Winter '09 Acrylic and Watercolor Classes

Week 4 – “Dusty” Acrylic

This week was all about finishing touches it also underscores the importance of all the under painting you have been doing to this point. It seems the concept of under painting is what has most of you baffled and what is giving you the most problem so I will try to explain.

My style of painting is more “representational” or “realistic” if you will and I think it is the way most beginning artists want to start out painting: To have their paintings look like something when they are finished. There is nothing wrong with that but you do have to pay closer attention then some one who just throws paint on a canvas. I know I mention this in class all the time that you need to become more observant of the world around you if you want your art to improve. Everything around you has depth and volume, weight and texture, as a painter you have to try and suggest those things on a 2 dimensional surface and the more you can suggest on your canvas the more realistic your painting will become, to what degree of realism depends on you as an artist and your personal taste but it all starts with observation.

When I use the term “under painting” it is not the same as “base coat” like you would put on a wall, under painting is more like the foundation of your painting, it holds your painting together. You build on your under painting but you don’t cover it all up. We start our paintings with a medium dark value, that value becomes shadows, it helps create depth in your painting and you don’t want to loose all of it. That dark is your friend, keep it around and it will work for you.

What I was seeing in class was after all the work you did putting your under painting down, you would cover all of it up with each new layer of paint until when you got to the highlights and there was no place to go with it. You need dark to show light even if you are doing something that is white you need to have a blue grey base so that the white highlights will show up.

Before you try and finish your projects please look at the picture page. I did a step by step study of what the fur should look like close up starting with the under painting to the final highlights. Note that even in the final step you can still see some of the dark under painting, the second, lighter layer of under painting, a layer of highlight that is several shades lighter than the previous layer and the final highlights where I used almost pure white to hit the tops of clumps of fur.

I also want you to notice that when I did the highlight steps, I didn’t take that color and put it on all the fur. My light was coming in from the right so I kept my highlights primarily to the right and faded them out using a lighter touch as I went to the left side. You should also notice that on the left side I put what is call a “reflected highlight”, because of our atmosphere, light tends to scatter and usually what is left is the blue part of the spectrum that shows up in the shadows. I used white, purple and a touch of sienna to make a cool purplish color that was lighter than the previous layer but not as light as the highlight color I used on the right side. The very final highlight was mostly white with just a very small touch of yellow to slightly tint the color and using a small round brush I just highlighted a few of the clumps of fur on the right side where it would be getting the most direct light. Combined, all of these steps end up creating not only dimension (round leg) but also depth and texture in the fur. I hope this helps explain the importance of under painting.

I once heard this analogy used to put into visual terms what you need to keep in mind when you are painting: If you were to buy your paint in bulk you would need a gallon of medium dark, a quart of dark and a pint of highlight. Those medium range colors are the foundation and framework of your painting and they pull and hold your painting together.

That said, I finished the highlight on Dust using white with just a tint of sienna or yellow or orange (I think I used them all at some point) and I was just finding edges and ends of tufts that might be out in the light, not the whole dog. Be sure to follow the direction of the fur.

Before I finished the foreground I decided to add some dirt and a few rocks, you do not have to add them to your painting. The dirt was like a bit of erosion using a #6 bristle brush, sienna, blue and purple and quickly under painting the dirt using little half “U” shaped strokes. The rocks I used the same colors with a touch of white to get a dark gray (you may need more blue) and just “scumbled” in some rock shapes. Be careful not to make them all the same size and shape or you will have what Jerry Yarnell calls a “herd of turtles”. Because I didn’t want to spend too much time on this, I shaped and highlighted while the paint was still wet this is called wet into wet and is a technique that oil painters use all the time. In the dirt I suggested little “flute” edges with orange and in the shadows more blue. On the rocks I used more white with sienna and blue and white for the final highlight (this was done very quickly for the best result).

Once my rocks were in, I pulled up grasses around Dusty’s feet, around the base of the rocks and along the top of the dirt to settle them down into the painting. I used a #10 bristle with sap green, yellow, orange, occasionally sienna – all the colors I have previously used in this area. Quick, upward dry brush strokes gives you the look of clumps of grass, lightly tapping suggests things with leaves or flowers.

Next I used many of the same colors but this time I switched to my liner brush. This is a tricky little brush so you might want to practice with it but it is great when you get to the detail. Loading this brush is key to getting any of the following techniques to work for you, this is the exception to the “don’t use too much water” rule. Your paint should be very ink-like, so you will need to add enough water so it will flow off you brush. When you have the right consistency, load your brush well and roll it as you lift it out of the paint so it has a nice point and hold the point slightly down so the paint will flow out of your brush and hold the brush near the back.

For grass use a circular motion, taller grass bigger circles, then as you are making the circles, touch the canvas on the up stroke. For weeds with seed pods, it is more of a flicking motion so you have a stem with a little “blip” at the end.

This little brush is really great for trees and bushes, again it takes practice. Near the base, if you press hard you will get a thicker line as you move away from the base, lift, twist and wiggle your brush (go out and look at trees or bushes to see how they grow). When you want to start another branch/twig off a branch, follow the original branch a little way then take the new branch in a different direction.

I added some flowers to my branches and also in the grasses. I used yellow, reds, pinks blues and purples as accents. Red is a good color to use with all that green because red is its compliment.

Next week – We are done with this painting but I will show you how to finish a painting with varnish and I will also show you other ways you can use your acrylics. Also have something of your own to paint.

Week 4 - “Tiger” Watercolor

So I don’t have to type it all again, I hope that you will read the part about under painting above but instead of dark paint, think of light colors or of saving light areas as you build into the dark ones.

As watercolorists we save our light colors starting with white for our brightest highlights and work our way to our darkest shadows. Many of you forget this aspect and tend to paint over something you should have left light then you struggle to get it light again. You need to think about what you are doing, keep your reference picture in front of you and refer to it often. I can’t stress this enough. You get into trouble because it feels so good to paint you forget where you are going. Watercolor doesn’t forgive easily, if at all if you used a staining paint.

We paint in layers – or washes – for a purpose so we can approach our painting gradually. Watercolor is transparent so every wash will deepen an area, enrich the color and increase the contrast so long as we remember our light areas. We too need to have dark areas to show light, we just need to remember to save them in some manner.

This was also a week of final touches for our kitty. I finished the detail on the basket and added a darker shadow right under the rim of the basket. Using an angle brush, I used purple with a touch of blue on the point and ran it right under the rim, then quickly rinsed my brush and with just water, lightly bled the color down to suggest a shadow.

On the rim of the basket I used my small angle brush to suggest the wrapped texture of it. As you paint, think of what you are painting and the direction: On the top of the rim it is a short across stroke, skip a bit, then a longer down stroke for the front. Overlap your strokes, change the color from orangish to more sienna. As you come to the front the top stroke is shorter and directly at the viewer as it goes to the sides they angle off towards the sides but the down strokes are always straight down, they just get closer together as the move away from the viewer. It you want, you can add a bit of shadowing between the bands but it isn’t necessary.

I also added the stripes to my kitty. If you need to, use your pencil to lightly draw in the stripes. Note where they start and stop, their shape and thickness. They are not one size and they aren’t perfect, so don’t make them all the same.

I used my small angle brush but a small round will work. Dipping the end into my sienna with very little water in my brush, I wanted a very dry brush for this and pure color so it will be dark enough without using another color. Remember this is short fur so your strokes are short, quick strokes along the lines for the stripes which are mostly on the head.

Check to make sure that you have enough shadows in the right places like under the paw, on his back where it goes down into the basket…Any place you think you could use a bit more shading.

Last but not least, I took my 1” brush with a light mix of blue and purple and washed over the bottom of the basket to blur the sides and vignette the bottom. This concentrates the detail near Tiger’s face to keep the viewer looking at the kitty.

Next week – Have your own projects ready I will do a demo on other ways to start a painting.

Winter 09 Acrylic and Watercolor Classes

Winter ’09 Acrylic and Watercolor Class Projects

Week 3 – Acrylic Project “Dusty”

This week we need to get things that might be behind Dust finished so we can finish her up probably the next time we meet. What I did in class was to start the highlighting of the grass and bushes around her. The light is coming from the right/front side of the painting which means that the highlights need to hit the top, right sides of things like the grass in front of her and the bushes on the right. I did a little on the bushes behind her on the left but only those tin the front that might catch a bit of light.

Using a #10 bristle brush with touches of yellow, white, orange, some green and sienna (mix and match these colors as you move thru your painting) I mixed the colors such as white and yellow together by mashing the brush straight down on my palette so that the end of my brush was all splayed out. It is important not to pick up too much paint, this is sort of a dry brush technique so you don’t want a lot of paint to start out. The color you use should be fairly light, while it is probably not our final highlight overall, in some places it just might be so you need it to suggest the direction of the light.

With your brush all splayed out LIGHTLY tap on your canvas where you want this highlight: Tops and edges of bushes, the ground in front of her, a little between her back legs up closer to her body, just leave a bit of the dark on what would be the ground behind her back leg as a shadow (see photo). Change your color often and if you are in the bushes, keep it more towards the top leaving the dark near the bottom. If you get carried away don’t worry, you can always put some dark back into the lower parts of the bushes. Also, leave the bushes behind her dark as if she is casting a shadow.

I kept my corners dark for now though that will probably change a bit in the final touches.

Once you have highlighted the bushes, it is time to start making fur on the puppy. I used a #6 round sable brush for this but if you have a small bristle brush, like a #4, that will work as well. The key here is dry brush. This will be a truer dry brush technique than what you did on the bushes and it will take some practice but this is the best way to make fur and it is something you can use in many different situations when painting with acrylics: Grass, fur, hair, wood grain, water ripples… It is a long list and well worth you time to practice.

Mix a color that is 1 or 2 shades lighter than the area you are going to paint. It will probably be a mix or white, sienna, blue and a touch of purple, you will probably have to test it on your canvas to be sure it is a bit lighter. After you have mixed your color – this is important – wipe your brush off. You want very little paint on your brush and with your fingers, spread the bristles out a bit so it looks a little like a mini fan brush.

You might ask why not use a fan brush? Well, some people do and use it quite effectively but it take a lot of practice to not get a fan brush pattern going with the fan. Spreading the bristles of a round brush allows for a more random look. I’m use to using either a bristle brush or round brushes and you go with what you know and have more control over the final outcome of your painting.

If you are using a small flat bristle brush, make sure to wipe out the excess paint and twist your brush going from the flat horizontal edge to the thin vertical one to make it look like clumps of fur, other than that it is much the same a using the round brush: It is a light touch, following the direction of the fur (have your reference photo of Dusty handy not previous weeks). If it is around the head, it is short, quick strokes – think fuzz. On the body and legs the strokes are longer and add a bit of a twist but it is still a dry brush and tight touch.

The color you use can be a bit lighter on the top of her head, nose, right under her eye and the front leg on the same side as her body and back leg, use less white as you go between the front legs and the left side, this will create some dimension to your dog.

Next week: Maybe a rock or two and some final highlights, we should get this done. Start looking for something you want to paint so if you have questions about it we can discuss it in class.

Watercolor Week 3: Tiger

This week I worked on starting the fur process and the basket. While both are fairly simple to do, it is a bit time consuming so take you time, rushing this will only cause you problems.

The fur is done using a dry brush technique. What I mean by dry brush is there is very little water in your brush or in your color and very little paint on your brush as well. You can use a flat or angle brush, a round brush or if you have a specialty brush like a grass brush or even if you have a bristle brush, you have many options. Just be sure that if you are using a bristle brush that it has never been in oil paints. You can never get all the oil out of the brush and it will ruin your watercolor paper.

I used sienna and orange for the most part with little or now water other than what was already in the paint. If I needed it darker like at the back of his head, I used a touch of blue but it was mostly the sienna and orange.

With a round brush, pick up some of the sienna and orange and mix it a bit on your palette. Be sure that you have dried your brush well first so you aren’t adding any more water. After you have loaded your brush, with your fingers, spread the bristles out a bit so you can see and uneven row of bristles, if you are using a flat or angle brush, you don’t need to do this just be sure your brush is dry. Using light, quick, short downward strokes and FOLLOWING THE DIRECTION OF THE FUR, apply this darker color. If you are doing it right, you should be able to see individual “hairs” separated by the lighter color underneath. If it is too solid a color you either pressed too hard, had too much water on your brush or in your paint or both. You barely want to touch the paper, you might want to practice on a separate piece of paper if you don’t want to experiment on your painting (this is always a good idea when trying a new technique). Just like in the acrylic lesson above, this is a good thing to learn to add texture to you paintings and will come in handy under many circumstances so practice it so you know how your brush works.

This color goes on all the orange parts of the kitty. Stripes will come later so do no worry about them just yet, I haven’t forgotten them but at this point they aren’t important and can actually be more confusing to try and put them in.

I think I also added more color to the insides of the ears, remember to paint around the hairs and to bleed the color out as you move away from the head. I also added color to the collar. First I picked up a bit of blue and a tiny bit of purple and starting where it goes under the fur on the neck, painted it pretty dark. And is came out from the fur, I rinsed my brush and bled it out so that it looked like light could be hitting it. Remember to paint around where tuffs of hair might be hanging over the collar, he is a furry kitty.

You can start the basket by first painting in the ribs (the supports that run up and down the basket) with yellow and a touch of sienna, just remember that the spaces between them get closer together as it goes around the sides of the basket so you might want to start in the front and work to each side with each rib just a bit closer each time. They also angle slightly towards the center and how they angle will depend on what side of the basket you are working on the left side will angle out towards the left, the right towards the right and the center will be the only one that will go almost straight down.

Once you have the ribs in you can start “weaving” your basket. Much like if you were actually weaving it you alternate between over and under. I used my ¼” angle brush and used a fairly thick mix of sienna, orange and some yellow and remembering that the weave is going “over” the rib so it was a slightly curved stroke, I started on one side of the basket and did a row of “Over, under. Over, under.” Until I got to the other side then did “Under, over. Under, over.” So that it looks like a woven basket. I did work on this a bit when I got home because I needed to finish what I didn’t get a chance to in class and I also added some dark (sienna, blue and purple) where I thought there might be gaps near the ribs (see photo) but I will demo when we meet again.

Like I said, this is a bit time consuming but it is not hard to do, just be patient.

Next week: We should be finishing this up with some stripes, basket details and a few other finishing touches. Start looking for your next project, if you have any questions we can talk about them in class.

Winter 09 Acrylic and Watercolor classes

FYI – I don’t know how long it will last, but as of right now KOCE Channel 50 is running art programs in the afternoons at 1 PM. You can learn something by watching other artists even those not working in your media but the 2 I suggest for my classes are: Jerry Yarnell on Wednesdays for acrylics and Terry Madden on Thursdays for watercolor. Wyland is also an acrylic painter but I think he is using the “open” paints which act a bit more like oils but if you like sea creatures he is worth watching, he’s on, on Fridays.

Acrylic Project Week 2 – Dusty

I need to preface this entry because if you look at the picture page you will notice there is quite a bit of difference between my painting when you last was it and as it is now and I don’t want anyone to panic.

Because I’m painting at an angle when I’m in class so you can see what I am doing, I am looking at my painting at a distorted perspective. When I stood back and looked at where I was in the painting, I really didn’t like what I saw; my baby was all out of proportion and didn’t look like my girlie at all. I knew I needed to fix her before I got too much further along, better now than when I want to be finished with her.

This is a good example for the rest of you though, because it shows that you can go back in and make changes to your painting if there is something you don’t like or want to change, you aren’t stuck with trying to make something work.

What I did was take my vine charcoal and standing in front of my canvas with reference photo in hand, I sketched in where I needed to make changes. Her body was waaaay too long so I checked the proportion of her body to the measure from the top of her head to her feet, because of the foreshortening (her body is at an angle going away from the viewer), her body length was ¾ her height, as I had her originally, her body length was more than her height and made her look distorted. I also changed the position of her head so she is looking more out of the picture, repositioned her eye and I made her ear a bit bigger.

Once I knew where I needed to make the changes, I had to “paint out” the areas of dog I didn’t want. I did that by doing much the same as I had done originally using a #12 flat bristle brush this time I used mostly my greens but added touches of all the rest of my colors and white (remember I had gesso on my canvas to blend with the first time) to paint over the excess dog parts. However, I did not JUST paint out the dog parts I also blended what I was doing into what I had done before so it didn’t look like I was patching a hole but like part of the original. This is important if you ever need to make changes to your painting: If you just paint over the problem area you are going to make it look like a patch, you need to blend into the surrounding areas so it looks like it is suppose to be there.

After I got all the excess dog parts removed – by the way, I did go into parts of the dog I wanted to keep so I didn’t have any hard lines – I set about making my girlie back to where we left off in class this week, which meant I had to re-paint areas with the darker under painting (sienna, blue, purple and white as needed). First I re-established my sketch with my charcoal, under painted then added a few lighter tones to get her back to where we left off. This was not hard and it needed to be done. Don’t be afraid to make changes if you don’t like something. We all make mistakes and we need to be able to fix them.

Now back to what we did in class.

When I looked at Dust last week, I realized that I needed to make the area behind hr head lighter to set her off in the painting so in class I showed how to take yellow, a touch of green, white and orange and using a #10 bristle brush (this is exactly the same as above except with lighter colors), created some lighter weeds and grasses behind her head. As I moved away from her head, I picked up less white and yellow and more greens, blue, sienna and purple so there was a gradual transition from the light area to the dark.

Remember that most of what we are still doing is under painting. We are not yet into anything close to final details even if we were doing a more impressionistic type of painting, this is still in its middle stages. From here you could go to a more impressionistic approach or you could go in the opposite direction of photo realism, it just depends on where you want to go with it.

The mixture of paint for Dusty is going to be only 4 colors: Sienna, blue, purple and white. If I am working on lighter areas (always have your reference photo handy) I will use more white, in darker areas less white or no white; warmer areas more sienna, cooler areas or shadows more blues and purples, I’m really using my photo as a road map for my colors, just as you should be doing. So what I will describe here is more technique and value (light or dark) or tone (hue).

I used my #8 bristle filbert brush, you can use a smaller flat bristle brush if you are working on a smaller canvas, but use the largest brush you feel comfortable with, we will get to small brushes later.

I mixed a color that was a shade or two lighter than the color on her head and using the chisel end of my brush, I made short, quick strokes in the direction the fur was growing on her head. Look at the photo. See how the fur is growing, and what direction it is going and place your strokes accordingly. Her fur is long but it still follows the curves of the body underneath, if you are doing a short hair animal, your strokes will be shorter, long hair, longer strokes, they all need to follow the way it grows on the animal.

In the shadow areas under her body – back leg and between her front legs – I used a darker, cooler color, all the time thinking about the fur and how it grows. You don’t want to cover up everything you did before so leave some of the dark between strokes. Remember she is soft and fuzzy, your strokes need to reflect her fuzziness.

For her nose and mouth I mixed blue, purple and sienna to get a dark color. If it is too warm, add more blue. If you need to, draw in the nose with your charcoal then paint it in along with the lines of her mouth. Next, sketch in the placement of her eyes, mix a bit of you dark color with more sienna for her eyes, when they are painted (here you can use a small round brush), you can use that dark color for the pupil in the close eye and also the lining around her eyes.

Next week: Foreground and fur detail.


Watercolor Week 2: Tiger

Because we were several people short on Monday, I didn’t do so much that those who missed class couldn’t get caught up but did enough to keep those who were there busy. Hope everyone is in class on Monday because we will be getting into some detail and it will go fast from there, maybe only another couple classes and I don’t want you to miss out.

I had to get the background finished so it would be dry enough to start on the kitten. Once again I used my gray color to add another layer of glazing to the background only this time though at the bottom of the basket I came across the bottom with some of the color, rinsed my brush and with just water, bled the color out and softened the bottom edges so that the basket fades out. This keeps any hard lines up near Tiger’s face where I want my viewer to stay. I let this dry.

Once the background was dry, I added color to the background this time. I choose blue for the primary color but there were areas where I also mixed in some purple, mostly the corners and did the same treatment around the bottom of the basket to keep the area soft. While this color was still wet, I dripped some red into the wet paint in just a few areas to add some interest. When I say “dripped” I mean exactly that, my brush, if it touched the paper, it was just barely touching so the red could get off, but if you have enough water in your paint is should just drip off your brush. Just leave the paint to do its own thing; it will add some interest to the background. Let it dry.

When your background has dried the next step is to start adding color to the kitten (these instructions apply to both versions of the kitten). First I took a touch of my red and added a lot of water. I want a light pink color for the ears, pads and the nose. I painted around the hairs in the ears, this is called “negative painting”, starting down in the ear and as I moved up the ear, I rinsed my brush and used a damp brush to blend it out towards the tips of the ear. I also painted the nose and pads. Remember, this needs to be a light color, we can always add more.

Next, I took sienna with a touch of orange and a lot of water to make a light orange-ish color for the fur of the Boy. This I painted on all the orange areas of Tiger. This is a very light color so be sure to use enough water when thinning down your color.

When his orange parts were painted, I use a thinned down yellow to paint over the basked area skipping the rim for now. I used my Indian yellow but cad yellow pale with just a little touch of orange will work fine, you want a golden color again it should be very pale.

Tiger’s eyes are painted with cad yellow with a very small tint of sap green or pthalo yellow green if you have it. This will be a stronger concentration of paint than the glazes we have been using so you don’t need to use as much water. Paint both eyes with this color, don’t worry about the pupils for now. While the eyes are still wet, pick up a little bit of sienna on the tip of your brush and just under the upper lid run the tip of your bush over the top of the eyes. It should look like a shadow, you might want to practice on a separate paper because if you use too much sienna or if your eyes are too dry, you won’t get the soft blend you need. Learn to let the paint help you. When you’ve painted the shadow, rinse your brush and dry it well so it is just barely damp and on the lower right side of both eyes, lift a bit of the eye color. It is important that you do this in the same place on both eyes, it suggests the direction of the light.

Back to the rim. It is a slightly darker color than the basket so I picked up some orange and yellow with a touch of sienna to start, mixed in water enough to make a thin wash but not as thin as on the basket its self and starting under the paw painted towards the front. As a moved away from the paw, I rinsed my brush and painted with water until I just got past his nose then added some more sienna to my mix to change the color and used this color for the rest of the rim. Look at the reference picture so you can see what I’m talking about. The rim changes color and get darker, your paint needs to do the same.

Next week: Yikes! Stripes! (maybe) and some basket weaving. Like I said, we only have a couple more weeks on this project.
FYI – I don’t know how long it will last, but as of right now KOCE Channel 50 is running art programs in the afternoons at 1 PM. You can learn something by watching other artists even those not working in your media but the 2 I suggest for my classes are: Jerry Yarnell on Wednesdays for acrylics and Terry Madden on Thursdays for watercolor. Wyland is also an acrylic painter but I think he is using the “open” paints which act a bit more like oils but if you like sea creatures he is worth watching, he’s on, on Fridays.

Acrylic Project Week 2 – Dusty

I need to preface this entry because if you look at the picture page you will notice there is quite a bit of difference between my painting when you last was it and as it is now and I don’t want anyone to panic.

Because I’m painting at an angle when I’m in class so you can see what I am doing, I am looking at my painting at a distorted perspective. When I stood back and looked at where I was in the painting, I really didn’t like what I saw; my baby was all out of proportion and didn’t look like my girlie at all. I knew I needed to fix her before I got too much further along, better now than when I want to be finished with her.

This is a good example for the rest of you though, because it shows that you can go back in and make changes to your painting if there is something you don’t like or want to change, you aren’t stuck with trying to make something work.

What I did was take my vine charcoal and standing in front of my canvas with reference photo in hand, I sketched in where I needed to make changes. Her body was waaaay too long so I checked the proportion of her body to the measure from the top of her head to her feet, because of the foreshortening (her body is at an angle going away from the viewer), her body length was ¾ her height, as I had her originally, her body length was more than her height and made her look distorted. I also changed the position of her head so she is looking more out of the picture, repositioned her eye and I made her ear a bit bigger.

Once I knew where I needed to make the changes, I had to “paint out” the areas of dog I didn’t want. I did that by doing much the same as I had done originally using a #12 flat bristle brush this time I used mostly my greens but added touches of all the rest of my colors and white (remember I had gesso on my canvas to blend with the first time) to paint over the excess dog parts. However, I did not JUST paint out the dog parts I also blended what I was doing into what I had done before so it didn’t look like I was patching a hole but like part of the original. This is important if you ever need to make changes to your painting: If you just paint over the problem area you are going to make it look like a patch, you need to blend into the surrounding areas so it looks like it is suppose to be there.

After I got all the excess dog parts removed – by the way, I did go into parts of the dog I wanted to keep so I didn’t have any hard lines – I set about making my girlie back to where we left off in class this week, which meant I had to re-paint areas with the darker under painting (sienna, blue, purple and white as needed). First I re-established my sketch with my charcoal, under painted then added a few lighter tones to get her back to where we left off. This was not hard and it needed to be done. Don’t be afraid to make changes if you don’t like something. We all make mistakes and we need to be able to fix them.

Now back to what we did in class.

When I looked at Dust last week, I realized that I needed to make the area behind hr head lighter to set her off in the painting so in class I showed how to take yellow, a touch of green, white and orange and using a #10 bristle brush (this is exactly the same as above except with lighter colors), created some lighter weeds and grasses behind her head. As I moved away from her head, I picked up less white and yellow and more greens, blue, sienna and purple so there was a gradual transition from the light area to the dark.

Remember that most of what we are still doing is under painting. We are not yet into anything close to final details even if we were doing a more impressionistic type of painting, this is still in its middle stages. From here you could go to a more impressionistic approach or you could go in the opposite direction of photo realism, it just depends on where you want to go with it.

The mixture of paint for Dusty is going to be only 4 colors: Sienna, blue, purple and white. If I am working on lighter areas (always have your reference photo handy) I will use more white, in darker areas less white or no white; warmer areas more sienna, cooler areas or shadows more blues and purples, I’m really using my photo as a road map for my colors, just as you should be doing. So what I will describe here is more technique and value (light or dark) or tone (hue).

I used my #8 bristle filbert brush, you can use a smaller flat bristle brush if you are working on a smaller canvas, but use the largest brush you feel comfortable with, we will get to small brushes later.

I mixed a color that was a shade or two lighter than the color on her head and using the chisel end of my brush, I made short, quick strokes in the direction the fur was growing on her head. Look at the photo. See how the fur is growing, and what direction it is going and place your strokes accordingly. Her fur is long but it still follows the curves of the body underneath, if you are doing a short hair animal, your strokes will be shorter, long hair, longer strokes, they all need to follow the way it grows on the animal.

In the shadow areas under her body – back leg and between her front legs – I used a darker, cooler color, all the time thinking about the fur and how it grows. You don’t want to cover up everything you did before so leave some of the dark between strokes. Remember she is soft and fuzzy, your strokes need to reflect her fuzziness.

For her nose and mouth I mixed blue, purple and sienna to get a dark color. If it is too warm, add more blue. If you need to, draw in the nose with your charcoal then paint it in along with the lines of her mouth. Next, sketch in the placement of her eyes, mix a bit of you dark color with more sienna for her eyes, when they are painted (here you can use a small round brush), you can use that dark color for the pupil in the close eye and also the lining around her eyes.

Next week: Foreground and fur detail.


Watercolor Week 2: Tiger

Because we were several people short on Monday, I didn’t do so much that those who missed class couldn’t get caught up but did enough to keep those who were there busy. Hope everyone is in class on Monday because we will be getting into some detail and it will go fast from there, maybe only another couple classes and I don’t want you to miss out.

I had to get the background finished so it would be dry enough to start on the kitten. Once again I used my gray color to add another layer of glazing to the background only this time though at the bottom of the basket I came across the bottom with some of the color, rinsed my brush and with just water, bled the color out and softened the bottom edges so that the basket fades out. This keeps any hard lines up near Tiger’s face where I want my viewer to stay. I let this dry.

Once the background was dry, I added color to the background this time. I choose blue for the primary color but there were areas where I also mixed in some purple, mostly the corners and did the same treatment around the bottom of the basket to keep the area soft. While this color was still wet, I dripped some red into the wet paint in just a few areas to add some interest. When I say “dripped” I mean exactly that, my brush, if it touched the paper, it was just barely touching so the red could get off, but if you have enough water in your paint is should just drip off your brush. Just leave the paint to do its own thing; it will add some interest to the background. Let it dry.

When your background has dried the next step is to start adding color to the kitten (these instructions apply to both versions of the kitten). First I took a touch of my red and added a lot of water. I want a light pink color for the ears, pads and the nose. I painted around the hairs in the ears, this is called “negative painting”, starting down in the ear and as I moved up the ear, I rinsed my brush and used a damp brush to blend it out towards the tips of the ear. I also painted the nose and pads. Remember, this needs to be a light color, we can always add more.

Next, I took sienna with a touch of orange and a lot of water to make a light orange-ish color for the fur of the Boy. This I painted on all the orange areas of Tiger. This is a very light color so be sure to use enough water when thinning down your color.

When his orange parts were painted, I use a thinned down yellow to paint over the basked area skipping the rim for now. I used my Indian yellow but cad yellow pale with just a little touch of orange will work fine, you want a golden color again it should be very pale.

Tiger’s eyes are painted with cad yellow with a very small tint of sap green or pthalo yellow green if you have it. This will be a stronger concentration of paint than the glazes we have been using so you don’t need to use as much water. Paint both eyes with this color, don’t worry about the pupils for now. While the eyes are still wet, pick up a little bit of sienna on the tip of your brush and just under the upper lid run the tip of your bush over the top of the eyes. It should look like a shadow, you might want to practice on a separate paper because if you use too much sienna or if your eyes are too dry, you won’t get the soft blend you need. Learn to let the paint help you. When you’ve painted the shadow, rinse your brush and dry it well so it is just barely damp and on the lower right side of both eyes, lift a bit of the eye color. It is important that you do this in the same place on both eyes, it suggests the direction of the light.

Back to the rim. It is a slightly darker color than the basket so I picked up some orange and yellow with a touch of sienna to start, mixed in water enough to make a thin wash but not as thin as on the basket its self and starting under the paw painted towards the front. As a moved away from the paw, I rinsed my brush and painted with water until I just got past his nose then added some more sienna to my mix to change the color and used this color for the rest of the rim. Look at the reference picture so you can see what I’m talking about. The rim changes color and get darker, your paint needs to do the same.

Next week: Yikes! Stripes! (maybe) and some basket weaving. Like I said, we only have a couple more weeks on this project.