skip to main |
skip to sidebar
Acrylic Study: Rocks
This week we did a study on painting rocks. All rocks are different depending on where they are, the kind of rocks they are, if they are natural or chiseled by humans so your best reference is the rocks themselves but the process to paint them is pretty much the same.
Since we will be doing a small painting using the rocks in the photo near Pelican Cove that I took, I used them as an example.
If you need to drawn in a sketch with your charcoal before you start, do so. This is a good idea because you can be sure that you haven't created a herd of turtles or a Stonehenge, you want the rocks to be of various sizes and shapes and it is easier to wipe off the chalk than try and paint out something you don't want.
The first thing I did was to under paint the rocks by picking up sienna, blue and/or umber and mixing these colors ON THE CANVAS with my brush, this is call "brush mixing". I also added other colors during this process like orange, red and green because those colors could very well be in the rocks.This is a good thing especially for rock because you get a variation in the color of the rock as long as you don't mix it too much. I was using a #6 flat bristle brush and doing a lot of scumbling which is moving your brush in all directions with the exception of shaping the edges of the rocks with the end of my brush and pulling in. This keeps you from creating a ridge of paint along the edge that could cause problems later.
I also showed that you can start some of the highlighting process while the under painting is still wet by picking up lighter colors and start finding rock shapes in the strokes I see. I used the same brush but picked up orange and yellow to go with the sienna and touches of green. I just want to find rocks with quick strokes, I don't want to think too much about what you are doing, just dibs and dabs, dots and dashes where you think the lighter sides of the rocks are. Remember that the dark under painting becomes shadows and texture so don't cover it all up. You can also wait until the dark under painting dries to do this step.
The water I added just so the rocks didn't look like they were floating in air.
I continued shaping the rocks with some lighter colors adding a bit of white or yellow to change the value and using this more on the areas where the sun may be hitting (sun is on the left). This gives you a chance to make more rocks if you need them or combine rocks if you don't like the shape or think you have too many.
The next thing I did was add a REFLECTED HIGHLIGHT into the shadows. Most things have some kind of reflected light in the shadowed side if you just look for it especially if there is water, snow or some other reflective surface like a building, the difference between a regular highlight and a reflected highlight is the highlight caused by the sun is bright and warm whereas the reflected highlight is very cool. you want the reflected light to be a medium value, lavender color which is ultramarine blue, a touch or purple or alizarin crimson and just enough white (gesso) to lighten the value to a middle tone. Again, just used this color to shape the form of the rock but don't labor your efforts. This reflected light with give your rocks dimension.
The last step was final highlights and I added the "decorations" left by the birds.
The final highlights on these rocks are not real bright because they are dark rocks but I did take my sienna, a touch of orange and some white for the brighter areas of the rocks. This is where the sun is hitting, so basically the left sides of the rocks and I used a #4 flat sable to give me a bit more control. If you need to, you can add some dark back into the rocks if you got carried away with the highlighting process. It does happen, or you might want to adds some cracks. It is up to you.
The bird decorations were done by dabbing on the gesso tinted with a teeny, tiny touch or orange on the light side, and some light gray (gesso a touch of blue and sienna) on the shadowed side.
Next class we will start putting all of the things we have learned together and paint the rocks at Pelican Cove. Keep painting and I will see you in class.
Acrylic Class: Sky and Water
This is a combined post for both the sky lesson and the water lesson. They both start off very similar but end up being two different things.
In the first example for both the sky and the water I stated off coating the canvas with a layer of gesso. The gesso has several qualities you use to your advantage 1, it is an opaque medium and the heavier the gesso the more opaque it is so it can cover in one coat what might take several coats of a thinner gesso or straight paint (paint tends to be transparent). The gesso gives your paint more body so you don't need to go over the area a second or more times to get the look you want.
2, gesso is a great blending agent because it dries slower than you paint will which give you more time to work traditional acrylics.
3, gesso lets you do nice graded color when you are doing skies because gesso is white and as you blend your color down it blends with the gesso and becomes lighter.
If you spray the canvas lightly with your spray bottle first, then coat the canvas with gesso it will go on smother. Do not let this dry, you will be working wet into wet.
Use a large brush to do this step, either your blending brush or the largest flat bristle or sable brush you have then starting at the top with your ultramarine blue and a tiny touch of purple and sienna, streak it across the top of the sky, you may need to add more to get it dark enough. Using the bristle or sable brush you won't get as soft a sky as you would with the blending brush and you may have brush strokes showing but with light pressure it will be okay.
Once you have your paint across the sky, using long, flat "X" strokes with very little pressure on your brush, work the color down the sky area. If you need more color, wipe your brush and go back into the dark area and work the color down or pick up some more color but start in the dark area and work the color down. Remember you want a graded color.
This alone gives you a nice graded sky that is dark at the top and lighter near the horizon which is perfectly fine or you can add some color like yellow red or orange at the bottom and blend those colors up to meet the blue to give you a more colorful sky depending on time of day or weather conditions. This is up to you, but no matter what you decide, the technique is still the same: Long, flat "x" strokes with little pressure.
Another way to work which will give you a more "painterly" sky is to add gesso as you go.
In this example I started in the center with with just yellow and gesso (white) and with smaller, "x" strokes I worked my way around in a circle then I picked up some orange and a little gesso and working just inside the edge of the yellow I blended the colors together as I worked my way out, picking up a bit more orange as I went. From there I picked up a little red and gesso and starting just inside the orange I blended the colors together then picked up more red as I worked away from the center. Remember, when you add the gesso you will be changing the value of the color making it lighter so if you want the color to be darker and more vibrant don't use as much gesso or no gesso at all as you work your way to the darker edges. Blue was my final color and I really only had what gesso that was left in my brush at that point.
Clouds we really didn't have a lot of time for but basically you will always start out anything white with a darker under painting. Remember you need dark to show light so to give the clouds shape you start out with gray. My go-to gray mix is ultramarine blue and burnt sienna, more blue than sienna, if it looks too brown add more blue, then use the gesso to change the value. Have a couple of different values of gray before you start.
Use a bristle brush for your clouds because with all the scrubbing you will be doing you can ruin a sable brush in no time.
You don't want a lot of paint on your brush and you also want to think about clouds before you start. Clouds are moving and boiling in slow motion as they form in the sky so as you paint, that is how your brush strokes need to go. They are light circular strokes almost a dry brush technique, shape your clouds. As you shape them you can add some darker or lighter gray or gesso to create the different puffs you see in clouds. Clouds can take on any shape but you might want to create a file of just clouds to give you ideas for your painting.
Water
Water can be started the same way, either wet into wet or mixing color and gesso on the canvas it is just the colors you use that will give it a more water look.
If you are going to work wet into wet, start by coating the area with gesso before you add the color.
One mistake most beginners make is they think that water is just blue but water can have all kinds of color depending on weather, what is around it and what is under it. For this demo I used ultramarine blue, sap and Hooker's green, a touch of purple and sienna and gesso to lighten areas. I kept the sienna in the area that would be near the shore, the were used like patchwork and then blended together.
You can blend this to any degree you want, it can be smooth like the example or leaving more of the color show, what you are trying to accomplish will determine how you will approach this under painting.
On your under painting you can now start adding lighter and darker colors. I usually use a bristle brush because it makes it easier to blend because water doesn't have hard lines but you can use a sable if you remember to blend the edges. Also be sure that your strokes are mostly horizontal because if your strokes are angled your water will look like it is going downhill.
The above two examples are just a couple of ways to create calm water from that basic under painting.
This example was done by picking up color and occasionally gesso and mixing on the canvas with the "x" strokes and a bristle brush.
Again, you don't want to create a stripped look but a soft blend of colors. Notice how this version looks the water looks like it has more action, that is all brush strokes.
This is what I did in class adding lighter colors for the breaking parts of the wave and adding foam, like everything else, the foam is under painted with a light blue or lavender color before putting on the highlights. Add just a tiny touch of orange to your white to warm it up rather than using white by itself.
This is another version I did at home just to show you what you can do with a similar under painting.
Practice these techniques so you can understand what your paint and brushes will do for you and don't be afraid to experiment when you are doing these studies, they are as important as a finished painting because you can work out problems without the pressure of "being perfect".
Keep painting and I will see you in class.
Fall Acrylic Project: Fall Proposal Week 7
This week was all about finishing up the painting: Adding more color to leaves or deepening shadows or making the little fixes to your painting to your own satisfaction. If you are happy with the way your painting looks then stop and call it done, at least for now. I always put things I have been working on on an easel I can look at when I go into the computer room so I can glance at it to see if anything jumps out at me, if it doesn't, then I'm done. You need to learn to do the same because at some point in time you have to stop working on a painting. There are always the little things here or just a dab of paint their but if you aren't careful you can easily overwork your painting and ruin it. If your brush is circling over your canvas looking for a place to land, you are probably done. Live with it for a few days, if nothing jumps out at you sign it and stick it in a frame.
That is what I did in the last class: Look for the things I needed to finish then call it done. I added some more brightness around the ring box with the napthol and orange using a bristle brush and the dry brush technique to scrub in a bit more color to the box and to the fabric in front of it. I also added a bit more color to the tips of leaves and shadows around the bottle, just the little things I felt needed a bit of help.
I also finished the ring and added shadows on the box from the ring. I did notice when I looked at the photo I need to work a bit on the diamond and maybe tone down the ring part but that is a quick fix.
The last thing I did was take my liner brush and add the little squiggly things they always seem to stick in arrangements for some vertical elements to the arrangement, for us, it breaks up the dark area behind the bouquet making that large empty space a bit more interesting otherwise it is just a big,dark negative space that looks a bit odd.
I also used my liner to add some stems to the leaves and also to the roses .
As far as I am concerned, this painting is done. I think we learned a lot with this project because it is a challenge to deal with one color - in this case red - and make it different enough to separate elements out from each other by changing colors just a bit or by adding shadows behind, good practice and I am very happy with everyone's attempts at this challenging project.
Have a wonderful holiday season, don't forget to sign up for classes if you plan on coming back for the winter session, keep painting and I will see you in class.
Acrylic Class Project: A Fall Proposal Week 6
We are coming to the end of this project, so what I was doing in our last class was to fie tune my painting. One of the things I did was to put a wash of blue over the bouquet because I felt that all of the elements were too bright, particularly the white roses, and I wanted to knock them down a bit so in the end, they won't compete with the ring.
To do this I took my #10 flat bristle brush and made up a very watery color with my ultramarine blue, a touch of gesso and lots of water, this is called a "glaze" and it is a very effective technique for acrylic painters in situations where you want to add just a little color over an area just to change it just a little bit. You need to be able to see through this wash, and you use the dry brush technique: dry your brush, then load it the squeeze the bristles near the metal ferrule then use a circular motion and light pressure on the brush to go over the area you want the glaze on. It take practice and better to be too light than too dark.
Notice the light blue case to the roses and how the yellow sunflowers seem duller, this is just enough to push them back when I add the diamond to the ring.
The ring is a light blue/grey made with gesso, ultramarine blue and a very tiny amount of sienna, the darker values are the same 3 colors just less of the gesso.
The light is coming from the upper right hand side so on the outside of the ring, the lightest part will be the right side, on the inside of the ring it will be on the left side because of the way the light travels. Also not that the shadows are also opposite on the outside to the inside. I did this with a small flat sable brush.
I came back in and added some red to the ends of my flower keeping in mind I didn't want it to "grow" again and I also took a dark color (blue, sienna and alizarin) to make the separations between the petals. Please not those separations are not straight nor are they the same width start to end. I was using a flat sable brush to do the detail. I also took this dark color and lightly scrubbed it with my #4 bristle brush on the hydrangea to mute it and make the bottom and back end disappear into the shadows.
With my sable brush I added a touch of white and Hooker's green to that shadow color to make a grey blue/green for the leaves. The silver dollar leaves that they use are not green but more this grey blue/green, besides you do not want anything too light or bright in this area.
The label on the bottle really isn't as tough as you might think. Most of the writing on the label is just squiggly lines, even the large printing on the bottle doesn't need to be exact, it is better to suggest the writing than create a precise writing because the eye will want to read the label if there is too much exact detail, if it is just there, the eye accepts it and moves on. See next image.
This is the demo I did to show that all you need are vague lines that look like printing to fool the eye into thinking there is something there and the rough lines of the larger letters make them less distinct on the actual bottle, therefore less important. I was using small, round sable brushes.
I will probably finish up the project in our next class, we have 2 classes left if you need the time to finish up.
Keep painting and I will see you in class.
Acrylic Class Project: A Fall Proposal Week 5
This week was more of a fine tuning week before we get into doing the details and finishing up our project. Never be afraid to make changes or improvements to your painting, if you see something that bothers you go in and fix it. We are working with paint not stone, fixes are a lot easier. this week I did several fixes and adjustments.
The first adjustment I did was on the paper around the bouquet. When I looked at it at home it looked too pink and I needed more shadows on the paper behind the bottle.
First, I took my #6 flat bristle brush and a mix of napthol with a little orange (you can use cad red light and orange as well) and water to thin it so it is very washy looking, then with a very dry brush (little water and little paint, remember to squeeze the back end of the brush with your paper towel) using small circles and very light pressure on my brush, I did a dry brush glaze over the whole paper area to give it a redder look but not lose some of the pinkish look. I also did a similar thing with a mix of ultramarine blue and alizarin to shade the back part of the paper that goes off the canvas to fade it out.
Another place I used this dry brush technique is putting a lavender reflected light on the bottle with my #4 bristle brush.
Practice this technique because it is very useful in acrylic. It should look almost transparent when you put it on, just hitting some of the tops of the canvas threads, if it is too solid looking you are pressing too hard, if it looks blotchy or runny, you have too much water on your brush, make sure after you rinse your brush you dry it and after you pick up the paint squeeze the back end of the brush to get out excess water you picked up when loading your brush.
The next fix I did was to change the shape of the lower rose petal. I thought it was too long and the wrong shape so I took my #6 flat SABLE brush and a mix of blue, alizarin and a touch of green to make a dark green shadow color and used that color to reshape the petal and add another leaf in the process. To make the outside edge of the leaf, I added a bit of white to the mix, just enough to make it lighter but not bright light.
You do not need to go through the whole process of painting out something that needs fixing, just fix it but remember to make the fix look like it is part of the painting, not just some random stripe or blotch.
I also fixed the bulge in the ring box using a dark mix of blue, alizarin with the bristle brush this time so I could scrub in the color to reshape the the box. Again, I didn't just make a stripe of color, I used the dry brush technique, scrubbed in the color around the box and also out away from the box. Once I have the shape the way I liked it I added some napthol and touches of orange to get the light back into the fabric working those colors in by scrubbing the color in and blending it with what is already there. It is important you learn to fix things so they look like they were always like that, you will be happier with your paintings.
Still more fixing and adjusting. I had made the petals on the red flower too long and too bright so this was a 2 part fix. First I took the #4 bristle brush and dark colors - blue, alizarin, sometimes I added green if I was on a leaf - and I reshaped the petals by painting in the dark around them. All of these fixes are what is called "negative painting" meaning you are painting the space AROUND something not the thing itself. With this fix I am changing the shape of the petals by changing and adding shadows. Remember to blend the fixes out into the surrounding area so they look like they were always there. The second part of the flower fix I did with my sable brush and a mix of napthol and alizarin trying not to make the petals longer again but to clean up the edges and darken the bright red color I had at the tips.
Another thing I did here was to add shapes to the hydrangea to make it look like it had flowers. Funny thing about this is there are very few actual flower shapes in this cluster but because of the few that look like flowers the rest of the shapes suggest more flowers.
I did a separate demo to show how just adding a few shapes that look like flowers and the rest are just marks, tricks the viewer into thinking that there are a bunch of flowers, even the center dots add to the illusion. I was using the sable brush, with blue for the base then adding white for lighter colors or alizarin for those "flowers" that were in shadow. Blue and burnt sienna or umber for the very dark centers.
This is where I left off on Monday and I am thinking I could possible finish this in our next class, don't worry if you are not as far along we still have 3 more weeks so take you time just keep painting and I will see you in class.
Acrylic Class Project: A Fall Proposal Weeks 3 and 4
Week 3 I started adding the flowers and this time I was using my flat sable brushes. You can get similar effects with round brushes but practice first.
Think about what you are painting and the shape you are trying to make. flower petals at both ends are rounded and narrow but fatter in the middle, by using the end of the brush, twisting, pushing and lifting you can make the shape of the petals so you don't get straight pointed skinny petals. The petals are also a bit curved as the go into the centers of the flowers.
Change the colors of red like you did with the background and box by adding orange or blue to brighten or darken the color. the centers are burnt sienna and blue and don't make them just round and smooth the edges are ragged.
This is the under painting for the sunflowers, I will do more later. The technique is the same as for the rend flower, notice the different angles the flowers face, you don't want them looking in the same direction.
Withe brighter colors I started to define the leaf shapes though most of those are only parts of leaves. I also added some dark between leaves to separate and also help define the leaf shapes.
I didn't work on the roses yet, but I did work around the roses to get dark areas around the roses. Remember if you want to show light you need to have dark around it for the contrast. I used the dark colors to define the petals of the rose as well as separate leaves from each other.
This is where I left off on week 3, I have most of my under painting in for everything in my painting, the next week I will start refining these elements by adding intermediate highlights along with shadows and some detail.
Week 4. this is what happens when you are trying to explain what you are doing and trying to paint at the same time. I am not happy with the highlighting I did on my red flower because I got it too light and I got some of the petals too long, I will fix this in class so you can see what I do. It is always helpful to know how to get yourself out of a problem or to change something without completely painting it out.
To the yellow sunflowers I added a bit of orange with red to cut down on the bright yellow but leaving some of the yellow as highlights. I was using the flat sable again with a similar stroke, just not as long.
While the roses are looking more white, they are still not pure white and they never will be. I mixed gesso with a little tint of yellow. It take surprisingly little yellow to tint the gesso so be careful when you pick up the yellow.
With the sable brush and looking carefully at the photo, starting at the outside edge of a petal, I added this lighter color where I see in the photo the light areas on the rose, then smudging the edge that goes into the center of the rose with my finger to blend it into the under painting (the blush of pink was because I had red paint on my fingers when I did this, happy accident).
Don't cover up all of the under painting because this now becomes the shadows on the rose. use the corners of the brush to do the centers and smaller petals and work your way around the rose. You might want to practice.
I continued on the paper wrapping adding highlights and shadows. some of the medium shadows are pure reds while the paper that gets light has a touch or white in it just don't let it get too pink. Again, look at the photo or get some tissue paper and wrap it around something to see how the wrinkles form before you try to paint them.
The bottle was done by using blue, alizarin, Hooker's green and touches of white. Use a bristle brush for the bottle. The darker part was the blue and alizarin (before the label was added), dry brush blending the colors together, then adding the green around the outside edges with touches of white (teeny, tiny touches of white), blending these colors on the bottle itself using the dry brush technique and follow the shape of the bottle as you blend.
The cap was Hooker's, a touch of white and blue to darken, again dry brush blending on the canvas.
The highlights are a little blue, green and a touch of gesso, very dry brush, then start in the center and with very little pressure on the brush, make tiny circles and move out from the center, losing pressure on the brush as you go. You may need to do this a couple of times and also practice. If you press too hard it will look too solid.
The label was a mic of yellow, sienna, gesso and blue. It is darker near the red paper and lighter as it come into the light.
I keep brightening the little box using the napthol and orange in the brighter areas, alizarin and blue in the shadow areas, a bristle brush and the dry brush technique, scrubbing in the color to create soft blended edges which gives it the velvet look.
I also brightened the fabric around the front of the box with napthol and touches of orange to bring focus to the box.
This is where we left off in our last class and should get you caught up with what we have been doing in class.
We (I) are getting close to wrapping this up in the next couple of weeks so I hope that you can get caught up to this point. We should have a week or two to finish before the end of the semester if you get behind.
Keep painting and I will see you in class.
A Fall Proposal Week 2
Once the background was dry I sketched on my design with chalk. I used the chalk because the background is dark, charcoal would be hard to see.
What I did next was to under paint the elements of my design: The flowers, leaves, wine bottle, ring box and the paper around the bouquet.
For those new to acrylics or still struggling with how it works, the under painting is like the foundation of your painting, it is what we build on. We start out a bit on the dark side then work to the lightest lights and to the darkest darks, what you see here will change as the painting progresses but some of these colors become shadows or texture or variations of value, don't try to skip over this step or you paintings will look flat.
The under painting for the leaves of the bouquet are just a mishmash of color. I used every color on my palette and used my #6 bristle brush with the scumbling stroke (strokes going every which way) to create the background for my leaves. I was more interested in interesting shapes at this point and not completely mixing the colors so when I was done the brush strokes made it look like there is a lot going on in the bouquet.
The red paper against the red background needs to be handled cautiously. The red needs to be different from the background red (Alizarin, napthol and ultramarine blue) so it will stand out so I used the napthol with a touch of orange for the brighter red and the alizarin and blue to darken or to create shadows.
One of the things you need to be careful of when going to lighten red, it is better to lighten with either orange or yellow because white will turn it pink. That said, I did use a tiny amount of gesso (white) to slightly lighten the paper color because if you look at the photo you will see in front of the bottle the paper is slightly pink. Just be careful you do not add too much white or you will have to try again.
The bottle was a mix of my ultramarine blue, alizarin and Hooker's green with tiny touches of gesso on the right side. I worked wet into wet to blend.
The ring box had the same problem as the paper so I did a similar thing using orange to lighten the napthol red but no white this time. I used alizarin and UM blue for the shadows, gently blending wet into wet to give a soft rounded look to the edges of the box.
Always keep min mind the shape of the thing you are painting and follow the curves and remember that pressure is a big part of your brush stroke, very little pressure on the brush to blend.
Yes, I know that they are suppose to be white roses not lavender ones but this is how you start out painting things that are white with a blue or lavender under painting.
I used gesso (white) with touches of UM blue and purple or alizarin. to make it lighter you add more white to make it darker more blue and alizarin. I was still using my bristle brush pulling it from the outside edge of a petal in towards the center of the rose. The center of the rose was made with the end of the bristles turning it to create curves and the corners of the brush for the very center.
While I had that light blue color on my brush, I just made some loose leaf shapes that will be the sliver dollar leaves near the background. Please note that these are just shapes, nothing more at this point.
Finally, to that same blue color I added a touch of green and a bit more of the blue for the under painting of the hydrangea. Add white to make it lighter more blue and green to make it darker. Again this is just scumbling and creating an interesting edge around where the flowers will be.
I hope that most of you have your paintings to this point when we meet in class, we still have the under painting of a few flowers before we begin the detailing which I hope to start once we finish the under painting.
So keep painting and I will see you in class.
