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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.
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.
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.
Creating a Composite Painting
Many hobby artists go their whole life painting exactly from photos or someone else's work and they are perfectly happy ans somewhat successful in their painting and that's okay. No one can tell you what you should paint to make you happy, and there is benefit to copying other works or photos, but at some point most artists feel there has to be something more, something that is their own, that is where the adventure begins.
There are many classes on different mediums and the various ways to use them that can open up that creative vault in your heart that can bring great joy to your life, it you give yourself the opportunity to to try. One of the ways you can add to your artistic toolbox is by doing composite painting.
A composite painting is where you take elements from 2 or more sources and create an entirely new image, you can even do this with a photo editor in your computer but I prefer the old fashion what of sketching out my ideas first to get an idea more solid in my mind before I try to create it on my canvas. A simple sample below.
The first thing I did was to start looking through the folders I have made in my computer over the years to see if anything inspires me. You can also look through magazines, newspapers, postcards old photo albums, online, along with creating your own reference files you should be creating.
The first image I found that perked my interest was a picture of some small, grass baskets I had taken photos of on my counter because it had good natural light from a nearby window, now I needed a background as the back of the microwave really wasn't optimal.
Next I found an image of some rocks I took pictures of when I was hiking with friends in the deserts of Arizona. I take a lot of photos of just "stuff" that I think I could use later in a painting. Things like skies, clouds, rocks vistas, trees, you name it, it is looks interesting I will take several images of it so I have it for reference later. Since these baskets had been made by Native Americans in Az and Utah where I had bought them, I like the idea of placing the baskets in this setting, like someone had finished the baskets and left them to dry on the rocks. So now I have my subject and the background, I just need to put them together. That's where sketching comes in.
I have several sketch books that I will either sketch or draw in. Sketching is, well, more sketchy than drawing which can be refined down to minute detail if you want, sketching is as simple as a few lines to place things within either a vertical or horizontal format to see which works better. Because the baskets are lined up in a horizontal format to begin with and the rocks are also very horizontal it was only natural to do this painting horizontal.
Once I had the idea on paper, it doesn't mean that it can't be changed. When I did the watercolor version the baskets were more supportive of the rocks than the other way around because they were very small in comparison to the rocks so in my acrylic, I switched the story around and made the baskets more prominent on my canvas and made the rocks the support in this story.
I sketched my design on my canvas with my soft vine charcoal and under painted the background rocks first then the baskets with very loose, impressionistic strokes and that is as far as I got in our last class.
I do hope this encourages you to try to create your own paintings because it is much more satisfying to have a painting that is totally your own rather than a copy of someone else's work. Remember, no one dies if it isn't perfect and it does take time to understand how to create the best marriage of the elements but practice will make perfect and drawing will help you be a better painter. Good luck and keep painting.
Skies and Clouds Demo Week 1
In our last class we practiced making skies then adding clouds after the sky was dry - wet on dry - as backgrounds for landscape paintings.
The first study we did was a plain blue sky, yet it isn't. Skies are always darker higher up then closer to the surface because you are looking through less atmosphere when you look up.
One way to get that gradation of color from dark to light is to first cover your sky area with a thin layer of gesso, we will be blending into the gesso so don't let it dry.
Next pick up your blue (I used ultramarine) with the tiniest amount of purple or a little crimson and just streak this across the top of you canvas. go back with your brush using long crisscross strokes and start blending down starting at the top and working your way down the canvas. Because you have gesso on the canvas your sky should get lighter as you blend down. If you need more blue, rinse your brush, pick up more of the colors then start back up at the top and work down. If it is too dark at the bottom, flip it over and add gesso starting at what is not the top and work it into the blue to get a gradation.
At this point you are working wet into wet so you need to work quickly. Also learn to lighten the pressure of your brush ans you work down, it help when doing a gradation. If you want a smother sky, you can switch to your blending brush and very lightly soften out the brush marks again starting in the dark to the light.
When you have gotten this as best as you can (this does require practice), let it dry.
When the sky was dry we added distant mountains and clouds, both were done with the same gray mixture so make enough so you don't have to keep mixing.
The gray mix is my workhorse mix or ultramarine blue and burnt sienna with gesso to change the value (lighten). You might want to burn this combo into your brain because you will use it a lot. You want a cool gray so that means more blue than sienna.
I started with a medium light gray and added gesso to lighten or more blue and sienna to darken. With my bristle brush, I used the very end of my brush and the whole edge not a corner, and I pulled down to make the top edge of the mountains. In the body of the mountains I tried to create interesting brush marks to suggest the ruggedness of the mountains. They are in the distance so detail only needs to be suggested.
The clouds I used a smaller #4 flat bristle brush because this technique will eat up a sable brush quickly because we will be doing the dry brush technique.
Starting with a darker gray and little paint on the brush, I used the corner or side of my brush to make a series of circular strokes to shape my clouds. As I worked on the clouds, I picked up touches of gesso on my brush to lighten the top edges of the clouds to suggest that sunlight is hitting them. Again, be aware that the pressure you put on your brush with have an effect on your clouds. In the inside of your clouds, pressure doesn't matter as much but when you get to the outside edges, lighten the pressure to get soft, fluffy edges. You don't want your clouds to look like a bunch of floating rocks, this isn't Pandora. Also with you are adding gesso to lighten areas lighten the pressure. This is very important.
The second example is done very similar to the first but this time we added other colors.
Start by covering the canvas with gesso, then start with the lighter colors of yellow and red. It is easier if you turn your canvas over for this part. Lightly blend the colors together but don't doddle, you still need to get the blue on there.
Turn the canvas right side up and add the blue just like you did in the previous study and blend down to the lighter colors. You can use a bristle or sable brush for this to get a more "painterly" sky or switch to the blender brush, just be sure that the brush you use is clean and dry before starting to blend.
Starting in the light area, using very light pressure on your brush, use long crisscross strokes and work your way up into the blue area. Pressure and long strokes are the key here. Wipe out your brush to get most of the paint off, if you need to blend again, start in the light area and work up. You can work the blue down a little just be careful of getting too much blue in the yellow or you will have green skies.
The clouds were done the exact same way as the previous study though this time I added some color. (Don't worry about the palm trees, that's and easy fix.)
It is better to have reference photos to look at when you are doing clouds, like everything else, having something to look at telly you what you need to do.
Don't lose these or paint them out we will be adding to them later.
Remember, I have been doing this for a long time and I make it look easy but it took me more than one attempt before I finally figured out how to get the sky and clouds I wanted. These little studies will help you learn without the pressure of feeling you are going to ruin your masterpiece straight out of the gate. You can always gesso over the studies and use the canvas again.
Keep painting and I will see you in class.
Background Demos
A painting starts with the first brush full of paint, and in acrylics especially, that is usually in the background. We can work from background to foreground in acrylics because the paint dries fast enough we can paint right over top of what we did previously, so having a good foundation for you painting by having an effective background is critical to the overall success of your painting.
As many of you found out, a good background isn't as easy as I make it look, so the more you practice the better off you will be down the line.
This first background I did can be done with any color combination you want or even going from light to dark in one color, this will be a wet into wet technique so you need to work quickly. This is a great background for portraits, flora paintings, still life and even landscapes.
I started by covering the canvas with a light coat of gesso, then in the center with yellow, next I picked up orange and went around the outside of the yellow using crisscross strokes to lightly blend the two colors, I'm not worried about brush strokes at this point. I did a similar thing with sienna then adding ultramarine blue to darken the edges. The key thing most of you missed was USING CRISSCROSS STROKES. Most were painting circles around each color nothing was blending and problems ensued..
Now you can leave it this way if you want a more "painterly" look to your painting or, while the paint is still wet, take your soft blending brush and with long gentle crisscross strokes gently blend from the light area to the dark. Your brush should be almost parallel to the canvas as you lightly skim across the surface. This takes practice. You need to get a feel for the brush and the pressure, if you are leaving marks you are touching down or leaving your canvas too hard.
This next one is making a background like you are looking up through the trees. Again I started with a coat of gesso and this is wet into wet.
I used both my greens (Hooker's and sap) making the suggestion of leaves adding sienna to suggest branches, and there is some orange and yellow just because.
I then went in with blue (I used both thalo at the top and ultramarine from middle to bottom) and filled in the spaces in between the leaves and branches.
Again, I took my soft blending brush and lightly blended all these colors together using crisscross strokes and as the late Bob Ross would say "3 hairs and some air" to lightly blend.
The next example was done the same way but this time I had a landscape in mind.
Finally, I did grasses again with the gesso first then I started with yellow and orange on a large flat sable brush, starting at the bottom and lifting as I went up I made strokes that suggest grass going over previous strokes with more strokes and different colors to congest and overlap like real grass does when it grows.
I think I used almost every color on my palette - yellow, orange, red, sienna, green and blue - and this is why you need to have something to put ALL your colors out on because you never know what you will need.
I want you to save the background studies because we will be using them later so if you need to try again, save your best ones for class.
Keep painting.
