Acrylic Winter 2011

Winter 2011 Acrylic Class – Apple Demo

All classes: I am just going back to putting the link to the picture page in by adding hyperlinks throughout the text, it more than doubles the time I spend writing the blog to add the pictures in where they should go. I'll keep looking to see if Google improves how blogs are edited but for now I will go back to the tried and true hyperlink, sorry. Just hit the back arrow in your browser to get back to the blog.

I do want to state again that when you are designing your painting whether it is something alone or a very complicated scene, you must decide what is important in your painting so when you place it, it not only is in a prominent point on your canvas or paper but that it is also large enough to show its importance. This is especially true when you only have one or two objects, make them big enough so they don't get lost in the background. As I walked around the room many of you made the apple very small on your canvas so that most of your painting was just the background, if I was enough of a math genius and could figure out how much space my apple takes up on my canvas, I would say that it is close to a third of the space, maybe a bit more. The apple is my subject NOT the background.

I first sketched in the apple with my charcoal so I would know where I needed to put the light in the background. I didn't paint around this area, it was only for reference, I drew it back in once I had my background in.

I started my background using sap green, gesso and a touch of yellow, painting over the charcoal lines around the top and left side of the apple area, using my #12 flat bristle brush and a "X" type stroke (See strokes page in the side bar). I roughly made a light circle around the area with these colors like a halo around where the apple will be. I made sure that any paint I got in the apple area had soft edges by smoothing them with my finger.

As I moved away from the apple, I picked up just the sap green and worked it into the edge of the first color, you want a soft transition between each new color. The further from the light area I went, I picked up sap and Hooker's green then just Hooker's and Ultra marine blue in the corners. It should look like a spot light hitting the area of the apple getting darker to the corners, this will help focus the viewer on your subject. When the paint was dry I re-drew my apple but not the stem.

I do have 2 other reds on my palette this time, Cadmium Red (Cred) and Alizarin Red (Ared) and I did use them to get some variations in the red of my apple. I under painted the apple using my napthol red (Nred) with some Hooker's green (Hgreen), the hgreen darkens the red and is another way to make a very dark color. I also used my orange with a touch of blue in the areas I under painted where there will be yellow and around the stem.

Please remember about your strokes: They should follow the shape and direction of the object you are painting, when you are painting the area around the stem, it should come up and over to suggest the dip at the top. The strokes on the body need to be curved to go around the apple either vertically or horizontally or a combination of both, they are not straight.

In the shadowed side of the apple, I switched to Ared with touches of Hgreen and blue to make a dark color. Notice that the shadow fades into the light area so soften these colors into each other for a gradual blend and this will probably be a dry brush type blend.

When this coat of paint is dry, the next layers of paint will be applied the same way though you might want to switch to a sable brush for a smoother application of paint. The difference is this time you will be suing the paint almost pure in the light areas. Acrylics dry darker so you won't be able to do this in one step, just remember that each time it is okay to leave a bit of the previous payer of paint showing in places which will give your apple some depth. I used straight napthol red, cad red light in the sun lit areas and alizarin more into the shadow areas mixing with bits of green and blue to make it darker. I also use orange and yellow in their pure form in the yellow areas of the apple.

The background I made darker in some areas and created the suggestion of an edge so the apple looks like it is sitting on a table.

Shadows are important not only on the apple but also on the cloth it is sitting on. I mixed my Hgreen with blue and purole to make a dark green color and starting at the areas just under the apple, I added the shadow in. I also didn't worry about going over the edges of the apple with this color, I wanted to create some "lost and found" lines as if the apple is fading into the shadow. I also used some of that shadow color on my apple around the stem area using a bristle brush and a dry brush stroke to keep the edges soft.

When I was satisfied with the color of the apple, I added on the highlight. I took mostly white and the tiniest touch of sgreen and mix in to the white. Next I tapped this color in the highlight area then with my finger smudged it around. Notice the highlight on the real apple has a bright area and then a less bright area, it is this second area we just created, the brightest area is made with pure white tapped just in the center of the smudge and lightly touched with a finger. Very little paint is use in both of these cases, most of you were using way too much paint.

I also added a reflected highlight in the shadow area with a mix of purple, blue and a touch of white to make a soft lavender color. It doesn't take much but it adds a lot into your shadows.

The stem – if you want to put one in – was a bit of sap green for the stem, sgreen with red for the shadow and touches of the white with green you used on the apple. I used my small flat sable to make the stem and the less you worry with it the better, just a few touches then leave it alone.

PV classes I am going to be doing rocks. Please download the rock picture to have in class. Torrance we will be doing the poppy please have the reference photo for class. See you soon.

Winter 2011 - Brushstrokes

Acrylic Class Winter 2011 - Demo Brushstrokes

Torrance Class – First off, there will be no class on Monday, it is President's Day.

We finished our snow scene at least as much as we could get done by the end of class. If you feel that you need to do more, you can finish it how ever you need to, the key thing is to brighten the foreground trees and snow and be sure that when you do your shadows that they follow the terrain they are falling on, they don't necessarily go out straight from the bottom of the tree, they will go up and over or down and around depending on where they fall, this also gives your snow more interest. Don't forget to put some in for the branches up in the trees, they don't have to match exactly but it will look more natural if you include some of them.

Please have the poppy picture with you when we come back to class in a couple of weeks.

PV class – I am going to write up the different strokes we covered in class for the blog I am also going to create a page so you don't have to go through all the archives if you need to review (I tried to find the last time I did this demo and couldn't so I know you would have problems). I also re-did most of the strokes so they would photograph better but the technique is still the same. Hope this will come in handy, the link will be on the side bar.

Also note: Blogger makes it very difficult for me to insert pictures I am constantly having to move and edit the format just to add one picture! So until I can get the stroke page set up, if you want to see examples of the strokes, just click on the slide show in the side bar and it will take you to the picture page. Sorry about that, but this has taken days to try and get right without success and this needs posting.

Acrylic Brush Strokes

Some basics before we get into techniques: A brush is NOT a pen or a pencil, you hold it in your hand so you can get the job done sometimes that means being able to roll it in your fingers or scrub away. We also use all surfaces of the brush not just the tip or end of the brush, this goes for all brushes whether they are flat or round, bristle or sable though I don't recommend using your sable brushes to do any scrubbing where you are really abusing the brush. It is also good practice to hole the brush back at least mid way and better yet to hold it at the end not up by the metal ferrule, this will give you brush more action and your painting won't look as tight. Save that for the final details.

Also, keep your brush relatively dry. If you rinse it, wipe it out with a paper towel to get rid of any excess water which can flow down off your brush and thin your paint so that it won't cover the way you thought it would.

Brush strokes matter. They can tell your viewer a lot about the texture or the terrain even the direction or the shape of something, think about what you are painting and what you can do to make it look more authentic.

Dry Brush – of all the strokes, this one is probably the most used to get the type of blending we need to do in acrylics, it is well worth the practice. Key things to remember are: Dry Brush means DRY BRUSH! If you rinse your brush be sure you have dried the brush so there is no water visible when you squeeze the bristles, water will hide up near the metal ferrule so be sure to dry the whole bristle area. It also means that there is little paint on those dry bristles so after you load your brush be sure that there are no globs of paint on the ends or sides, wipe it on a paper towel if you have to, to avoid having too much paint.

The other thing to keep in mind is pressure. If you press down hard on your brush, more paint will come off and fill in the area, the lighter you press down, the brush will only hit the high spots on the canvas leaving little "holes" so you can see the under painting showing through.

Depending on what you are painting at the time dry brush can be used to scrub in some color with a scumbling (every-which-way) stroke, circular if you are doing clouds, mist or dust, when you are making waterfalls or the glimmer on the ocean.

Stippling – This is a good stroke when you are leafing out trees or creating bushes or distant flowers or even adding some texture, the pressure rule applies here as well but you can have more paint on your brush.

I use a flat bristle brush for this technique. When I pick up paint I take my brush, on my palette I tap the end of my brush straight down on the mixing area, not so much to mix the paint if I have more than one color but more to "fuzz up" the end of the brush so it spreads out and looks all twisted, this is great for trees and bushes because it creates a random look to the area. I apply the paint by touching the end of the brush straight on to create the tree or bush or texture I need. Remember that the amount of pressure you use on your brush will determine how much paint comes off your brush. If the area is too congested with paint, you are too heavy handed. I have literally had the brush fall out of my hand because I was holding it so lightly when doing this technique.

Impasto – This is an oil technique but it can give you a very impressionistic look, I will give some advice here: the more you fiddle with it the muddier it will become, this is one of those techniques where you put the paint down and leave it alone. You can use either sable or bristle brushes because there will be no scrubbing, you scoop up the paint – there will be globs – and you lay it on your canvas almost like using a trowel. This can also be done with a palette knife. Just put it down and only lightly blend the next color into it. You might want to use an extender or the new "Open" acrylics to give you more time to work the paint o you can blend by gently mixing the colors on the canvas, just don't over mix or you will get mud.

Scumbling – This is just a bunch of strokes that go any which way you can make your brush go. You can use this doing dry brush or impasto or anywhere in-between. This is a great stroke when you are under painting areas with lots of rocks or rocky cliffs because the visual movement that is left will give the viewer the sense of the jumble of rocks because of the texture. I like to mix my colors as I go on the canvas when doing scumbling because that will enhance the movement and the texture.

"U" shaped strokes – This is a very good stroke when you are under painting things with texture like dirt, snow or water. When I say "U" what I mean is that the strokes go up on the ends. The closer together the ends of the strokes the rougher the texture; the longer and flatter the strokes, the smoother the texture will look. You can use this stroke if you are using a lot of paint in your under painting or use it with a dry brush if you are highlighting. The basic "U" shape can look like a dip or a pit in the dirt or snow, for instance, if you turn that "U" over, it can become a rise or a hump so you can create different terrain just by changing up your stroke.

"X" Strokes – This is another very useful stroke when you need to get an area covered, I use it a lot when I am doing my skies with the hake brush. The Hake or blender brush has very soft hairs so if you are soft enough with your stroke, using the big "X"s with this brush you can create soft blends that almost look like airbrush. It does that practice because you barely touch the canvas – "Three hairs and some air" as the late Bob Ross would say – and most beginners are a bit heavy handed in most of what they do.

I'm not sure what to call this next stroke but it is great when you are doing a large field of grass. I usually use a flat bristle brush for this but a flat sable will work, I don't think a round brush would be very affective.

First I load my brush with a lot of paint, next I hold the flat side of my brush almost parallel to the canvas then pat, push and lift the brush, it is almost a scooping motion. If you are doing it right, you should get fuzzy edges and a lot of texture. I like to blend in other colors using this stroke in my grassy areas so that I can see the different colors I have used. This gives a very textured look when done but you will need to reload often so that the paint will leave little peaks when you lift the brush.

Flat or Round Sable brush - You can create leaf shapes by loading your brush with a good amount of paint but it should be worked into the bristles then start by touching the edge (flat brush) or the end (round brush) then as you move the brush press and twist then twist and lift to finish. You can create all shapes of leaves and grasses using this stroke but it does take some practice.

The Liner Brush – This little brush makes great trees, branches, weeds, grass, fence wire, boat rigging…Any where you need a nice thin line the liner is the brush to use. It does take practice to master and mixing the right consistency of your paint is half the battle. The paint needs to be very ink-like. If you tip your palette it should run. Next you need to load it fully, really work the paint into your brush and as you lift it off your palette, roll it in your fingers.

Hold this brush as far back on the handle as you can and hold the tip slightly down so the paint will flow. If you are doing trees or branches, the harder you press the thicker the line, lift as you come up to get a thinner line and wiggle your brush a little to give the tree/branch/weed some character.

When doing grass, get your hand and brush moving in a circular motion before you get to the canvas, when you get the rhythm, touch the canvas on the upstroke. Big circles = tall grass, little circles – short grass.

These are just some basic strokes that should keep you busy. You will use all or most of them in almost every painting and many of these can be used in other media such as oils and even watercolor. Once they become part of you, through practice and experience, you will use them without thinking that is when you are painting for the art. Good luck and happy painting.

Acrylic 2011 Winter Class

ACRYLIC CLASS WINTER 2011 – Week 5

Torrance class: I didn't quite finish the winter scene so there is still a bit of work left to do, I am hoping that we can get it finished and start on the poppy next class. Please get your paintings up to the point I have mine – trees with branches are based in, mid ground snow is highlighted and you have the mid-ground undergrowth the way you want it. We will start there and finish this up – I hope ;-)

PVAC class – We started a water picture using a photo I took along the PV cliffs near Lanada Bay. The water was clear and calm so you could see to the bottom close to shore. Each situation – calm or choppy, few waves or big crashers – poses it's own set of problems but the first one may seem like a no-brainer but you would be surprised at how easy it is to do (I saw it in class even after I explained it) and that is to have a horizontal horizon line. That means that it needs to be parallel to the top and the bottom of the canvas. Use a ruler if you have to but please, make the horizon line straight when there is water involved. This holds true for oceans, lakes, ponds, fish tanks or glasses of wine, anytime you have a liquid involved it is going to be level otherwise it will look like it is spilling and we don't want that especially when large bodies of water are concerned.

Since this was a demo on water, I will focus on the water aspect more so than the rest of the painting but will do some brief descriptions of what I did in those areas.

The sky was simple; first I coated the area with gesso then used mostly blue with touches of sienna and purple streaked across the top and blended down just past the horizon.

Next I started in the water area the same way by first coating the area with gesso and using touches of blue and sienna to get a light blue gray, I used horizontal strokes starting at the horizon line and working my way down. I don't worry about my sketch I just paint over the bluff so my water will look like it is going behind it, I can always draw it back in later.

ALWAYS throughout this part of the under painting I keep my strokes horizontal and used a dry brush (not much paint or water).

As I work my way down I use less sienna and gesso so it becomes bluer in color but still enough gesso to keep it to a mid-value, it shouldn't be too dark at this point.

Just past the end of the bluffs, I stared adding touches of Hooker's green to the blue and gesso until down near the front corner it was mostly the H-green and a little gesso with what blue is left in the brush.

Without cleaning my brush I picked up sienna and gesso and starting in the sandy area, I dry brushed that color in and gently blended it into the blue/green color. This should be the under painting for the water and you will need to let it dry before proceeding.

If you want, at this point you can start the bluffs and sand. I just took color on my brush – by color I mean just about anything on my palette but mostly the sienna, blue, purple and orange with touches of red – and just dragged the color down the bluffs. As always, think about what you are painting, these bluffs are rugged and rocky as well as eroded so try to create that with your brush. Dirt comes down at an angle as it slides, so should your brush, some places are steeper some places are more inclined, think abut this as you paint.

The sand is under painted with sienna, gesso and touches pf purple. It shouldn't be too dark but near mid range. The strokes here are important as well, they should angle down towards the water because this sand has been washed up by the tides and waves.

Back to the water.

The area near the horizon should stay a soft gray/blue color as it comes forward it will get bluer, just add touches of blue into the gray/blue color for a gradual blend. I used gesso, blue and a little sienna to create the gray/blue color start down a bit from the very horizon and using the flat end of your bristle brush with little paint on your brush, touch the surface with overlapping, horizontal strokes and work your way down towards the point adding touches of blue along the way. Around the point there is some calm water with just a few dark areas and around the rocks at the point it is pretty blue, just keep your strokes horizontal.

As you come into the area past the point, closer to shore, add in some Hooker's green and a touch of gesso, now you can use the flat side of your brush but it is still dry brush (little paint) and horizontal strokes. You need to use a dry brush because you don't want to cover up everything you did before. Just like the snow, the different values will create depth and movement in your water so it is important to let some of the under painting show through.

Next to the bluff, there is a reflection from the bluff and a bit of a shadow as well in the water so it is very dark. Just note the shape of that dark area, it is kinda wedge shaped but the edge that represents the end of the bluff is NOT a straight line, it is a very fuzzy line because of the movement of the water, there are also some places in the water where you can see some of the dirt reflected for that I used a mix of sienna and a touch of the Hooker's green to darken it, it should still look brownish. The dark blue area was blue, H-green and a tiny touch of purple. All of this was done with my flat bristle brush using horizontal, dry brush strokes.

Some of this you are doing to have to adjust to your own satisfaction, just pay attention to the photo and work accordingly.

There are some rocks and kelp along the shallow bottom of the water, I used a mix of the H-green, sienna and a touch of blue and gesso to make a soft dark color and tapped this in with the end of my brush. Remember the more pressure you use on your brush, the more paint will come off so if you want just little shapes barely touch the canvas. Those are just dark shapes, do waste too much time on them.

Waves have crests and valleys, the crests are lighter because they are up in the sun and the valleys are darker because the light is being blocked by the waves, keep this in mind when creating the swells.

The crests were done with a smaller bristle brush and a mix of gesso, and just enough blue and H-green to tint the color. Again I used the dry brush technique and in an inverted "U" shaped stroke. Waves are rounded so I want my brushstrokes to follow the shape of the thing I am painting. The same is true for the valleys between the waves except it was a regular "U" shape and a darker color – blue and H-green.

To finish up the water I put a glaze over it. Glazing can be very effective when you want to subtly change that you have and can be used in many situations, here I just wanted to tie the water together. With my #12 bristle brush, I took my blue and H-green and a lot of water to make a very thin mix of paint and still keeping my strokes horizontal I went over all of the water area with this glaze. This will help that shallow area look like it is under water. You may have to go back over your wave crests again but that is okay.

When your glaze is dry, you can paint the white foam by first under painting with a light blue/purple color then come back with straight white and touch parts of that color to create the white foam. This is about where I finished the water, the rest was the land area and the rocks around the shoreline.

Highlights for the sand were gesso, a touch of yellow and a bit of purple.

The rocks were blue, sienna, a touch of purple and a touch of gesso.

The trees were under painted with H-green and blue, highlighted with sap green and yellow.

Next class I will be going over brush strokes so have a canvas ready.

Winter 2011 Acrylic Class

ACRYLIC – Week 4

Torrance class: The instructions for your class are a couple of weeks back so check the archives. I do want to point out if you want to make that little path like I have in mine, you will need to get the perspective of the trees. The ones that are closer are bigger, darker and have a bit more detail. Also, make your trees different sizes and shapes, it is the variety that will create the interest in your painting.

Poppy – PV

The first thing I want to do is create a soft diffused background. These types of backgrounds can come in handy for a lot of different kinds of paintings: Landscapes, still life, portrait…Anywhere you need a soft background to compliment your subject.

I used my #12 bristle brush, my gesso and all the colors of my palette except burnt sienna, I didn't need it for this painting. Using a lot of gesso and touches of different colors, I scumbled the colors together (scumbling is a term for the brush going every which way). I was careful not to mix them too well or I would get mud. Have a good time with this step, the only way you can go wrong is too much mixing of color will create muddy colors, just use gesso to gently blend between the different colors so they are soft and diffused.

When I had my colors down, I took my blending brush and very lightly – "three hairs and some air" as the late Bob Ross would say – and softened the colors even more so I didn't have any hard lines or transitions. Then it has to dry.

I want to get this point across so you understand how this part of composition works: Just because a photo may have the subject small and in the middle, doesn't mean that you as an artist have to paint it that way, if you want your painting to be interesting, you need to make your subject bigger on your canvas, simplify the scene and keep the bulk of your subject out of the center. There are always exceptions to the rules, but first you need to learn them so you know when you can break them.

I had my reference photo in front of me so I could see the shapes of my flower then took my soft vine charcoal and sketched in my flower over my background. My flower take up almost 2/3s of the canvas and it even goes off the page in a couple of places. One thing I did keep in mind when sketching this is if it was going to go into a frame I have to watch my design. A frame will cut off about ¼ + or – of your picture so you want to keep the ends of things at least a ½" from the edge or make sure that it looks like you purposely went off the page as I did. Otherwise, it can look like the subject is stuck to the edge of the frame visually and can distract from your painting.

I also didn't put in all the leaves, only a few because they weren't the subject but were supportive of the flower.

When my sketch was done, I blew off the chalk dust before I began and I switched to my #8 bright (it is a flat brush with shorter bristles). I mixed my gesso with touches of blue and purple but kept it in the soft lavender shade, this is what I use in all my areas that were sunlit.

THIS IS IMPORTANT: Your strokes should follow the direction of growth when you are doing flowers and the strokes should follow the shapes of the petals or flower parts. What this means is that all petals, stamens and pestles go back to a central point where they meet the stem but the petals (stamens, pestles) themselves have shapes such as angles, folds or wrinkles or dips and curves so just like when we were making the snow, we have to be aware that while our strokes need to go towards the stem, they also need to go over bumps, down curves, stop at wrinkles or folds…It is not as hard as it sounds, just takes a lot of words to convey a simple idea. Go out and look at flowers and pay attention to the shapes that make the petals have dimension.

The first thing I painted was the yellow center of the flower. I used yellow with a tiny touch of purple – its compliment – and using the end edge of the brush, pulled a fuzzy edge down towards the center. The stamens and pestles radiate out from the center so any stroke that isn't in the center needs to angle in to create that rounded look. While it was still a bit wet, I took straight yellow and did the same kind of stroke but kept that color near the top of the center. Then I started painting the petals starting with the sunlit areas first.

One of the things I tried to do with flower is to leave some of the background color showing through so I used a dry brush technique: a little paint on the brush and I didn't press down very hard. You should see the under painting through the paint you apply. I also just used this color mix only in the sunlit areas. Flowers are translucent – light shines through them – but we still need some dark to show light.

For the shadow areas I used the same colors – white (gesso), blue and purple – but this time less white more blue and purple. Be careful not to go too dark, it just needs to be a shade or two darker than the color you just used and I actually just mix in the same pile of paint, I just make it a bit darker. This is what I used in the shadow areas again following the shapes of the petals and using a dry brush so some of the under painting color showed through.

When you start the detail have your reference photo in front of you, it does you no good if it is in your bag or under something, this is your guide, your road map. Have it, use it.

I switched to my #6 flat sable brush for the highlighting of my flower. A sable brush gives a smother stroke, and I want that at this point. I used gesso to start the highlighting and switched to titanium for my final highlight. First, I used my gesso with a tiny touch of yellow to slightly tint it. Starting at the edge of my flower in the sunlit area and using the end of my brush I highlighted the edges by putting the paint on a bit heavier on the edges and dry brushing as I moved away from the edge, still following the shape of the petal I am painting. My final highlights were just the titanium white and only along the edges in the brightest parts of the petals.

In the shadows, I used a mix of gesso with just a touch of blue using a combination of streaking the color forming ridges in the shadows and dry brushing the color to soften the darker shadow. You are going to have to play around with this and finish it in a way that satisfies you. It will take time and experience for this to make sense, so the more you practice, the sooner you will understand.

Final touches: The leaves and stems I under painted using sap green and a touch of blue to give me a dark color. Just like the petals my strokes followed the way the leaves grow. To highlight the leaves, I used sap green and yellow, for the veins I added a bit more yellow and used my liner brush.

Next week we will do some water, a value scale and go over brush strokes so have a blank canvas either new or one you gesso over, this will be practice not a project. See you soon.