Fall 2019 Acrylic Class

Project: Alaskan Fishing Village Week 6

This is the last post for this project. We (I) finished the painting with all the necessary things then some added in some of the decorations to make the painting more to our individual liking. I will go over both.

Along the shore I pulled up some grasses using my #6 flat bristle brush. I used several shades of green using the sap green and adding yellow to make it lighter or a little orange to soften the color or a little blue to darken. I also used some orange and yellow with out the green. Grass is not just one color, it has many colors in it if you look closely to it and adding these colors makes your grass look more realistic.

The technique is a dry brush technique so after loading your brush with used your paper towel to squeeze by the metal ferrule to not only soak up some of the excess water in your brush but also to spread the bristles of your brush. Place the end of the brush where you want to start a clump of grass the "flip" it up with a quick snap of the wrist. Practice this before going to your painting if you are unsure and don't forget to over lap your strokes so it looks like a very grassy slope. Don't be afraid of pulling some of the grasses over the boat or the bottom of the posts of the building, this will settle them down into your painting.

On the other side of the painting I added a tree in front of the walkway so the straight line of the railing and walkway wouldn't take the viewer off the canvas. 

I used the same brush and it is a dry brush technique but when I loaded the brush I pushed straight down into the paint to load the brush, this will force the bristles out in an irregular pattern, then, starting from the outside of the tree, I pulled in making clumps of leaves  and giving the outside edge of the tree an interesting shape. It is not a Christmas tree, don't make it perfect.

First I used my  Hooker's green and blue to make a dark green for the under painting and shaped my tree. Then into that same color, I added some yellow and a little touch of white to highlight the top edges of the branches doing wet into wet. the key here is not to lose all of the dark under painting - that becomes shadows and texture. Again practice on something else if you are unsure.

Don't forget to add the grasses to this side as well.

Finally, for those who want to stop and consider the painting done, I put a glaze on the water to give it a shimmer. This is done using the 2" blending brush and a very thin glaze.

Mixing the glaze you need a little white (gesso) and a touch of blue with a lot of water, you want this to be very transparent like skim milk.

Load the blending brush with this glaze then use your paper towel to such out most of the water on your brush, this is also a dry brush technique. With very little pressure on your brush - 3 hairs and some air as the late Bob Ross might say - go straight across the water are of your painting, slightly wiggling as you go. I may take 2 or 3 passes to cover all of the area but once you have it covered, let it dry before having a heart attack. It should look milky at this point but you should still be able to see what is underneath the glaze, if the glaze you put on has obscured the reflections you may need to lightly wipe off some of the glaze but wipe it off going straight across with a slightly damp paper towel, this should be enough without having to do it over again.

When this glaze dries, it should look like a shimmer on the water just remember to use a lot of water when mixing the color and using a very light stroke when applying the color.

I also used a thicker mix of the white and blue to add some "dots and dashes" to the shoreline right where the land and water meet to make a sparkle like rocks and sticks  that pile up at the waterline.

This is where you can stop if you want the following is what I did to finish my painting.

I added the phone poles using similar colors I used in the house, a light gray for some of the fixtures on the poles and the wires and and even lighter gray for the smoke.

Dry brush again with the bristle brush, using little circles around the top of the smoke stack then little circles and less pressure as I made the smoke rise and  disappear into the sky. I repeated this in the water. I also added the ladder you can see in other photos above and the final image below.

This is the final post for this project, from what I heard in class everyone was having fun and learned a lot which is always my goal. Until next time Keep painting and I will see you in class.