Spring 2019 Acrylic Class

Acrylic Project: Pink Umbrella Week 3

In our last class we got into some of the detail and our paintings are starting to take shape. This is always the process when you are creating something from nothing, it seems like with all the prep work and under painting we aren't making any progress but consider it like the foundations of a house, you need all the concrete pouring, framing, plumbing, drywall etc before you can paint and decorate your home. From this point on things should go faster because we have done all the ground work.

You might want to mix some base piles of paint so you can add other colors to change the value. For instance: Look at the green in this image, there are at least 3 greens there. To mix a middle green mix either sap or Hooker's green with orange and a little white to make an army green color. Mix enough so you can add yellow to part of it for brighter greens or more orange to gray it up or blue to suggest it is in shadow. Same for the orange. The base orange is the cad orange with a touch of green to slightly gray it and a touch of white to dull it. Both are distant colors so they will not be bright, you save that for the foreground.

I think I added highlights to the rocks first so I could bring the oranges and greens up to and over the rocks to settle them into the hill. The "highlight" was actually a light gray of burnt sienna, blue and white (gesso), again, this is not a bright highlight so keep it a soft medium light gray.

I was using my #6 flat sable brush because I have more control and while fuzzy edges are a good thing, the bristle brushes don't have the flexibility and spring that the sable brushes, so I was using those qualities to my advantage. I was making a lot of strokes - really look at these photos to see my technique - by overlapping, and the occasional smudging with my fingers I could suggest the roughness of the terrain and blend my colors where needed. I was also following the contours of the hills, this is why you need the reference photo in front of you to see up slopes, curves and dips, slide areas...This is not a flat surface and your brush strokes a really important to show this.

This is the area between the 2 hills. Notice how my colors change from bright to shadowy? See how the brush strokes are helping me tell the story?

BTW, to get the shadow color for the orange, use burnt sienna rather than blue or purple, an excepting to the shadow rule because it will make your oranges too muddy and greenish.

There is another hillside beyond that ridge on the right but to create distance between the ridges all I did was scumble on some of the lighter green and orange then smudged them in with my fingers. This keeps them  dull and no detail so that part of the hills looks our of focus thus further away.
There is something wrong with this ridge but I will explain in class.

In the middle ground I did add shadows to my rock piles but I didn't start any of the highlighting there yet. Again, I want the rocks done so I can pull up grasses and bushes to settle them in to the hill.

I used the same color for the highlights on these rocks as the ones in the background but slightly brighter. Be warned that this photo is brighter than my actual painting there is more sienna and less white than this image suggests. Remember that this area as well is in the distance so don't get too bright yet.

This is where I left off in class though I may finish the distant hill because there are things we need to get to and our semester is getting short. That distant hill is just more of the same, have your reference photo in front of you, it will be your best guide if you want to work on this on your own.


Keep painting and I will see you in class.

Spring 2019 Acrylic Class

Acrylic Project: Pink Umbrella Week 2

In our last class I was working on adding some of the detail into the distant hills. I have labeled them so you can see the slight difference between the very distant hills and the middle ground ridge. In those distant hills I added a touch more white to my colors so they would be softer and grayer in tone and value, this will help me to create distance in this painting.

Here is a note I haven't talked about before and that is the lens of the camera. I was using my 300mm telephoto lens and one of the results of the long lens  is the compression of the image. What that means is it can make the elements look closer to each other than they actually were. That distant hill was probably at least a mile or more away, the middle ridge (above) was maybe 1000+ yards and the ridge with the lady about 300 yards yet the image I took makes everything look to be much closer to me than it was. When we paint from a photo, we need to be aware of this so we can use our artistic license to help create depth in our paintings, so remember: As things go into the distance they become softer and grayer in color and value and less detailed.

I did add some mid-tones to the green with the Hooker's green, a touch of orange and white for the sunnier areas, Hooker's,ultramarine blue and white for the shadowed sides of the hills. It is a very subtle change but it is there. I also added the under painting for some of the dirt and rocks on that back area with burnt sienna, ultramarine blue and white, less white on the shadowed side.

This is important to remember: When you are adding in either the highlights on the scrub bush or the trails/rocks be sure to make your strokes go in the direction of the surface you are painting.Those hills have contours and your strokes need to angle with what you are painting. Study the image above and the next one to see how I have used my strokes to create a sense of contour and shape to that distant hill. This is the reason you need to have your reference photo in front of you so you can look before you paint.

This is in that wash that comes down those distant hills. Notice how my brush strokes create some of the rock outcroppings down that wash just by the way I applied the paint. While harder to see, I did the same thing when I was applying the bushes and the flowers so they look like they are growing down the sides of the cliffs and over the top of ridges.

This is where I left off last week and while it doesn't look like much right now, I think as we start to finish the distant hills next class and start working on the middle and foreground you will see this thing start to come together. That's the plan anyway.

Keep painting and I will see you in class.

Spring 2019 Acrylic Class

Acrylic Project: Pink Umbrella Week 1

I am painting on an 24" x 18" canvas that I toned (under painted) with a blue gray color. This is a personal preference to under paint with a wash or color but you can work directly on a white canvas if you want.

First I did a simple sketch of the different planes (distant hills, middle hills and closer hill) and the crevasse between the parts of the distant hill, it has a "V" shape I needed to put in.

The under painting for the poppies in the distance was orange with a touch of sienna, ultramarine blue and gesso (white) to get a slightly grayed burnt orange color. This is the under painting and it becomes the shadows and texture for the next layer I will put on so don't try to go to the bright orange first or your painting will look flat.

The green was a mix of Hooker's green, sienna and a touch of white.

I was using a #10 flat bristle brush but if you are working on a smaller canvas you could use a #6 or #8. This is under painting and you just need to get it on the canvas. I also had the reference photo right in front of me so I could check frequently the areas I was painting.

Remember to scrub this color on by following the shape and direction of the thing you are painting. If if is rounded, your strokes should be rounded. If it is at an angle, your strokes should be at an angle. These are poppy fields not a wall.

On the middle hill, I used the exact same colors except I didn't use as much white so they would be a bit more colorful. I used the same brush and technique to  create the middle hill.

On the foreground it is mostly scrub brush and dirt. The dirt is just blue and burnt sienna and a bit of white, the bushes are Hooker's green a little sienna and blue to make a dark army green. No white this time except to make a bush a little lighter.

To create the bushes, I used my #8 flat bristle and used the corner to create the shapes of the bushes. to some of the bushes I added either touches of withe or yellow as I was shaping a bush. This takes practice and you need to be sure that you don't make them all the same size or height, you need variation.

This is the under painting and I will start adding more and brighter colors the next class so keep painting.