Tuesday, April 1, 2014

How to start a painting.

April 1, 2014

Winner of the March Give-away is Nancy B. of Fredericksburg.  Choose a 6 x 6.  Congrats to you and thank you for the photo.  I did two paintings from it. 

Thank you to those who sent me photos,   I used most of them.  There were some really good photos with an eye for composition. THANK YOU  (You can see most of them on my pinterest board, Close-up Fredericksburg.  Click here for link



HOW TO START A PAINTING

I'm working on that lesson on the "Lessons" page ( click tab at top of blog page).  If you receive my email blogs, click on "Painting a Day" at bottom of email to take you to the blog. 

This is just one of the ways to start a painting.  I've used this exercise with students to show the stages of a painting.  It could be done loosely with more deliberate brushwork. 



lower left

1.  Start with a wash of Ultramarine Blue and Burnt Sienna or anything that gives you a dark gray/black.  Do a very loose drawing.  Wipe out the lights with a paper towel 

upper left

2.  Next paint large shapes of light and dark with color in the values you did in Step 1. (start using opaque paint on the light side of the object, keep to transparent thin paint on the shadow side)

top right

3.  Start refining the shapes of light and dark, add the mid-tones for the reflected light and where light meets dark on the apple.

bottom right

4.  Refine even more, add the highlight, apply paint on background and foreground,  work on edges to include some sharp edges and soft edges.  Include some green in shadow.

The point of this exercise is to do the painting in layers.  It also helps to maintain the darks if they are established first. 

This month's "The Artist's Magazine" has a very helpful article by Qiang Huang with a an excellent demo.  Here's link to the magazine.  http://www.northlightshop.com/the-artists-magazine-april-2014-group