull the yellow too much but the green will mix with the red that is in the orange and just dull the color a bit. Please note, I said a

TINY amount of green, these are still yellow flowers (I will do the red parts later). If you are going to go straight into the red before I demonstrate how I am going to proceed, be sure that you get the little flower with enough substance to their color that they aren’t transparent and do this BEFORE you add the red. I say this because I know that there will be those who will try to get ahead and then run into problems; otherwise, I WILL do the red parts at a later time.

The roses are a more challenging flower. They have a cup shape and layers of petals that unwrap from the outside in. If you have roses of if you have pictures of roses you may want to study them before you start painting them to understand them better when you paint

them. That said, still using the same brush, I mixed my crimson and cad red and/0r orange a tiny touch of gesso to make it more opaque – remember that gesso is white and too much will turn your color pink -  and found the top edges of the petals. My strokes are still angling down to the stem but they may only be little short strokes for the very edges of the petals. The centers of the roses are just touches of the end of my brush and if you need to add more dark color for shadows and creases, use ultramarine blue with your crimson to create a dark color. Look at the reference photo as you paint it has the information you need to paint the roses.

We left off here, next week we will do more detail on our flowers, add more leaves and maybe do a bit on the background depending on how far we get. Try to get your painting to this point as best you can and I will see you in class.

Summer 2015 Acrylic Class

Acrylic Project: TJ's Bouquet Week 3

I hope that you have been practicing your leaf and petal strokes because you will need to use them in this part of the project it is also critical that you have your reference photo of the actual basket bouquet before you start painting, you can't paint this if you can't see what you’re painting.

Because of the transparent nature of acrylics you may need to add little touches of gesso to your paint before you start painting. Gesso will change the value of your color so you want to be sure that you only add little touches of it to opaque your color but not enough to change the value too much.

You will need to mix up a base green and that is going to be your sap green with a little touch of orange, a little touch of the gesso to opaque it and you will add to that color, as you go, touches of blue to make it darker, and touches of yellow to make it lighter, this will give you 3 different values of color to work from: you'll have the base color as your medium color, with the blue the dark color and with yellow, the lighter color.

This is a good place to use your flat sable brushes and depending on the size of your

canvas choose a brush that is not too small but will do the job quickly. Don't get out your teeny tiny brushes, try at least a medium size flat sable brush.

Before you start to paint I want you to study the reference photo and look to see where all the greens are the greens are the leaves and stems of all the flowers in the bouquet some of them are actual leaf shapes others are just spots of color, that's all we are concerned about right now, where they look like leaves you will have to use your brush accordingly and where they are just color fill up the space.

Where you start is up to you. You may want to start where it's just more solid color or you may want to get the smaller leaf structures around some of the sunflowers or where you can see definite leaf shapes and get those out of the way and then just fill in with color. When you're done with that, please note that I have not started the ferns yet. We will get to the

fern later but right now just concentrate on the leaves around the flowers. Remember that the technique to create these leaves is a matter of pressure and twisting your brush, so if you need to practice again, do so! You can start out on the end of your brush and then twist and press and pull up for longer leaves or you can start by pressing and twisting and pulling quickly for shorter leaves, but please practice this on something else other than your painting or you won't be happy.

The last thing I did was I added some light around the basket of the flowers. This needs to go in first before we start adding the ferns that will hang over it. I used my gesso with a little touch of orange and starting right at the edge of the basket I put the color down and as I scumbled and scrubbed away from basket with my bristle brush, I lighten the pressure and it became more of a dry brush technique so that it became lighter and lighter until it faded into the dark. Please note that there is a definite shape to the shadow of the basket its narrower coming off the bottom then as it moves away from the basket it starts to spread out and get softer in color. Also note that the shadow of the basket the sides go in the same direction towards the right because of the angle of the light behind it. Check your reference photo before you start so you can see the angles.

In the shadow area I mixed a dark color which was my blue and purple with a little touch of burnt sienna just to gray the color slightly, then starting at the very base of the basket I put in this dark color and I started moving away from the base I started adding little amounts of the gesso to lighten the color slightly. Don’t add too much you want it to remain dark but you also wanted to lighten a little as it moves away from the basket. A shadow is always darker right next to and underneath an object then as the shadow moves away from the object because light reflects into the shadows.

This is where we stopped for the day so please try to get your paintings to this point and always have that reference photo in front of you when you are painting. Keep painting and I will see you in class.

Summer 2015 Acrylic Class Week 2

Acrylic Project: TJ'SBouquet Week 2

Last week we under painted our background and we also started working on the basket. Before continuing, I needed to make some changes to my metal basket because I thought it was too high in the picture and I hadn't extended the sides so that's what I did for the first few minutes took me about 5 minutes to fix the problem and it's better to fix a problem when you see it rather than try to live with it and hate it later.

I wanted to get the basket more or less done but I did need to let it dry so while it was drying I under painted the centers of the sunflower and under painted the roses. For the roses, I used two different colors red one was a deep dark red which was a mixture of alizarin crimson and of ultramarine blue. This is for the dark color in the centers, where you can see the centers, and then alizarin crimson with a little touch of blue for the outside petals. Centers for the sunflower were a dark rich brown you can make if you have burnt umber mix that with a little bit of blue and purple for the color, if you don't have burnt umber just use your burnt sienna, blue and a little touch of purple, you want to deep rich brown color.

Have your reference photo in front of you before you start and refer to it often. To paint the centers of the sunflowers using either a flat bristle or a flat sable, your choice, I started from the outside and just pull in with the dark brown color. Don't worry about getting the exact shape you will do that with the pedals when you put those on, for now you want to create where the centers are located and if it's a little larger that's fine we will we will cut them down with the lighter pedal colors. Be aware of the shapes of all of these flowers: the sunflowers look in many directions as do the roses so be sure when you're basing these in that you don't have them all looking in one direction. Think tilted ovals and not just flat circles.

When I based in the roses I started at the outside edge and I pulled in and down towards the center of the flower. Whenever you're painting flowers you have to remember that all of the pedals go to that central spot where they connect to the stem you want your strokes to follow that natural direction of growth.

Once the basket was dry I started on the detail of the basket you can use the dark brown color that you used in the sunflower centers for the dark brown rust on the basket. Look at the photograph and see how irregular the paint has chipped off the bottom of the basket this is what you were trying to recreate when you put in this dark. If you need to you can use your chalk or charcoal to draw a shape that guide you or you can just freehand.

The rust that is leaking through into the paint that's left on the basket is done with burnt sienna in the middle with a touch of orange on the right and a touch of blue on the left so that you get aggravated look to the rust that is in the paint on the basket. Use a bristle brush and the dry brush technique to lightly apply these colors, you just want to skim these colors on.

Before we move on to putting the leaves into the basket around the flowers it is important that you understand and practice creating leaves, this will also work for the flower petals in the sunflowers. Find a spare canvas or an old canvas you can paint out and practice making your leaves and petals. Use your flat sable brush for most of these although you can use a round sable brush, both will require that you practice with them before you start on your painting.

This is where we left off in class so please practice those leaves between now and our next session and be ready to start work when we meet again, keep painting and I will see you in class.

Summer 2015 Acrylic Class

Acrylic Project: TJ’s Bouquet Week 1

I want to preface this by saying that you do not need to use a black canvas if you do not have one or if you don’t have black gesso or paint to make one, you can do this on a white canvas but to get the dark colors you will use a lot more dark paint to get the same results.

I am working on a black canvas and I started my painting by deciding where to put the table (horizon) line because I don’t want my flowers to look like they are floating in air, I decide to make the line a bit more than a third of the way up from the bottom (aprox. 6 ½” on a 16 x 20 canvas). I want a subtle background for my flowers and I want to keep it dark so I won’t be using much white except in certain areas around the basket and flowers.

For the most part, acrylics are on the transparent side and at times we need to we need to add something that is more opaque like gesso to give them more substance, keep this in mind during this project because if you have trouble with your colors fading into the background you may need to add little touches of gesso to opaque your colors.

Starting out the background on this project I was using my #10 flat bristle brush because I am going to be doing a lot of scrubbing to get the color on and the bristle brushes are designed for this kind of abuse. Please don’t use your good sable brushes or you will ruin them with this technique. It is not to say that you can’t use the sable brushes to do the back ground but it is a totally different technique.

I started with my gesso - white acrylic is also transparent and my not give you enough substance to your colors – to the gesso I added thalo blue, touch of purple, ultramarine blue and sienna but you can also either add Hooker’s green or other dark color what I was looking for was a cool gray blue color about a medium value. A note here: If you know where you want to hang a painting you can tweak colors to match the décor’ or if you aren’t sure what color you want, go with a muted version of the complimentary color to the predominant color of your subject, in this case we have deep yellows and reds so a gray green or blue/purple would work well.

What I am trying to create is the idea of a dark room with the only a small window for light which is back lighting the flowers, everything else is in shadow. Starting where I think the most light should be, which is the center third of the canvas, I started in the center of that area with this lighter color. When I say lighter I mean in comparison with the black canvas, this should be a mid-value color but it will look much lighter because of the black canvas until we get lighter things on it. I scrub this color on my canvas just above the table line, scrubbing in all directions. If I need more of this lighter color, I start in the same place and work out, I want the color to fade to little or nothing as I move to the corners. On my 20 x 16 (landscape) canvas that was an area of 9 x 5, I then wiped out my brush, I did not clean it, and then just picked up the dark colors on my brush no gesso or the gray color and starting just outside the area I just painted I scrubbed in these dark colors then worked them back into the edges of the lighter area. You must work quickly so you can get a nice graded transition from light to dark. Only use the dark colors as you cover to the corners of your canvas.

The table or counter area is more of less the same thing except you want to keep you strokes horizontal. Start in the center of the light area like you did for the top but this time you can scrub in a suggestion of a line where the wall meets the counter. Let it fade to nothing on the ends this just suggests a surface for the basket to sit on. The light will hit the surface a bit different than the wall which is more reflected light, the light on the counter “V’s” out from the center but quickly fades. Scrub the color in but use horizontal strokes, whip your brush and add the dark colors just as before, we can always make adjustments later but this gets us started. Let this dry before starting to draw your sketch.

You can use a light colored chalk to draw your design on your canvas and it does not need to be a detailed sketch but you do need to fill the canvas with the design. Too often when you are learning to paint you will get a canvas and put little tiny subjects in the center of a virtually blank canvas, you need to make your subject important and fill you canvas with it so it becomes important. Also, make sure that your design has interesting edges. By this I mean that the elements in the design have different heights or lengths so if you were to take a pencil or the end of a brush and just trace around the edges  of the design it would have a lot of in and out movement not all confined to one centralized basic shape. Be bold, no one will die.

 

In class we got as far as basing in the rusting basket the flowers are in, I switched to my #6 flat bristle brush and made a mix of gesso, ultramarine blue, a touch of purple and burnt sienna to make a very warm medium, gray color. Even though the basket looks white, it isn’t. On the gray scale it is about 40% to the black side so you do not want this to be too light at this point. Starting in the middle of the basket with this color I started to fill in the basket, as I filled in toward the left side it is a bit darker so I picked up more of the blue, and sienna and a little purple to darken the color, when I went to the right where it is getting a bit of reflected light I added a touch of my white mix which is mostly gesso with a teeny, tiny touch of yellow to tint the white and blended that into lighten the base color on the right side. I used this lighter version of the basket color to paint in the handle.

Lastly, through the flowers we can see the light inside of the basket, this is an oval shape not round or pointy on the ends. Using that white mix I stated above, I filled in the inside of the basket. A lot of this will go away as we add leaves and flowers but some of it will show through and help with the sense of light. This is where we ended class I hope that everyone can get their paintings to this point before next class. Keep painting.

Acrylics 101 – Wrap Up

The last day of class we finished up the landscape painting we started the previous week. The first thing I did was highlight the road. I was using my #4 flat bristle brush starting on the distant part of the road with a more solid color, I used gesso (white) and a little touch of orange and yellow to create a warm bright color and tapped it on the distant road as it goes behind the trees on the right to the curve. From there, I wiped my brush so I didn’t have a lot of paint on my brush and coming around the curve, I changed my strokes to a more flat, elongated “U” over lapping as I came to the foreground and adding touches of sienna to the white/yellow/orange mixture. When I got to the bottom right hand corner, I added a touch of blue and purple to create a cool brown color and to create shadows. (See Photo)

The previous week I had a brush flip out of my hand and land on the sky part of my canvas, when I wiped it off some of the sky came with it so I decided that I would put my sun in that spot. With the same brush but clean, I picked up my gesso (white) and a tiny touch of yellow to tint the white, then using the corner side of my brush, starting in the area where I wanted the brightest light to be, I made a series of small circles and worked my way out from the center, lightening the pressure on my brush as I went. You may have to let it dry and do it again if it isn’t bright enough.

With the light source present in our painting we do not have to guess where the light is coming from: It is coming from the back right just above the trees. Knowing where the sun is let me add some highlights to the trees on the left side of the road using the same sun color but adding a little green (Hooker’s or sap) to highlight the right side of some of the trees and using the same color to “rim light” some of the tops of the trees on the right.

I had planned on putting in some closer trees in the painting but one of my students requested some flowers and I liked the idea so I changed to a poppy field instead. Again, starting in the distance on the back side of the road and now using a #6 flat sable brush, I mixed orange, yellow and a touch of white to make a light orange color. I put this on pretty solid in the distance because and things go into the distance the 1. Are lighter/greyer in color, 2, they are closer together, and 3, smaller and little to no detail depending on how far away they are. These flowers are so far away all we can see is color and shapes of color. I tapped this light color on up to the curve of the road in the back with the corner of my sable brush being sure to overlap most of my taps. At the curve on both sides of the road, I added more orange and yellow and still using the corner of my brush and still tapping, I made slightly more distinct clumps, leaving some of the background show through, but these are still just clumps of color getting bigger and spaced more apart as they come forward.

About the bottom third of the painting, I used more orange and yellow and this time instead of adding white, I added some red to the color to make it brighter and I made more actual flower shapes. Poppies are cup shaped so your brush strokes need to curve into a central point where the flower attaches to the stem. These flower shapes will get bigger and further apart the closer you get to the bottom of the canvas and don’t forget to overlap your flowers and the road. The detailed flowers will be on the left side of the road, the right will just be shapes.

To finish the flowers you can add touches of yellow to some of the centers and suggest some stems using some green with a bit of blue. Also you can add some blue and purple in between the poppies to suggest other kinds of flowers. Finish it out the way you want, you may have to look for some reference images but don’t be afraid to experiment, this is how you learn.

There was a lot we didn’t cover and I wish we would have had a bit more time on this last painting but I do hope that you have been encouraged to continue painting and exploring the world of acrylic painting. I hope to see you again in class. Keep painting.

Acrylic 101 – Landscape Scene

For our final 2 weeks we started a simple landscape scene using all the techniques we learned during this past semester so here is the step by step:

1.     With your soft vine charcoal or chalk draw your horizon line approximately 2/3s from the bottom of the canvas. This is all the drawing you will need to do for now.

2.     Lightly mist the top portion of your canvas, this will help the gesso to go on your canvas. If you have runny gesso you may not need to do this step.

3.     With a larger bristle brush and your gesso cover the upper section with the gesso so the entire sky area has a light coating of gesso with a scrubbing type stroke. To check to see if you have too much or too little lightly touch the canvas you should be able to see your skin color through it: Too little and there won’t be much on your finger too much gesso and you will have a thick coating and possible peaks of paint of gesso on your finger, if this happens, scrap some of the gesso off with our brush and spread the remaining out to cover, test again. We need the gesso to blend the colors of our next step if there is too much gesso the colors will become too light. Remember you can always add the gesso if you need it as you blend, it is hard to remove once you get started.

4.     While the gesso is still wet, wipe out the brush you were using and pick up a generous amount of your ultramarine blue on one corner and a touch or sienna and purple on the other corner you will brush blend these colors by streaking the brush across the top of the canvas until most of the color is off your brush, wipe the brush again then using long crisscross strokes starting at the top and working across then down, move and blend the color down to the horizon line and be sure that you take the color a little beyond the line you drew so you will be sure that the sky is behind everything. You may need to wipe your brush often and don’t over mix these colors, you want what is called a “graded color” so that it is darker at the top than it is at the bottom. If you want a nice smooth blended sky you can use your soft blending brush using long crisscross strokes and a very light touch, if you want a more “painterly” sky you can blend with the bristle brush but again use a very light touch, you just want to skim the surface of your canvas.

5.     Without stopping to let it dry and using the same brush, down in your palette take some gesso (white) and mix into it the same colors you just used (ultramarine blue, sienna and purple)and mix a color that is just slightly darker than your sky. Keep it to the blue/purple side but don’t get it too dark, you want a distant mountain color so your mountains will look far away.

6.     Load your brush by pulling it through your color on both sides to shape the end so it looks flat and even. If your bristle brush is too fuzzy at the end, you can use a similar sized sable brush, just don’t break out the small brushes yet. You sky should still be a little wet at this point and that is what you want, using the whole end of the brush starting a bit above the horizon line put the whole edge of your brush where you want to start the top of your distant mountains and pull down. This creates a soft edge and if a bit of the sky colors blends in, that is a good thing, it will soften that edge even more. Do this across the canvas creating an interesting and varied mountain ridge. The base of the mountains can be filled in with any stroke you want and be sure to go past the horizon line again and just scrub the bottom edge out into the blank canvas so there are no hard lines of paint at the bottom, it won’t hurt anything. I did use this color to add some clouds to the sky along with touches of white if you want clouds. Now you can let it dry. (You can make as many distant mountain ridges as you want, just remember that as they come closer they get a little darker and bigger as they come forward.)

7.     Once your paint is dry we need to mix a distant tree color and you can use a smaller brush if you want. Again, we start with the same mix we had for the mountains, if you have some left you can mix into that existing pile of paint by adding a bit more of the first three colors and now a forth color of Hooker’s green. Please do not get this too dark! It should be a couple shades darker than the mountains and be a very grey/green color, add a little gesso back into to change the value if it is too dark. Test it on your canvas where you are going to put the trees to be sure it is just slightly darker than the mountains. This takes practice but you do need to be aware before you go applying paint.

8.     Now that you have your tree color, IF YOU NEED TO use your charcoal or chalk to sketch in a tree line at the base of the mountains in the distance, just don’t be married to it as you paint. Any sketching you do is just a suggestion or guide, this is paint not stone. I have my tree line small and indistinct across the middle third of the canvas getting a bit bigger, hence a bit closer, on the sides, I was using the corner of my #6 flat bristle brush to shape the top of the tree line by pulling down, filling in the bottom with various strokes. As I came across to the (my) left side of the painting, and the trees were getting bigger I added touches of green and blue to SLIGHTLY darken the closer trees, they are still in the background so don’t get them too dark. On the right side I started with the slightly darker color for those trees. The thing to keep in mind is the top edge of the trees. Make sure that you have a varied heights and distance between the tops and don’t line them up like a planted orchard, at least not this time, they are supposed to be wild growing trees so no one prunes them. You can let this dry if you want but it is not necessary.

9.     I lightly sketched in a road but painted over most of it so you do not need to do any drawing but if you do, the road comes in from the right, goes at a bit of a diagonal then curves back to the right behind the right side tree line. You can sketch it in later just remember that as the sides of the road go into the distance they get closer together until they are almost a line in the distance.

1. Finally we based in the field in the foreground. This will all be brush mixing and you will need all your colors before you start because if you don’t have them out you will not stop to put them out and your painting will suffer for it. Use the bigger flat bristle brush again, pick up a touch of yellow, sienna and gesso on your brush an in the areas that is in front of the very distant trees, just pull down the color and lightly mix them. If you have a drawing there, just forget about it for now you can draw it in later. Do this across the back part of the field, this is under painting so we are mostly trying to cover the canvas but keep in mind that we are painting wild grasses and not a wall or water so vary your strokes so there is no one direction.

1. As you move down into the closer field, now the fun begins and you need to be brave and just do it. Pick up color any color on your palette though it will be primarily the sienna, yellow, orange and gesso but mixed into those colors anything on your palette keeping the darker colors in the corners. You are going to pat these colors on and there is a couple ways to do this either by just putting some color on then doing a pat and push (more on that in a minute) or just go straight into the pat and push, the results will be the same. What I mean by the pat and push is you will be using the whole flat side of your bristle brush and it will be at a very flat angle to the canvas when you start. You will touch the canvas with the flat side and as you touch you will slightly push and you pull your brush up and off the canvas. This gives a wonderful texture for grassy areas so practice this stroke.

Please try to have your paintings to this point for our next and final class, I hope we can get this done in the time we have left, you all have been doing great so I do hope you have been practicing at home. I will see you in class.

Acrylic – Garden Fantasy Finial

To be honest, I wasn’t liking this much at all so if I screwed it up I didn’t have much to lose, I would paint it out and do something else later but as I worked on finishing it enough so you can see where I was going with this project, the more I did, the more I liked it. It still may get painted out but I think I will hold judgement for a while anyway.

 

As I said earlier, I had to paint out and fix the top part of my pagoda and I like it better. I also needed to separate the pine tree from the tree behind it visually so I added a bit of a lighter green behind the pine tree and I also put in some plants to the right of the pond that seem to be coming in from off the canvas, then the fun began.

In the water of the front pond I took my thalo blue, purple, ultramarine, some alizarin crimson and sap green and just scrubbed in some deeper, darker, richer colors and while they were still wet I took my spray bottle and spritzed the area so the paint would run like it did when we first started. I liked this so much, I waited for it to dry and did a similar thing on the sides and top even letting some of the drips run over parts of my painting. I chose similar colors to what was there and just had some fun with it. I also re-glazed part of the pond around the rocks and that is how I finished my painting.

I hope you were able to finish your paintings but if you still have some work to do, don’t be afraid to try something new. It is a bit scary but you just might like it. I will see you in class.

Acrylics 101 – Creating Distance Using Values

As painters we have a built in problem when it comes to creating distance and depth in our paintings because we are trying to represent a 3 dimensional world on a 2 dimensional surface, this is where perspective comes in and there are a couple variations of perspective that are important to understand whenever you are drawing or painting. There is linear and atmospheric perspective.

Linear perspective means that objects need to be in proportion to the things around them depending on where they are in your painting. Look at the figure standing on the perspected lines. The lines look like they are going off into the distance while the figure looks like a giant and one end and a child at the other then thing is, the figures are all the same size. This is an optical illusion because our brains know that as things go into the distance they become smaller, when the figure stays the same size our brains go by visual clues – the perspected lines – and obviously there is a giant walking down the street.

A “rule of thumb” whenever you are drawing your design is “as things go into the distance they become smaller, closer together, less detail, less intense in color and greyer.” The last 2 “less intense in color and greyer” are part of the next aspect of perspective and that is atmospheric perspective. Atmospheric perspective is caused by all the dust, smog and water vapor in our air, it scatters the light and certain parts of the spectrum are absorbed in the atmosphere only the blue/violet end of the spectrum survives causing things in the distance to take on a soft blue grey.

Look at the desert photos. The black and white photo shows how distant mountains almost blend into the sky and as they come forward they become darker until you get to the

foreground where you can see detail, the outlined version will help you find the different layers. The color version of the same photo shows you how those distant mountains have only soft gray colors, no detail until you get to the foreground. If you have not taken a basic drawing class you might want to take one because you will learn more about perspective and it will make a big difference in your paintings.

In the study we did in class, we created a mountain landscape but the rules will apply if it is a desert or prairie or seascape, if you want to have distance in your painting you need to follow the rule of thumb I quoted above.

I started with the sky because the sky is the furthest thing from us. Using my #10 flat bristle brush because I wanted to cover my canvas quickly, I first applied a thin coat of gesso over the whole sky area. The gesso will help me blend my colors and it doesn’t dry as fast which I want because I will be working wet into wet from this point until I get my first layer or two of mountains, so you will need to work quickly.

While the gesso is still wet, I took a little touch of yellow and red on each corner of my brush and streaked it across where my horizon will be and lightly blended it into the gesso but only going up about a quarter of the way to the sky. This is optional the horizon can be almost any color depending on time of day, location and weather; this is just for practice purposes. I quickly rinsed and dried my brush then picked up my ultramarine blue with a touch of purple and sienna on the corners of my brush and applied these colors across the top of the sky area. Using a long crisscross stroke, I started blending the blue color down toward the yellow/red but stopped just short of the warmer colors, then I rinsed my brush well and dried it off, then going back into the yellow/red color and same long crisscross strokes I blended the lighter color up into the blue color using very little pressure on my brush. What I want is a soft blend so you do not see where one color stops and the other begins. Wipe your brush out often but blend the both from the lighter color to dark and dark into light. If you need to spray your painting with water so the colors will blend, hold the spray bottle out about a foot and lightly spray once or twice and be sure that you work the water into the paint or it will leave dots.

Get your sky blended as best you can and if you want to you can use your soft blending brush and VERY LIGHTLY go over the sky to soften the colors even more. 3 hairs and some air as Bob Ross would say, you barely want to skim the surface.

The next thing I did was to put in my first layer of mountains so on my palette with my #10 bristle brush I took gesso, ultramarine blue, a touch of purple and a little touch of sienna to grey the color to make a soft blue/gray that is slightly deeper than the sky. To create the top edge of my mountains (look at the desert photo again and see what a mountain top looks like), I used the whole flat edge of my brush and pulled down as I went across the canvas. This will create a soft edge and by working in the wet sky color it will further soften the edge. Don’t worry if it blends slightly with the sky that is a good thing. The body of the mountains you can scumble or use crisscross strokes to fill it in.

The next layer of mountains, while the paint is still wet from the first layer, in the same pile of paint you mixed for the first layer you want to add a bit more blue and sienna to darken it, you color should just be a shade or two darker from the first layer and it goes on exactly the same using the edge of the brush and pull down. Then let it dry when you are done.

The next layers are done wet on dry and since they are much closer you will be adding some Hooker’s green to your mix. Remember, you can do as many layers as you want or need but each layer as it comes closer not only gets a bit darker, but also starts to show color. Look at reference photos and when you are out in nature and observe when the colors start to show. For our study we only did 4 layers.

To create the closer mountain range, I wanted to suggest tops of trees in the distance so this time instead of using the whole edge of the brush, I used the brush with the corner at the top to create the ridge and the suggestion of trees using a very vertical stroke and filled in the rest of this layer with this vertical stroke.

This was basically the lesson though I did put in a few closer trees, I think we will do a lesson on how to create life-like things and pine trees will be one of them. Try to get these layers down so you understand them and have a canvas ready for trees and rocks, maybe some flowers and wooden buckets. See you in class.

Acrylics – Garden Fantasy Week 7

These last couple of weeks was for finishing up your project so you are happy with it and to fix things you may not be so happy with and I found something I was not real happy with so I changed it.

I didn’t like the rocks in the upper part of my stream because to me they seemed too hard edged for where they were I the painting but rather than painting them out and doing them over again I chose to go over them with dry brush and create a mist or haze over them like sunlight coming through the trees and this did what I needed it to do.

Using my #6 flat bristle brush, I took gesso and a little touch of yellow to tint the white and enough water to thin it down so it was just a glaze, making sure I didn’t have too much water in my brush, and starting at the tree top next tothe stream I first started with small circular scrubbing strokes and I moved away from the tree it was a combination of the circular strokes and diagonal strokes like a sunbeam coming through the trees. I went all across my stream, rocks and parts of the plants on the other side to soften what was there and create more depth in my painting. I did this about 3 times, letting it dry in between each application so I could see what it actually looked like because it looks totally different when it is wet than when it is dry. YOU DO NOT HAVE TO DO THIS only if you feel your painting needs it.

I also worked on brightening some of my highlights and I started detailing the pagoda looking for the highlight and shadow areas. Whatever color you painted your pagoda with the shadow color will be that color plus some blue and purple just don’t get it too dark because there is a lot of reflected light, the only real dark area is the shadow on the inside of the window and at the very bottom where it sits on the rock.

Unfortunately, as I was working on mine, I saw that I had a really bad distortion in the upper part of my pagoda so I needed to paint it out to get pine tree color behind and will try to get it painted back in before our next class.

Another thing I did is at the base of the pagoda and behind it I added some spikey

red/orange plants. There are some types of flax that are near that color but mostly I wanted to repeat tome of that color I have in other places in my painting.

On some of the rocks near the front of the stream I added some ground cover coming in between and over some of the rocks to soften and settle them down.

I do have some work to do to finish up my painting but at this point in time it will be your choice as to how you want to finish yours. Do the best you can and I will see you in class.