SUMMER 2016 ACRYLIC CLASS Project : Working the Steps Week 2/3

I am painting right over my value underpainting.

I started on my 16 by 20 canvas by putting down a value scale underpainting of my subject using grey, which is a mixture of ultramarine blue, burnt sienna, and white. To make the color darker I added more blue and burnt sienna; to make it lighter I added more white. Once I had my value underpainting down, I started working on the color starting with the sky.

Using gesso, ultramarine blue, a tiny touch of purple and a very little touch of the burnt sienna to grey the color, I started at the top of the canvas with my #10 flat bristle brush and working down  to create my sky. You want the upper part of the sky darker than the bottom part, you use more of the blue mixture at the top and as you work down the canvas you add more white or gesso. As I got close to the horizon I added just a little touch of alizarin crimson to the white and the blue on my brush to create a soft violet color starting from the horizon and working up this time and using a circular motion of my brush I created what looks like a bank of fog in the distance.

While the sky was still wet, I rinsed my brush and made a mixture for the distant peninsula, again using my ultramarine blue, a little touch of purple, sienna and enough white/gesso to create a color that was just a little bit darker than of value the sky, with that color I created the distant peninsula that is right along the horizon line. Use the flat edge of your brush (change to a smaller brush if you need to) to create the top edge of the peninsula pulling down, this creates a soft top edge, you do not want a hard edge in the distance.

I put the clouds in with a palette knife in this version.

My sky was still a little bit wet so I wanted to add some clouds Clouds can be done in a couple of ways: if you are attempting to use a palette knife you can use a palette knife to create the clouds or by using your flat bristle brush you can also create some clouds, just remember that clouds are water vapor that is bubbling and boiling in the atmosphere so to create the sense of your clouds billowing in the sky you need to use your brush or your palette knife in a circular type fashion to create the idea of clouds.

One of the things I didn't worry about was going over the lines or edges of my cliffs or the horizon line because I can do several things to fix it: I can either wipe out any paint that gets into and area I don’t want by using a damp paper towel or just let them dry and paint over it, it's one of the beauties of acrylic paintings that you can paint right over something if you don't like it, so don't worry about painting around just paint right over those lines and you will avoid getting a halo around your objects or hard lines.

Once my sky was dry then I started working on my distant water using my ultramarine blue and my hookers green with a little bit of yellow and white I created a soft green, distant color. This won't be the finished color but it is what I'm using for an underpainting. Be aware of the values that you have already laid down those should be your guidelines to the lightness or the darkness of your color, look at the color against the value you have down, squint your eyes and if they are close in value they will kind of disappear against each other, and then you know you have the correct value.

Using this blue green color, I painted this in along the horizon using my finger to soften the

edge, and in just behind the little point or peak in the foreground, then, as I moved into the foreground, I added touches of other colors as I came forward. I added more blue and more green in places, I also added touches of purple and white, all the time my brush strokes are horizontal, like flat bananas, to create the idea of water. As I came forward, I added still more color, sometimes more green, sometimes a little white or blue. Towards the shoreline I added touches of burnt sienna and yellow. To create a wave I used a darker blue green and with little upward curved strokes created the front of the wave.

While I was waiting for the ocean to dry I started working on the cliffs. When you are under painting you are painting a darker version of the final color, so with my burnt sienna, blue, purple and a touch of gesso, I created a soft cool brown tone, you can also use burnt umber instead of sienna, you want it to be a medium dark color for the under painting.

Starting at the edge of the cliff and pulling in towards bulk of the cliff, using the flat end of my bristle brush I created the edge of the cliff that is against the sky. Look at the reference photo, it's not a smooth edge there are rocks and boulders and loose dirt and all kinds of things going on with the edge of these cliffs so you want to create an uneven edge to your cliffs. You can pull in using the flat part of your bristle brush or to create little outcroppings using the corner and pulling in this is just for the edge, on the interior of the cliff wall you will be doing what's called a scumbling stroke which are strokes that go in every direction, however, because these cliffs are made of sedimentary type rock you want your strokes to slightly angled down top to bottom.

As you work your way closer to the darker area you can add more blue, purple and sienna but no white to create the darker cave area. Don't be afraid to add other colors like a little orange or yellow even green and touches of white, just be sure that you have made a lot of different strokes as you blend your colors because those strokes become the texture of your rocks, remember you are not painting it like a wall, painted like a pile of rocks which is what it is. Where the cave is the darkest, your color should be a cool, charcoal grey meaning not quite a black color and should be on the bluish side.

On the closer cliff wall you want to have a little bit lighter color to go against the dark of the other cliff wall where there's a cave, use the same colors the blue, sienna or umber, and little touch of purple but add a little touch of orange or yellow and a little touch of white to create a lighter color. The stroke is the same, the application is the same to create the outside edge: with either the flat end of your brush or with the corner to create the little ins and outs where rocks are poking out or where they have fallen off. Use this color all the way down that front edge and out to the little point then as you work back into the shadows and more of umber or sienna or blue even purple, all the time you are scumbling and creating different shapes with your strokes.

For the very dark color that is on the backside of the little point and along the front edge of that half you will use blue and umber or sienna with purple but no white to create a very dark color. Use this dark color for the back side of the point and around to the front and along the edge of the water. Remember that that water's edge is made up of stones and pebbles so it is uneven, it's not a nice smooth arc, water comes in further and some places and out further in others so make a very uneven edge.

For the sand path in the corner and the little patch that is just above the water's edge you will start with yellow, gesso/white, a little burnt sienna and a little, tiny touch of purple as your base to make it lighter you will add some more gesso/white and yellow, add more sienna and purple to make it darker. You will be creating the eroded edges of what used to be a path or road, again your stroke is going to be very important these edges are not hard, sharp edges but rounded and soft, so your strokes need to be rounded to create that soft edge. If you want to add a little bit of purple and sienna to part of the lighter color to have as a shadowed color ready as you work and you can wet into wet to blend as you go. Start with the lighter color when it goes into the shadow colors pick up some of the darker color for the shadows and work back and forth to create a soft eroded edge.

The patch of sand that is showing in all the rocks and pebbles is the darker shadow color you used for the eroded edges you just painted. Be sure that you strokes angle down towards the water so the sand looks a bit inclined.

The other rocks that are in the foreground can be left grey if you still have some of your underpainting visible or we can paint them in later at this point it isn't necessary to do this please try to have your painting is close to this stage as possible we will continue to work on this in our next class.

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Because I didn’t get the blogs up last week this will constitute 2 weeks of blogs, lucky for me we had a bunch of people out and the people who were there had a lot to catch up on so there really wasn’t a demo though I did redo my clouds – I really didn’t like them. Basically I just took some of the original sky colors – gesso, blue a touch or sienna and purple, mostly gesso and blue – and painted out my sky making it darker at the top and adding gesso as I worked down to lighten the color. When that was done, I went back in while the sky was still wet and re did my clouds with my brush not the knife, I liked them better. That was all I did so if you missed last week, you didn’t miss much.

I re-did my sky and put the clouds in with my brush. I like
them better now.

Keep painting and I will see you in class.

SUMMER 2016 ACRYLIC CLASS  – Project: Working the Steps Week 1

This class project is to give you some insight into how you can become a better painter and to create better work habits. The best artists have their own methods but they are very similar in that they will collect reference material, do sketches, values and color studies, take photos and notes plus anything else to prepare themselves to get down to the final painting. A good painting doesn’t just pop out of the end of a brush or a piece of chalk, it is the accumulation of knowledge and study.

I usually provide a photo and a drawing for the class so we can get started on a painting. Students are hungry to get into the “meat” of the project but they rarely are interested in the “bones”. What I present in class has taken many hours of looking through images of my own or from things I have clipped out of papers and magazines or search out on the Internet, and that is just the beginning.

Once I have my reference material I then have to come up with a design for my classes. If I am using one of my photos I may just do an outline of what I already have for the project but if I am working from some other source or maybe my reference isn’t all that exciting and needs to have other elements included, I need to do what is called a “Composite” that is the final design is made from more than one source of reference material.

If I am doing a composite, I may have 2 or more reference photos that I am working with to put together to create my final design and this takes time. I may do several simple pencil sketches – some looking more like stick figures than a drawing – and then I sometimes will do a detailed pencil drawing to see how everything looks together and/or I may make a preliminary line drawing and do a small study in watercolor or acrylic. Still, nothing is set in stone at this point. If I am not satisfied with my results it is literally back to the drawing board.

By the time I get into class I am very familiar with my subject and then I paint it again 4 times during class sessions. Sometimes I do get tired of the subject but each time I do the paintings in class I learn something especially how the subject works in the different mediums. You are always learning when you paint so get out of the notion that you do one masterpiece then move on to the next, it just doesn’t work like that for most serious artists.

This project is from a plein air class I have been taking. You will notice that there is a big difference between the photo I took and the study I did. Photographs have their limitations and if you are going to work from them, you are going to need to understand these limitations. First off, photos do not give you the exact colors that were actually there. The human eye sees a lot more color that any camera can so the colors which are in my watercolor are more accurate than what you see in the photo because of the limitations of the camera and this goes for all cameras no matter the expense.

When you are working from these photos, it is best to use the real image to work out your drawing and my watercolor to suggest what colors to use in your painting.

I started with a charcoal sketch I did on the top part of my canvas then that I worked into a value study using by mixing a dark gray with gesso, for the white, ultramarine blue and burnt sienna. To make the gray lighter, I add gesso to make it darker I add more blue and sienna, keeping it on the blue side. A dark almost black can be made with the blue and sienna alone or blue and burnt umber, no white.

Value is more important than the color so I want to get it correct in my mind before working on my final painting. This is where having a value scale is handy especially when you are learning. Most art stores should have them or you can make your own using ink and water on white paper.

 

I did this at home and will be adding color in class.

You do not need to do detail but you do need to see the different values, squinting at the reference photos will help when looking for values.

We may have time to do another project and this time you will have the choice of doing your own or another one I provide, either way, I want you to try and work the steps, if you will be working on your own project, get good reference material and work on sketches, I can help and answer questions in class.

We covered a lot of ground, do the best you can but keep painting and I will see you in class.

 

This is the value study I did in class.

ACRYLIC CLASS Project: 3 Poppies Week 4

This week was just finishing up the project and that is more of a personal choice depending on how you liked your own painting, I will show you the things I did to finish my painting and if you like the way it looks you might want to try it on your own painting, however, if you like what you see on your painting you do not need to do anything else to it just because I did, you might want to live with your painting for a few days or weeks before calling it done - many artists do this - the beauty of acrylic is you can go back in and make adjustments any time.

(Just a note: My #4 flat bristle brush has been worn down so it has a point, it is really more of a Filbert, if you are having trouble with your flat brush on it's corner, you might want to switch to a small round bristle brush. DO NOT use your sables to do this kind of dry brush or you will ruin them.)

This is detail of the left side poppy. The shadows from the inside structure were done with an orange red and dry brushed on with my #4 flat bristle so there are no hard lines. To that color, I added a touch of burnt sienna for the light on the top of the pod structure under the flower. Look at the reference photo carefully BEFORE you start painting. I also put a soft lavender reflected highlight on the shadowed side of the pod using blue,a tiny touch of purple and white still using my #4 flat bristle brush and the dry brush technique but doing a small, circular motion to create a soft blend. Remember that pressure is important when doing detail so use very little pressure and very little paint when you do this.

This is the center flower, this one has a beautiful glow from light passing through its neighbor. This glow looks deceptive because it looks very bright but if you look at the reference photo you will see it is not as bright as you think, it is really about the middle orange red color that you used in the poppy above, it just looks brighter because of the cool darks around it. Again I used a circular motion and dry brush to apply the glow and the lavender reflected light in the shadow. The shadows of the interior structure on the petals had just a bit more red in it than the first poppy.

This is the poppy on the right,, look at the reference photo and you will see that it is lighter and has a bright highlight, it also has some soft shadows around that highlight all done the same way as above using dry brush and a circular motion, just different colors.
The highlight is Hooker's green, a touch of yellow and white and a little "mud" from your palette, you don't want it too bright the little "mud" is just enough to mute the color, not take over the color. I added just a touch of the "mud" to the lavender to also mute that before I added it to the stem. Note that the shadows on the petals they are almost straight orange with maybe just a touch of yellow.

The highlight on the flower is just a series of quick strokes following the way the flower grows. You can still use the bristle brush or a sable to make the quick strokes but do not use pure white, add a touch of yellow to the color first.

Last, the background. I went in and added some similar but slightly brighter highlights to suggest the tops of plants. These highlights are not strong, bright colors, just lighter, muted highlights to keep them in the background, this was Hooker's green, yellow and a bit of white to lighten it but also some of the orange I had on my palette. You start with a weaker, color in the back and as you come forward add little touches of green and yellow to slightly brighten the color, just not too bright. You can also add some deeper shadows up at the bottom using the Hooker's green, and blue on your dirty brush. The stroke is a quick upward dry brush stroke, using the small side of you bristle brush.

I also added some poppy SHAPES adding orange to some mud from my palette to dull the orange and quickly added the suggestion of distant poppies. Try to keep them random, don't line them up like orange dots, don't be afraid to overlap shapes and remember things in the distance are small, closer together, less defined and greyer in color.

This is the final result of the four weeks we spent on our project, please have something you want to do ready so if you need help, I can get you started and do demos along the way.

Keep painting and I will see you in class.

Acrylic Class Project: 3 Poppies Week 3

This week what we did in class was to add another layer of color to our puppies to help bring up their color and create some of the detail. Because acrylics dry darker and they are a transparent medium it is sometimes necessary to add more than one layer of paint to create the desired effect that you want, these puppies are a bright color so they may need at least two if not three layers of paint.

I also painted out part of the background that I thought had too much green in it on the left hand side between the middle poppy and the poppy on the left, I had brought the green background up too far and I wanted to put some of the blue sky back behind these orange flowers so that I could use the complementary colors of blue and orange to best effect.

One of the beauties of acrylic painting is that you can paint right over something whereas, in another medium you would either not be able to do it easily or would have to scrape off paint but with acrylic we can just paint over it, however, when you are painting out an area you want to make it looks like the surrounding area and not a big patch that you put on your painting. You don't have to match the colors exactly what you do have to do is to blend them in with the colors that are around them, for instance, this blue sky I didn't just paint out the area of green that I wanted to get rid of, I painted that area and then I lightly used my brush in a dry brush technique and blended the blue sky back into the rest of the blue sky so that it matched the color. I also had a patch that was too light on the other side in the sky so using blue with a touch of white in it, I was able to bring down the value of that patch of white but I remembered to blend those colors into the surrounding area so they look like they belong. Fixing something is not hard you just have to keep in mind that you need to make it look like it fits where are you are working.

The other thing that I did was I put in the under painting for the stems there is still some work to be done on them. I used my Hooker’s green with a little touch of orange to grey the green and a little touch of yellow to lighten the color, I painted in the stems also I added touches of ultramarine blue where there are shadows to start the shading process. Learning to work wet into wet is a lot of fun and it can create some very soft blended shades as you are painting.

Because people were at varying stages of this painting I did not do much else. I do hope that you can get your own paintings caught up to this stage so that we can possibly finish the project in the coming class. Start looking around for something that you want to paint for the rest of the semester and I will help you get started and to do demos as needed to help you along so keep painting and I will see you in class.

SPRING 2016 ACRYLIC CLASS WEEK2

ACRYLIC CLASS Project: 3 Poppies

You should have your canvas covered with your background and you should also have sketched your design onto your canvas using either chalk or charcoal. This needs to be done before you can start work on the poppies.

You will need your flat sable brush a #6, #8 or #10 depending on the size of your canvas, you don’t want to work with a brush that is too small because in a case like this it is better to work wet into wet which means working faster by using a bigger brush, with practice you will understand the necessity of the bigger brush. I was using my #10 flat sable brush.

The colors you will need for the poppies will be cad yellow light, cad orange, napthal or cad red and your gesso. The reason we need the gesso is it is an opaque color whereas titanium is more transparent, we need the opaque quality of gesso.

I started out mixing a good sized pile of a mix of orange and yellow with a bit of gesso to help the other colors cover just be careful not to add too much gesso because you want this as a rich golden orange color not a murky weak orange color if you use too much gesso. To this golden color you can add more yellow and touches of gesso for a lighter color, or add more orange and red for the richer deeper colors. We will not use any of the cool colors to deepen the values on the flowers so we can keep the colors clean and not muddy.

A reminder to all: Acrylics dry darker, that is just their nature and they are also a transparent medium so do not be discouraged when you come back and see that your flowers seemed to have changed color and value even with the gesso, we will need to go over the flowers again to brighten the colors and that added layer will cover any thin spots where the background may show through.

Before you start painting, have your reference photo in front of you where you can see it not in your bag and don’t leave it at home. This is your road map and it has all the information you need to paint the project so put it where you can see it.

It does not matter on which flower your start, just look at the reference photo and pick a spot. If you start say on the middle flower with that brightest part of the petal, you will use yellow and gesso then add some of the orange color you mixed earlier to turn it into a soft golden yellow starting at the edge of the petal and as you work your way across the petal add more of the golden orange and blend them together as you go. You can also add touches of orange and red if you see the areas is darker just blend them wet into wet as you go. Whenever you are painting an object, especially flowers, you want to follow the natural curves of the object you are painting. Flowers, particularly poppies, have a specific growth with veins or wrinkles like the poppies. Also note that the outside edges of the petals are not smooth but undulate so use the corner of your brush to create some movement of the outside edges.

You will probably have to repeat this process again once the paint has dried, the method is the same, just follow what you have there already, This is still under painting in that you are trying to get the canvas covered, yellow and orange are two of the most transparent colors in acrylics, there is just no way around a second coat or two, even adding gesso which will make your color too murky. You can see the difference between one and two coats of color where I stopped in our last class, the flower on the right and the front petals of the center flower have 2 coats, the back petals and the flower on the left only have one.

Try to get your paintings to this point and we will continue in our next class. See you then.

Spring 2016 Lerri's Acrylic Class

Spring 2016 Acrylic Class: Project – 3 Poppies

I am working on a 12 x 24” canvas in the landscape position (horizontal), however, if you do not have a 12 x 24 or cannot find one it is not necessary that you use one, it is only an option.

Also, I had toned my canvas before I started working on it using gesso, ultramarine blue and burnt sienna, again not necessary but it will give you the opportunity to practice using your blending brush to create soft out-of-focus patches of color and also to learn to work quickly.

Looking at the reference photo, I wanted to change the background to something better than dirt, so I will be adding some sky to the top, the blue will go well with the orange poppies because they are compliments, the sky will softly blend in with some suggestions of some background flowers and bushes, this will be my background and it needs to get in before we start working on the poppies themselves.

First thing you want to do is to have everything ready. Have all your paints out, and I do mean all of them because you don’t know which ones you will need so have them all out, and your gesso. Have your mister bottle handy plus have your soft blending brush ready to go, and paper towels in hand, you need to work quick because this is wet into wet painting and you don’t have the time to go looking for something if you didn’t put it out.

Before I started to paint, I lightly spritzed my canvas with my mister bottle so there was a light coating of water on your canvas. This will help the paint go on smoothly and will help keep it moist as you blend. Starting across the top using a big bristle brush – I was using my #12 flat bristle brush, you use the biggest one you have – I alternated between my gesso, the ultramarine blue, touches of purple and even some touches of burnt sienna and quickly scrubbed these colors across the top of my canvas to about a third of the way down where I switched to sap green, yellow, gesso, touches of burnt sienna again scrubbing and patting these colors on quickly. This green should be a soft grey green in the background.

Do not waste time on this step because your paint needs to be wet for this next step, if it isn’t the blending will not work. Keep your mister handy. Using you blending brush, be sure that it is very dry and clean, start up at the top of your canvas and use long, very light, flat “x” strokes to blend the sky together. If it feels like the brush is dragging too much LIGHTLY spritz your canvas with water, then quickly blend in the water as you soften the sky across your canvas. Then work down your canvas to the green area. Wipe your brush out and gently blend the blue and green areas together, it should look soft and fuzzy where they meet.

If you want at this point you can add little spots or shapes of orange to SUGGEST poppies in the background before you finish blending the green area. Remember all of this is supposed to still be wet so don’t doddle  be quick, don’t try to create the perfect poppies in the background they are too far away and too out of focus to worry about, then blend them along with the green so it all looks soft and out of focus.

As you work to the bottom of your canvas start adding darker colors like Hooker’s green, blue, touches of purple and sienna to create a darker green. You can do this with your bristle brush or the blending brush and just remember to softly blend as you go.

If your paint starts to feel sticky and isn’t blending like it should, lightly spray the area but be sure that you blend all the water in or it will leave spots though in this painting those spots may look like flowers so don’t worry too much about them if you see them later.

Once this is dry, you will need to assess your background. Acrylics always dry darker, as did mine, so you may need to go in and do some adjusting of the color before you add the poppies.

I took my #12 flat bristle again, use the largest brush you have it makes it go faster, and on my palette I mixed some sap green, gesso, a little burnt sienna a little yellow…I was looking for a soft, greyed, yellow green for the background that was a bit lighter than what was there. I loaded my brush with this color, then using the broad flat side of the brush almost parallel with the canvas, I patted the color on then pushed up quickly working across my canvas. I also added some more orange as I went to add more of a suggestion of flowers but as they were blended in, the orange became a softer color. If some of the previous color shows through that is okay, it becomes texture and shadows, don’t try to cover it all up.

I was working quickly so it was still a wet into wet technique and I also lightly blended the top edges with my blending brush, just be sure it is clean and dry before using it.

As you work into the foreground (bottom of the canvas) again, add blue, Hooker’s, purple and sienna to create a dark foreground using that patting and push motion. You do not need to blend this area, you can leave some of the texture from your brush strokes. Also you can add blots of orange to suggest other poppies, just be sure you blend some of them in to soften the color and the shapes.

When this is dry you can sketch your poppy design on your canvas be sure you are using either soft vine charcoal or chalk to sketch with. Try to get you painting to this point, keep painting and I will see you in class.

Winter 2016 Acrylic Class Week 5

Winter Acrylic Class Project: Cozy Cottage Week 5

This week we worked on finishing up the house and starting the highlighting on the snow.

You will be able to continue to paint while areas are drying if you remember to move around your painting. I started with the house by adding some detail to the thatch of the roof, stones or whatever you want your hose to be made of, detailed out the chimney and added some smoke, then I came back in a started the highlighting of the snow on the cottage. While things were drying on the house so I could work on it some more, I started to highlight the snow.

One thing you all need to understand is none of this is instant. If you want your painting to look the way you see it in your mind’s eye, you are going to need to do layers of color from dark to light to give it shape and form, there are no shortcuts if you want it done correctly which means you need to be patient with the process and follow the steps. There will be several steps to the highlighting of the snow to get the brightest highlights in, partly because acrylics dry darker but also it gives more depth and texture to your snow if each time you leave a bit of what you did before as the shadows and forms in your snow, please, please, please(!) do NOT cover it all up with white all of these layers are important.

The thatching on the roof needs some brighter highlights and while they are near yellow in color, the yellow by itself is too bright so mix your yellow with a touch of burnt sienna and white to mare a golden color, then using the dry brush technique, and a flat bristle brush, follow the angle of the roof and brighten the thatch in the sunlit areas (see photo). Add a touch more sienna to this color – it should still be a warm golden color – and tape in some shapes onto the walls of your house on the sunny sides. You can also use this on the front of the chimney. Remember, these are stones in all shapes and sizes so just suggest these stones and let your under painting become the mortar between the stones.

On the shadowed sides of the roof, you can add more sienna to that color if you still have some along with a touch of orange and any mud (grey) you might have on your palette tiny touch of blue if you don’t, this color should be lighter than what you have on your roof already if not lighten with either more orange or white but add small amounts to adjust the value. Dry brush this color into the shadowed sides of the roof then add a touch of purple and white to create a shadow color for the shadowed sides of the house. Add the stones into the shadowed side the same as the sunny side.

While that was drying, I mixed up a light blue color to start the highlighting of the roof of the house by starting with the tinted white I had mixed up previously (gesso or white with a teeny, tiny touch of orange just to tint it) and to that I added a little blue. This combination makes a soft bluish grey color that should be lighter than the under painted snow I have on the roof already.

Still using my #4 flat bristle brush and looking at the reference photo – which you should all have right in front of you BTW – I started adding some shape and intermediate highlights to the roof’s snow. Again, I am not trying to cover up all of the under painting, I am trying to add form to the flat color that is there.

You can use this same color to add some more intermediate highlights around the front of the house, on the snow around the sides of the house and the top of the wood pile if you put it in. As always, watch your angles and THINK about what you are doing and WHY. Snow covers everything, it drifts up over things and forms lumps and bumps along the way so keep this in mind as you paint.

Once your house and roof are dry, you can add a bit of detail if you want. If you want smoke coming out of the chimney, take the tinted white or even some gesso, tap it around the top of the chimney, then with your finger just smudge it up and let it fad to nothing, that’s all there is to it. If you want to put in windows you need to mix a dark color (blue, purple, sienna and or Hooker’s green to make a dark color) and paint in the windows and door, you can also use this color for the shadows up under the eaves of the roof. When this is dry you can add snow piles to the windows if you want. Details are up to you.

The next thing you need to do is start highlighting the rest of the snow, this won’t be the final highlights those will come when everything is in and you are doing the final touches but these do set the stage for the final highlights. As I have said many times before, if you want to be a fine art painter you cannot skip steps. You cannot go straight from A to Z without the rest of the alphabet. Just because this is white (we will actually be using the tinted white with orange), when it dries it will be darker just because of the nature of acrylics but it is going to add so much to your painting, you don’t want to skip it.

Still using my #4 flat bristle, and I am using the bristle brush because I am going to be scrubbing this color on which is very hard on the brush, I will be using the tinted white (gesso with a tiny touch of orange) and using the dry brush technique and the small side of my brush, I will be scrubbing this color onto my snow where I think the light will be hitting.

PLEASE, PLEASE, PLEASE!!! Look at the photos. Some of that cooler shading I did earlier is not going to get much if any of this warmer color because the area is in the shadows. This is where all that under painting starts to shine. As you add the highlight colors, you will see depth and dimension start to pop in your painting DO NOT COVER IT ALL UP!

Also, THINK about what you are painting and where you are painting. Remember that the snow is lumpy so don’t cover over everything that is to be highlighted. Use the highlights to shape the ruts of your road better and to highlights the drifts of snow on the house and around the trees and fence posts. You are going to need to look at the photos and really see what is going on BEFORE you start painting it. Do the best you can but please take your time to do it right the first time because it will save you time in the long run.

So keep painting and I will see you in class.