Tuscan Landscape – Acrylic Painting Tutorial By Julie Shoemaker

About Julie

I am a self taught artist who has been painting and interested in art all my life. My favorite medium is acrylic due to its versatility. One of my favorite things to do is teach painting to other people. I currently teach classes and we couldn’t have more fun if we tried. It’s just so gratifying to see the excitement on student’s faces when they see what they can accomplish with a little instruction and effort. When your ready to forget the theory and produce the art, visit http://www.IamPainting.org. Learn Painting Techniques and create your own remarkable portraits or landscapes.

Tuscan Landscape – Acrylic Painting Tutorial By Julie Shoemaker

Use whichever brush you feel comfortable with. I usually use a flat bristle brush for most of my work. And remember there is no right or wrong way to paint! If your painting doesn’t turn out like mine – then congratulations! You created a unique one of a kind painting.

Sky – First wet the sky area or top half of canvas with white gesso.

Then with a little yellow and a touch of orange added to the same brush, start at bottom of the sky area and work your way up. Use long horizontal strokes. Take the strokes right off the canvas while blending the yellows and orange into the white gesso as you work upward. Gently blend right up towards the top of canvas. Wipe the brush off with a paper towel.

Now add a touch of ultramarine blue and purple to the brush and start at the top of the canvas and work your way downward in the same fashion as you did the yellows.

The bottom part of the painting is under painted with any earth tone colors. Nothing fancy here!

Use sky colors (a mixture of white blue and purple) and paint in furthest hills – mountains. Notice how these hills show very little detail and are very soft looking.

Darken the mountain (sky) color and paint in next layer of hills. You want to make sure that you let some of the previous mountains show. Keep the tops interesting with some variations.

Add some earth tone to the very distant hills. You can use browns, tan, etc. Keep it dull though. Just add white to dull paint color. These are in the center of painting.

Add some hunter green and start dabbing or scrubbing in the bushes. This should be a dull green.

Landscapes typically get darker and more vivid as you work forward.

Lay in the foreground hills. (you will do the one the left first) Make this one lighter to look like sunlight is hitting it.

To do this start on the left of the painting and pull the paint brush into the center of the painting. Notice the slope of this hill. If you want you could add some rows of green for a field of crops look. (see next picture)

Now darken the mixture and add the hill on the right. Darken it with browns or tans. Too much green will make your picture look unnatural. This hill will be painted the same way but starting on the right side of the painting pulling the paint into the painting and overlapping the previous hill. Continue painting until the entire canvas is covered.

Don’t over blend! Let variations of color show.

Now start adding the tall trees.
If you are using a flat bristle brush, hold it on the side and dab on the paint in the shape of the tree.

In the background they will be duller – or lighter. The ones in the foreground are hunter green. Add purple to the paint to darken the side that will be in shadow.

Add some tree shadows to the ground.

Add one more foreground hill in the very front. The more layers – the more depth your painting will have

Add touches of reds or oranges for flowers, and some tiny shadows if you want to. Highlight the trees. (use yellow or light green and dab in brightness on the sun side of the trees)

You could easily be finished with your painting now, and let the dramatic tall tree shadows be the focus.

Or…Add some houses. Just draw in simple house shapes paint in the shapes with “dirty white “ and red for roofs. For shadows on the house, darken the roof color under the eaves. Dry brush in some white for highlights on the roof. Add a touch of orange for lights in the houses.

Add birds – Birds are just little v’s – Practice first and keep then dainty! and sign your painting….

Acrylic Painting Demonstration by Faith Puleston

About Faith

I was born and raised in Wales UK and studied at the Royal Academy of Music, London. I came to Germany to pursue an operatic career as a mezzo soprano and sang over 100 opera roles, including title roles such as Carmen, Joan of Arc and Oktavian in Der Rosenkavalier. Other professional occupations have include voice teacher, chorus director, language teacher and writer.

I have been writing stories plays and poetry, making music and painting for as long as I can remember. Most of my early poetry has been lost. Serious dedication to painting followed from the year 2000 to fill in the spiritual vacuum left from no longer working in the theatre. The empty canvas is like a stage. It’s up to the performer to give it life and light!

Paintings can be seen on my website at http://www.faithpuleston.net as well as numerous other online venues such as my blogs: http://faithart2010.blogspot.com , http://faithpuleston.blogspot.com/ (the main one) and http://fapj.blogspot.com/ (extra for writing).. Enjoy your visits to my online premises, but please remember that all my output is protected by copyright.

“Geometrics” painted in acrylics over collage in August 2009

This is my first attempt at recording how a painting came to life! It wasn’t really difficult, but by next week l might have forgotten! I have lots of paintings which I must have painted in some kind of trance state since do not remember what I did and when! No I wasn’t drugged or drunk! Another omission means that I do not always know exactly when I painted something or how long it took, but mainly because I paint a lot in oils and the drying processes are fairly long. This painting was done in 5 days between 19th and 23rd August. I don’t claim either that this is a guide to abstract painting or that this painting is a work of art! But it was fun and someone might like to read about the “journey”.

After being consigned to recycling and given a good scouring, the canvas (60×80cm) was first painted all over with a thin lemon wash (no photo).

A sheet of tissue paper was painted with the three main colours chosen for the painting: lemon yellow (primary), bordeaux red (secondary) and olive green (tertiary) , then the paper was cut freely into squares and other geometric forms. The pieces of coloured paper were stuck onto the canvas. Since canvas is flexible, you can’t stick too much heavy stuff on it. Cement will eventually crumble! A thin wash of bordeaux and green was added. Sorry I forgot to switch the flash off. It was too late to rephotograph by the time I realized that.

The original three colours were used to bring out some of the design elements.

The shading was modified to provide more contrast and further design elements were added. A light red was used to lighten some of the red areas .

Details were added to various elements.

Black was introduced to give more contrasts, unify the design and unite some of the elements. Some of the elements were tidied up.

Yet another new element was added (can you spot it below?) and adjustments made using all the colours used previously. White was not used in this painting.

Finally, I anchored the floating objects by adding spidery black lines touching the edges. I painted round the edges in very dark Bordeaux and corrected one or two passive areas on the perimeter of the painting. I did not use white in this painting. I think it’s finished now!

After more consideration I made a few more alterations to the painting, mainly smoothing out some of the surfaces. The absolutely final version is shown below! Well, maybe……….

After Monet – Acrylic Painting Demonstration By Brian Rice

“After Monet” is my copy of one of Claude Monet’s famous paintings “ Garden at Sainte Adresse “. It has never been my practice to copy another painter. But , in my progression as a student, in the fine art of painting , I felt that undertaking this course of study, of a master painter, would be beneficial.

This painting has a style that I am after in my own work ; a blend of realism and impressionism. The original painting is 38”x 50” . My version of it is aprox one third of that size, at 14” x18”. It is an acrylic painting done on a canvas covered panel. You can see an image of Monet’s original by clicking onto the link:  Monet original…

The sky is done with color combinations using paynes grey , ultramarine blue, parchment white, and glazes of crimson and blue. The water base color is done with paynes grey, pthalo green, parchment white and yellow ochre.

The patio base color is a combination of parchment white , raw umber and burnt umber . The grasses on the right are done with a light yellow , yellow ochre and ultramarine blue.

The fence is a combination of raw sienna, cad red med, cad yellow deep . The shadows in the fence have a raw umber and raw sienna mixture. At this point I added all those little ships in the background using paynes grey and umber colors. I put the waves in with pthalo green and ultramarine blue. The black on the left was my first attempt at the dark shadows, I used red, blue and yellow to get black, the way Monet would have done. In his later years he abandoned black from his impressionist palette.

Below is a close up of the mid ground sail boat before the final touch ups in the finished painting. At first I wondered why Monet used these dark colored sails . But ,then I guessed that the sails were made from raw canvas and they would tend to darken over time.

One area that I struggled with was the shadow color. The darkest shadow was not a problem . It was the midtone shadows that cast from left to right across the picture plane that I found to be the biggest challenge. In Monets painting the shadows looked almost black . I wanted to get a color that was a little warmer. You will notice that I went from a burnt umber color to a purple at first . I finally got a color I wanted by mixing a little cad red with paynes grey ,raw umber and parchment white.

In the photo above I hadn’t painted in the yellow umbrella. Notice below how that yellow changed the whole look of the young lady. I was also painting the white umbrella at that point. There is more detail in that umbrella then any other object in the painting. I was left wondering why Monet wanted that much focus on the umbrella. Can you guess?

The finished painting.

Click here to learn more about Brian and his work.

Acrylic Painting Demonstration & Tips By Lesly Finn

About Lesly Finn

I am English and emigrated to New Zealand with my husband in 1999, since when I have been able to pursue a long held dream of expressing myself with paint. Ideas for my work come from a variety of sources, including images from the natural world, dreams, emotions and memories. These are portrayed through a mix of colour, texture and contrast that evolve during the act of painting.

I enjoy drawing and pastel work, and paint with acrylic on canvas, often incorporating collage and textured elements. For me one of the many joys of painting is the continuous exploration and development of ideas, and my hope is that the resulting work will give pleasure and invite quiet contemplation.

- Lesly Finn

Visit Lesly’s Site: http://www.leslyfinnsart.com/

Painting With Acrylics Some Tips!

Acrylic paints are not that easy to get used to … at least that’s what I found when I started with them. They dry very quickly so paint often gets wasted, they can ruin your brushes and the ‘covering power’ of different colours varies quite enormously. So I thought that I would post a few general tips for using acrylics …. things that I have read and tried out that worked, and other things that I have found out through trial and error!

I use every sort of brush with my paints, both synthetic and non-synthetic. This is because I don’t have that many brushes that I really like. I have found that the main thing to worry about for your brushes is not to let paint, medium or varnish dry on them. Absolutely fatal … I recently totally wrecked my only 3″ brush by putting it down after varnishing and forgetting all about it. Sadly, repeated soaking and washing was to no avail.

TIP for BRUSHES

Always keep a jar of water to hand to place your brush in when you have finished with it, whether temporarily or completely. The bristles will stay undamaged until such time as you can wash the brush thoroughly in warm water and liquid detergent.

I have tried several different styles of palette with varying degrees of success. The large plastic ones with lots of small paint-wells and 3 or 4 mixing areas are really only any good for very small paintings when working with acrylics. I think that these are best kept for oils or watercolours. Similarly the small round ones with deeper wells, although capable of holding a little more colour, are not suitable when you need to mix many shades or larger amounts of paint.

TIPS for PALETTE USE

White plastic picnic plates and bowls are great for mixing up larger amounts of acrylic paint. Kitchen cling wrap can be used to seal them between sessions to help keep them workable. When finished with I soak them in hot soapy water for a few minutes and all the dried-on paint films can then be washed off really easily. However, it is safest not to let these ‘leftovers’ drain into the ‘grey’ waste-water system for ecological reasons.

I have a large white heavy duty plastic tray similar to those used to display meats in butchery departments. This also makes a great palette but of course the paint is at greater risk of drying up before you have finished your session. I get around this by putting a couple of thicknesses of kitchen paper-towel on the base and then wetting it thoroughly. Next I place a layer of baking paper (silicon coated or greaseproof) on top. The kitchen towel stays wet for quite a while (and you can re-wet as required) keeping the baking paper moist so the paint does not dry out. This ‘damp palette’ can also be sealed in a plastic bag overnight for use the next day.

One of the frustrating things I have found when using acrylics is coverage … by this I mean the ability of the paint mix to cover over what is underneath. While I am often happy for the underlayer to show through there are equally as many times when I don’t want it to!

TIPS for PAINT COVERAGE

Some manufacturers of acrylic paints give information on the tubes as to whether the pigment inside is Opaque, Semi-Opaque or Transparent which is very helpful. Where this information is not available one just has to find out what the pigment is going to do by trial and error.

I have found it useful to build up a collection of Opaque and Transparent versions of the main primary colours that I like to use, e.g. Pyrole Crimson (Opaque), Alizarin Crimson (Transparent), Cobalt Blue (Opaque), Ultramarine (Transparent), etc. So that I can mix an opaque with a transparent to get a more opaque primary or secondary when I need one.

To increase the opacity and covering ability of any pigment I often mix it with a small amount of White or Naples Yellow. And there are some lovely new neutral tones becoming available these days which can be mixed with other colours to make beautifully greyed tones, e.g. Toning Grey Yellowish manufactured by Atelier, and Unbleached Titanium by Matisse.

Sometimes a passage does not turn out how you want it to but, when working on canvas or board, this can often be rectified as long as the area is tackled the same day. And sometimes these remedial efforts result in unplanned and pleasing effects!

TIPS for RECTIFYING MISTAKES

I always keep a clean wet cloth and a roll of paper towel to hand while painting so that I can ‘wipe out’ colours as soon as possible when I feel they are not right, and for lifting runs or splashes. Sometimes it requires a little bit more effort to remove the offending area and for this I scrub gently with a toothbrush and soapy water. But this can only be attempted before the paint has truly set (under 24 hours) and I only try these methods where I am satisfied with the underlying area and want it to remain in situ. Where an area or painting has completely gone to custard I just paint over the whole thing with gesso and start again!

How did I paint that? – A Demonstration Using Acrylics

MATERIALS Canvas size: 100 x 80 cms Palette:Titanium whiteNaples Yellow HueYellow OxideJaune Brilliant Raw Sienna Burnt Sienna Light Red Oxide Pthalo Blue Cobalt Blue Brushes: 1 1/2″, ! “, 5/8 ” Synthetic bristle (medium soft) Mediums: Clear Acrylic Painting Medium, Gloss Acrylic Medium & Varnish
STAGE ONE I began by drawing the subject in brown pastel pencil and then go over the outline drawing with red oxide acrylic [next time I will use less pigment for this as I subsequently found the outlines rather difficult to get rid of]I blocked in shadow shapes on the figures with red oxide and washed in some of the shadows/reflections in the sea and sand. My aim was to establish the tonal values of the painting from the outset.
STAGE TWO I started filling in the background and foreground in fairly large blocks of colour …….. no details yet. At this stage I was experimenting with different mixes and hues. I wanted to get the feeling of a very hot, bright day.I decided early on that I would lower the horizon to increase the sense of distance. Because it is a large canvas I took frequent breaks and looked at the painting in the mirror from about 12 feet away. It would be all too easy to get involved in unnecessary detail …. I kept having to remind myself that I wanted this painting to ‘come together’ only when seen from a distance!Although it would be nice to get the background colours right before moving on to the figures I was not too worried as I knew I could easily change things later.
STAGE THREE I started working on the figures with very light washes.I realised that I was not very happy with the sky and sea at this stage so I went over them again, changing the colour mixes slightly.I put some of the sky colour into the middle and foreground … to give the effect of sky reflections on wet sand.
STAGE FOUR At this point I started to put shadow detail on to the figures in dark red, blue-green and red-brown. I kept the shadow shapes very simplified with little softening or blending of edges – See photo of detail below.I kept the paint thinned down and semi-transparent using painting medium to dilute the pigment.At all stages I kept a watchful eye on progress by checking in the mirror. In this way I was able to determine if the effect was what I wanted when viewed from a distance.
[Photo detail of shadow shapes.]
FINAL STAGE The final stage involved adding more body colour and glazes to various parts of the painting until I felt satisfied with the overall effect. I reach a point where I feel that I can usefully do no more.Enough is enough, already!

All Images and Text Copyright Lesly Finn

Visit Lesly’s Site: http://www.leslyfinnsart.com/

At The Dock – An Acrylic Painting Demonstration by Brian Rice

About Brian Rice:

Brian was born on May 25,1958 and his roots are in the small outport of Pilleys Island, Newfoundland, Canada. At the age of nineteen he moved to central Canada in the Sarnia, Ontario area, where he now works in the Petrochemical industry.

His interest in art began in high school, when an art teacher encouraged him. In 1979 he began to paint realistic images of Newfoundland and northern wildlife, using an acrylic medium. He has many admirers of his work and most of the paintings have been sold; many were commissions. In 1998 he did a painting of an old united church (circa 1945) for his hometown heritage society. Prints were made and sold as a fund raiser.

In 1997 he entered an art contest in Sarnia. This contest was held to select a winner to commemorate the new blue water bridge. The painting got an honourable mention and it was reproduced as a limited edition print.

Brian has no formal training in art. He is self taught and learns most from a careful observation of the order and design of the natural world . He believes that “nature is the artwork of a creator/master artist who displays a wisdom and a genius that we have only begun to understand”. His focus is to create art that will cause the soul to search for a deeper meaning in an increasingly chaotic world.

He started striving for a photo realism style in the 1990’s and achieved it to some degree, but, he found the style did not evoke much emotion and set out on a journey to find a style that was realistic but, with a much looser impressionistic approach.

Eighteen of his paintings were on display at his hometown Petrolia Library during the Summer of 2004.

The Painting “The Newfoundland Cabin” appeared in “Guest Gallery “which is a page in the downhomer magazine; www.Downhome.com is the biggest magazine on the Canadian eastcoast with 26,000 subscribers. This magazine also has a gallery and gift shop in St. John’s, Newfoundland which now carries prints of the painting “seasons of life”

Acrylic Painting Demonstration: “At The Dock”

I got the idea for this painting while on vacation in Newfoundland. The quiet and serenity of this area was what I wanted to capture in the painting. I liked this reference image below as a photo. But, I wanted to do something else in a painting . I thought I would push the islands apart so that the boat would point out the bay towards the opening in the distance. It just seemed right for a better composition.

On my 24″ x 36″ panel I drew out the plan:

I lined the head of the boat up so that it would point directly at that dot in the background. I guessed that this would become the secondary focus in the painting, after the boat, if I had enough elements pushing the eye outward towards to that area.

The hint of the dock would provide a link from the boat to land and serve as a directional line toward the boat.

I blocked in the main colors:

I wanted to keep the overcast sky. It seemed to suit the painting.

I wanted to show the ocean bottom near the dock . Calm, shallow water would serve as a great enterance to the painting and add to the over all appeal of the view . I had never attempted this transparent water look before. I started by putting in the main colors of the bottom .Then I painted rough forms that looked like rocks .

I used Thalo blue , Ultramarine blue, Paynes grey, a tad of Napthol red, and White mostly in the water and sky in the distance. I have a glaze or two of burnt sienna and yellow ochre in there too. In the foreground there are those colors plus burnt sienna, raw sienna, yellow ochre . There may be a little burnt umber in the mix too.

My next move was to paint in the distant hills and island. . It took a lot of glazes and a few attempts to get the water and sky the way I wanted it. I wanted that opening in the distance to be in the direction that the head of the boat would be pointing towards. The pushing apart of the islands and moving the distant opening to line up with the boat seemed to also open up the view for the eye to go out the bay to the farthest inlet. This helped give the painting a feeling of space. The feel of wide open space is a wonderful sense you get in Newfoundland. It is a land that is 98 % unpopulated.

I worked on the glazing some more and defined the rocks better. I used glazes of thalo blue , then glazes of burnt sienna, then a glaze of yellow ochre. I repeated this several times with very little paint pigment in the glazes. I kept the area where the boat would be, open, mostly to keep in mind its placement area.

Excuse the blurred photo but the next photo just shows where I sketched a fairly accurate outline of the boat. You have to be very careful at this point. If the drawing is not right on, you could ruin many hours of work . If a line is off by an eighth of an inch it will be noticeable .

When I was sure the outline was right I blocked in the boat base colors. I wasn’t overly concerned where the green and red was inside the outline as long as I didn’t mess up the outer lines. The green is a mixture of Chromium oxide green and thalo blue. The red is Cad med toned down a bit with thalo blue.

I now worked on the rocks at the bottom more . I added a lot more little rocks and added a few more glazes over that.

At this point I knew the boat didn’t look like it was sitting right in the water . It could have been an optical illusion because the red and green inside the boat were not where they should be yet. I re-measured my outline and realized it was the bottom line at the back of the boat that was throwing it off. It may sound like I was being too particular. But, to someone who is accustomed to boats and how they sit in the water these things are very noticeable. It was something that was fixable . I also did some more redefining of the rocks at the bottom.

I worked on that boat again. The colors look a little raw at this stage and the boat interior needed more work. I re-worked that shadow; its more of a shadow then a reflection .The sky is overcast so I have to get that fine balance in the details , definition without strong shadows. Easier said then done . Most of the time its easier to have strong light and shadows. I thought I was finished with the water under the boat. The only areas that needed work outside the boat was the island on the left and the indication of a dock on the right side.

Next, I put a little more detail into the boat. I changed the rear look of the boat three times . I decided in the end that I was going to make this a simple row boat and not include that 4.5 hp gasoline driven outboard motor. The painting would appeal to me more without that noise making machine. It just don’t fit into my ideal world. The other advantage in not including a gas engine was the fact that one could think of its time period as being anywhere from 1940’s to today. If I didn’t use the bright red and green it could have been dated from 1900 – today. These little wooden boats had the same basic style for a century.

These photos aren’t the best quality because they were taken with just the light in the room without a flash. When the painting was done I got a better photo using daylight.

I then worked on the island on the left. Its showing low tide and the kelp is visible at the low water level. This kelp in Newfoundland is a distinct orange /ochre/ greenish color depending on the lighting of the day.

There as been a shift in my painting technique over the past year or so. I discovered the power of glazing and the excellent properties of Goldens acrylic glazing liquid.

I do paint the odd painting with the more opaque method.

But,this one will have been done with more layers of glaze then I have ever used before. I have about 20-25 layers in the water. At first I use to try and put glazes on with just glazing liquid and had some difficulty with application . But now I dip my brush in water more and dilute the glaze liquid . This seems to work much better and I don’t get a thick sticky layer that is hard to apply.

The secret to successful glazing seems to be in the application of very thin coats,with very little paint pigment in it , and then letting each coat dry before applying another. It is amazing how layer after layer of thin color can produce what opaque paint could never do.

I am starting to use glazes more and more as I continue learning about painting.

The finished painting

Detail of finished painting.

I hope you enjoyed the demo. You can contact me at brrice2003@yahoo.ca . Your comments would be greatly appreciated because feedback lets me know if these demos actually help others in their painting.