Acrylic: Seasons: Learn to paint step by step 9781633224063, 1633224066

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SEASONS

As sunlight changes throughout the year, so does the way we see color in nature, and with acrylics, you can create compelling paintings that celebrate each season at its colorful best. With each project in this book, you’ll learn the methods and techniques that make painting seasons a joyful experience. —David Lloyd Glover

CONTENTS Tools & Materials Color Basics Light & Shadow Rendering Reflections Capturing Natural Texture Framing Focal Points Distance & Dimension Chromatic Impact

TOOLS & MATERIALS Paints Paint varies in expense by grade and brand. Very inexpensive paints might lack consistency and affect your results, but buying the most costly color may also limit you. Find a happy medium.

Brushes Synthetic brushes are best for acrylic painting because their strong filaments can withstand the caustic nature of acrylic. Build a starter set with small, medium, and large flat brushes; a liner (or rigger) brush; a medium fan brush; and a hake brush.

Palettes Palettes for acrylic paint range from white, plastic handheld palettes to sheets of plexiglass.

Palette & Painting Knives Palette knives are mainly used to mix colors on your palette; they come in various sizes and shapes. Some can also be used for applying paint to your canvas, creating texture in your work, or even removing paint.

Sponges Sponges are great for dampening your canvas and applying paint to create texture.

Painting Surfaces Although you can paint on many surfaces, canvas is the most popular choice. Pre-primed and stretched canvas, which is available at arts and craft stores, is stretched taut over a wood frame and coated with acrylic gesso—a white primer that provides an ideal surface for holding paint.

Additional Supplies

Some additional supplies you’ll want to have on hand include: □ Paper, pencils, and a sharpener for drawing, sketching, and tracing □ Jars of water, paper towels, and a spray bottle of water □ Blackboard chalk and/or vine charcoal for sketching over dry paint □ Acrylic glazing medium or retarder

COLOR BASICS A basic knowledge of color and color relationships is essential in learning how to paint. One of the easiest ways to approach color is by seeing it on a “color wheel,” which is a visual organization of color hues around a circle. Seeing the colors organized in this fashion is helpful for color mixing and choosing color schemes. Color Wheel The color wheel helps us see relationships between primary, secondary, and tertiary colors. Primary colors are blue, red, and yellow. We can create a multitude of other colors by combining blue, red, and yellow in various proportions, but we can’t create the three primaries by mixing other colors. Secondary colors include orange, green, and violet. You can create these colors by combining two primaries. Red and yellow make orange, blue and red make violet, and yellow and blue make green. Tertiary colors are created by mixing each primary color with its neighboring secondary color. These colors include red-orange, yellow-orange, yellow-green, blue-green, blue-violet, and red-violet.

Complementary Colors Complements sit opposite each other on the color wheel. For example, red sits opposite green, blue sits opposite orange, and yellow sits opposite purple. These colors are considered opposites in their hues and yield the maximum amount of color contrast possible. When complements are mixed together, they form a dull gray, brown, or neutral color.

Neutral Colors Neutral colors are browns and grays, both of which contain all three primary colors in varying proportions. Neutral colors are often dulled with white or black. Artists also use the word “neutralize” to describe the act of dulling a color by adding its complement.

Color Temperature Color temperature refers to the feeling one gets when viewing a color or set of colors. Generally, yellows, oranges, and reds are considered warm, whereas greens, blues, and purples are considered cool. When used within a work of art, warm colors seem to advance toward the viewer, and cool colors appear to recede into the distance. This dynamic is important to remember when suggesting depth or creating an area of focus.

Cool

Warm

Color & Value Within each hue, you can achieve a range of values—from dark shades to light tints. However, each hue has a value relative to others on the color wheel. For example, yellow is the lightest color and violet is the darkest. To see this clearly, photograph or scan a color wheel, and use computer-editing software to view it in grayscale. It is also very helpful to create a grayscale chart of all the paints in your palette so you know how their values relate to one another.

PROJECT ONE

LIGHT & SHADOW Winter scenes always evoke great nostalgia and give people a warm feeling. A simple palette highlights the weathered maple sugar barn in the New England countryside.

A: The shadows establish that the light source comes from the right side of the painting.

Prepare the canvas with a heavy wash of crimson red, and use a flat-bristle brush with thinned dioxazine purple to sketch the barn, trees, and long winter shadows.

TIP Know your light source. Even though you may not be painting the sun, light the scene from a consistent direction.

The shadow areas on the snow are roughed in using a blend of dioxazine purple with a touch of ultramarine blue and titanium white. No need for neatness yet. At this point, you are establishing the light and dark values in the painting.

A: With a fan brush, stroke in some purple areas, which will be the trees in the distance. B: Indicate where the snow blankets the ground and covers the roof with a fan brush.

Using a large 3/4" brush, block in the basic color areas. Brush over the wood structure of the barn using a mix of cadmium yellow dark and quinacridone magenta. Add more cadmium yellow dark to paint the firewood under the building.

A: The foreground snow will be jumbled with lots of foot tracks, so there are short broken strokes of blue suggesting the contours. B: Indicate the unseen foreground tree shadows running along the snow and up the sides of the barn.

Block in cool colors suggesting the trees in the distance. With loose brushstrokes, apply the paint using a 3/4" short-handled brush. With dioxazine purple on a small flat brush, place the sapling tree trunks just beyond the barn.

TIP To visually confirm that your architectural elements are in the right perspective, simply turn your painting upside down for a minute, and step back. If any angles are

incorrect, this trick will reveal what you might need to adjust.

A: When your brushstrokes mimic the direction of the clapboards, the painting takes on the look of realistic dimension. B: Soft edges give the clouds an airy appearance.

Paint in the sky behind the tree line (closest to the horizon) using a 3/4" brush loaded with a blend of phthalo blue with mostly titanium white. For the sky high above the horizon, add ultramarine blue to create a richer blue. Deepen the color of the barn with more layers of red tones.

TIP Let the wide brush’s bristles do the work in creating the patterns of light filtering through the trees.

To finish the painting, add more details, including snow covering tree branches and ground, cloud highlights, and tree trunks.

Give the clouds shape by painting in the soft white areas that are illuminated by the sun with pure titanium white.

Create the bright snow highlights using pure titanium white.

A simple way to create the look of snow covering trees branches is to use a #3 fan brush. Dab titanium white and a bit of ultramarine blue together, and with the edge, lightly tap in the snow covering the tree’s branches. Fill the upper branches of the big tree with a thick layer of snow color.

TIP When painting snow, don’t worry about accuracy. The fan brush will create a general random look of snow cover.

PROJECT TWO

RENDERING REFLECTIONS Nothing says spring more than a garden bursting with hanging wisteria, rhododendrons, and other colorful blossoms. A footbridge stretching over a pond reminds me of Monet’s garden and makes for an interesting, romantic focal point.

A: Thinned primary red over white gesso gives your scene the feeling of a spring day and unifies the painting.

Prepare a stretched 20" × 20" canvas with a wash of primary red light. For sketching, use thinned dioxazine purple to rough in the position of the curved walking bridge and other elements. Outline the foliage in the foreground and the major trees in the background.

TIP When creating your initial painting, don’t focus on accuracy. Rather, establish the overall shape and layout of the elements that create your whole composition.

A: Make brushstrokes in the direction of the tree branches and bushes.

Block in the main shadow areas using four colors (titanium white brings forward true pigment colors). Using a broad 1" brush and with quick brushstrokes, establish where the dark foliage appears. Brush in tones of blues, purples, and magenta for the first layer.

TIP

Black is useful in some cases to tone down a color, but it can deaden a landscape. Achieve the deepest shadows using blends of dioxazine purple with ultramarine blue or cadmium red.

A: The water reflects the blue sky. Rough in some color using phthalo blue and white. B: Use dioxazine purple for the shadows under the bridge and in the water.

Now block in the greens of the trees and foliage, applying quick brushstrokes of color following the direction of the leaves and tree branches. The flowering rose bushes in the foreground, the wisteria on the bridge, and the background trees begin to appear.

A: Add more of the sky color to the water reflections. B: With a small flat bristle brush and dioxazine purple, indicate the main tree trunks with some quick brushstrokes.

Dapple in the light of the sky popping in through the trees. Paint the pale sky with a touch of phthalo blue mixed with titanium white. The clouds are titanium white blended with a touch of ultramarine blue. On the bridge, add layers of color to create texture using cadmium red and dioxazine purple.

TIP

Continue to make loose and suggestive brushstrokes. The overall impression of the scene is more important than the small details.

Using a fan brush, dab shadow and bright green to the trees. The edge of the brush gives you a soft and varied edge, lending an interesting texture.

Brighten the white flowers using a small flat brush loaded with titanium white.

Add white blended with just a hint of phthalo blue as bright sky tone. Add intensity to the light cloud color popping through the trees’ leaves.

A: Create the look of the warm sunlight illuminating the trees and flowers.

Paint in all the flowers, including roses in the foreground, wisteria blossoms hanging over the bridge, and even petals floating in the pond. Highlight the bridge structure using quinacridone magenta and titanium white. Add tree branches with dioxazine purple.

TIP

How do you know when it’s time to stop adding to your painting? When the canvas is full of color, drop your brush and revisit the painting the next day. You’ll be surprised how good it looks the way you left it.

PROJECT THREE

CAPTURING NATURAL TEXTURE A walking path always leads the eye on a visual journey through the scene. Pools of sunlight and a bit of shadow give the sense of dimension that you need. The many layers of elements naturally lend distance to the image.

Prepare a stretched 16" × 20" rectangular landscape canvas with a light wash of raw sienna over the white gesso surface.

A: Large tree trunks and trees recede into the distance.

With a #5 flat bristle brush, sketch thinned dioxazine purple. Sketch the important clusters of the garden plantings and the shape and direction of the pathway.

TIP When sketching the shapes of the garden along the pathway, use just enough paint to see the outlines. When it’s light enough, the sketch will blend into the garden’s colors in later steps.

A: Later on, some of this shadow color will pop and look like the distance between the flower stems, leaves, and background.

With loose brushstrokes, block in the darkest shadow areas, establishing where the light source illuminates the setting. Paint in additional hues of green and blue. Mimic the direction the foliage grows.

A: Paint the tree trunk (mixture of cadmium red and titanium white) and leaves (phthalo blue, cadmium yellow, and a touch of dioxazine purple). B: Lighter greens define the places where sunlight enters the scene.

With a fan brush, fill the scene with greenery in a variety of color tones, and load on colors for the various beds of flowers. Using the edge of the brush will create soft edges, giving this piece a nice painterly look.

TIP Don’t worry about painting every petal and leaf. If you entertain the eye with lots of color patterns, you will find that your garden looks amazingly real.

Build up the colors in the garden path using a fan brush. The cool shadows are a blend of dioxazine purple and ultramarine blue; the sunlit patches are a blend of cadmium red and titanium white. Lay in the bright lilac color using the edge of a fan brush.

TIP Show your work in progress to friends and family for feedback. What you might consider a mistake can end up being a favorite among others.

Lightly highlight the tips and sun-facing edge of the flowers using the purple flower color mix with a lot more titanium white added.

With a fan brush loaded with titanium white, paint the clusters of daisies.

TIP Less is more. Be sparing when filling the painting with flowers. You’ll achieve a natural feel even though the garden is bursting with color.

As you finish, paint in a warm sky with distant trees, suggested by softer, light colors. Add brighter warm yellow-greens in the evergreen trees. In this final stage, add a highlight here and there and additional stalks and branches.

PROJECT FOUR

FRAMING FOCAL POINTS With the focal point of the weathered boat in the foreground, the flat plane of the water surface creates a feeling of depth as your eye moves across to the opposite shoreline and green trees on the other side of the lake.

Prepare a stretched 24" × 18" canvas with a rich wash of cadmium red over the white gesso. With a #5 flat bristle brush, roughly sketch key elements: the rowboat, the shoreline, and three tree levels. Indicate the shapes of the long lake grass clumps in the foreground.

TIP For rough sketching, you can use a brush and paint, charcoal, or pencil.

A: A lot of the tree shadow color will be covered by other layers of green later. The blue color that peeks through will give contrast and depth to the trees.

Block in the basic color areas using deep phthalo blue and dioxazine purple. Note the brushstrokes are in the natural direction of the grasses and trees.

TIP Warmer colors bring objects closer in your composition. Cool colors naturally recede. Using warm and cool colors in the same painting creates visual depth.

A: Use a short-handle bristle brush and nice, loose movements to suggest the colors of the boat.

With a 1" brush, start layering in colors of green to give shape to the grasses and trees. Build layers of colors—dark greens, blue greens—which progressively become lighter as you add white and cadmium yellow. With a #8 flat brush, stroke in the planes of the lake surface with smooth left-to-right strokes. Brighten up the sky nearest to the horizon line.

Dab in the patches of light that pop through the trees. A mixture of titanium white and phthalo blue gives the illusion of branches.

A: Another layer of green tones creates more defined foliage. B: Layers of brighter greens and yellow added to this sunlit area draw the eye into the distance.

Add details to the rowboat. Rough in the strakes of the boat with dioxazine purple. Highlight the brighter green gunwales with a blend made of phthalo blue, titanium white, and cadmium yellow.

TIP Use a light touch with a fan brush. It can cover a lot of territory on your canvas, and you don’t want to paint over too much of your base shadow colors.

Add details to the water reflections with a script liner brush.

Create the effect of the sun illuminating the trees with a single downward stroke of the brush.

Try adding a human touch, such as a beaten pathway, watering can, fence, or gate. It will lend scale to your composition and make the painting more inviting.

Give the clouds a softer look by adding titanium white with a touch of cadmium red. Create lifelike foliage with a fan brush and a mixture of cadmium yellow, titantium white, and phthalo blue.

PROJECT FIVE

DISTANCE & DIMENSION The wide-open scenery of the high valleys and meadows with a curtain backdrop of mountains lend a sense of great dimension and space. In this scene, you can see many different levels of distance.

A: Position the focal point, the evergreen tree, left of center.

Apply a light wash of cadmium red light over the white gesso of a 20" × 16" canvas. Sketch using a #5 flat bristle brush with thinned dioxazine purple blended with ultramarine blue. Establish the ridgeline of the mountains, and position the distant mountains and the outline of the rolling hills.

TIP The background wash’s warm red tone is perfect for the composition’s predominately green tones. Green and redorange are at opposite ends of the color spectrum; they’re more vibrant when used together.

A: Rough in the sky, defining the edges of the ridgeline. B: Loosely block in shadow areas of the foliage with complementary colors.

Using a large 1" brush, block in the basic color areas to establish some color in the shadows that will be visible between all the foliage. To keep the colors clear, blend a small amount of titanium white into each of the three colors.

A: Highlight where the sun hits the peaks of the blue and purple mountain ridges with tones of gray.

Paint the earthy greens of the meadows and foothills. Block in the colors of the evergreens with warm green. The mountain shapes are formed with brushstrokes of blues and purple tones for the shadow areas.

A: Create more defined foliage by adding another layer of green tones.

Add texture and the perception of details in the rock face of the mountain ridge. Follow the light and shadow patterns, this time using the edge of a #3 fan brush. Lightly brush in additional color to create the feel of the variations in the stone.

TIP Do not overdo the amount of brushwork on the mountain ridge; simply suggest the texture. Let the brush and canvas do the work.

Load a round #5 bristle brush with primary red and titanium white, and paint in the clusters of wildflowers.

Highlight the parts of clouds illuminated by the sun using a fan brush with a light load of titanium white.

Create highlights and fine details with a script liner brush.

A: Shape the evergreen tree with the same fan brush and bright green and yellow highlights showing the sunlight and new spring growth.

Define the foliage in the foreground with brighter greens using a fan brush. Sparingly lay in the foreground greenery with the edge of a fan brush to avoid completely covering the shadows.

PROJECT SIX

CHROMATIC IMPACT The range of warm colors of the turning leaves gives your painting tremendous visual impact and appeal. This is an easy subject to paint and one that will give you great satisfaction.

Prepare a stretched 24" × 18" canvas with a wash of cadmium red light. Roughly sketch with thinned dioxazine purple the curving road, main tree trunks, and branches.

Next, block in the main shadow areas using a broad 1" brush. With quick brushstrokes, establish where the dark foliage appears.

A: Dab in cadmium yellow and titanium white for the gold-leafed branches. B: Introduce a mixture of quinacridone magenta with titanium white alongside the green leaves.

Paint the green leaves in the trees and the foliage along the road. With a small #2 brush, rough in the tree trunks and branches with dioxazine purple.

TIP If you’re working from a reference photo, remember that a photo captures facts-an artist creates the emotion. Don’t feel like you need to replicate the photo with complete accuracy.

A: Paint the fallen leaves along the road’s edge with magenta deepened with a touch of dioxazine purple.

Add the autumn color leaves to the trees with a 1/2"-wide flat bristle brush loaded with color. Brushstrokes should be loose.

In the trees, blend primary red with titanium white to make a clear pink color. More sunlight hits the upper branches of the trees, so the colors appear light and bright.

At this stage, really build up the color intensity on the autumn leaves. Load a fan brush with color, and use the edge to dab in the patterns that look just like tree leaves.

TIP Instead of painting all the leaf clusters the same color, imagine where the sunlight would hit some of the tree boughs. Highlight those areas with color brightened with white.

Paint in the sky with a mixture of titanium white and a touch of ultramarine blue. Use a script liner brush to add thinner branch details, and highlight the fallen leaves along the roadway. A pool of light draws the eye to the focal point of the painting, giving the painting a sense of depth.

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