Transcripts
1. How to Paint an Underpainting: introduction: Hi. I'm Britney. Susie, welcome to my studio in this class we're going to be talking about under paintings. What is an under painting? Why would you use it? What kind of beauty and aesthetic would give one of your paintings? Um, I'm excited to talk about this. When I first learned about it, it, like, opened my eyes and made me super excited. And I hope you guys feel the same and are excited to try it. We are going to be using acrylic paint for under. Paintings were going to be painting on a small canvas, something manageable For your first time. You can paint on whatever you want, but as students would I? What your assignment is is to paint an under painting, and I'm gonna show you how to do that and then do a finished paintings. But take pictures along the way so that the rest of us can see your progress and see what you're under painting. As to your painting. Um, when you're doing your finished painting, you can use either oil or acrylic, so over the top, it's your choice. Whatever you you have on hand and what you enjoy work
2. How to Paint an Underpainting: supplies: these were the supplies will be using just whatever you have on hand. I have some acrylic paint, paintbrushes, some water. If you want a pencil, you can have a pencil. Um, you can print out a color chart, or you can just Google color chart or if you have it in your brain and your that awesome, that's fine, too. But one of the techniques we will be using requires some thinking about complementary colors. Okay, any other supplies you will need, you'll need a canvas. And like I said, it can be small so that you can you know to your project quickly. Um, it can be big if you want to go back. That's fine. Um, I'm gonna also be using my oil paints. And if that's something that you already know how to do, then you could ignore this next little part. But if that's something that you wanna learn, this isn't a class about how oil paint. I'm still a beginner a little bit myself, but the supplies you would need to get started for oil paints are the paints themselves. Um, sometimes you need a little harder, your paint precious. Then you might be using for acrylics. You need some kind of paint thinner, turpentine and a container like this kind of thing. Wash your brushes. That's all the supplies you need. If you one oil paint on the top layer, then you need all the supplies for the oil paints. But you don't have to. You can do both layers in acrylic, and it works justice.
3. How to Paint an Underpainting: underpainting: Okay, So here's the reason I want you to print up this or have it in your mind Color chart. The color wheel. Um, because what you're gonna do is have your idea for your painting, and you're gonna paint exactly the opposite. So if you, for instance, are going to paint the ocean in blue, then for your under painting you're gonna paint the ocean in orange, but the same value. So if it's really dark blue, then will be dark orange that you're gonna paint If it's really light blue and just really past still, then you're gonna do a really pastel kind of orange. And if you're gonna do a big green field, then I want you to paint a Big Redfield on when you get done with your under painting. It's like, so wrong feeling you. It just feels like you've done something crazy and like, maybe the world might end but have no fear, cause that's how supposed to feel, because once you paint the right colors on top of it, it ends up with this beautiful depth. It's the same concept is pointillism. I don't know if you know much about pointillism, but it's the idea of painting with all the little tiny dots. You know, like that scene in Ferris Bueller's Day Off, where Cameron's like looking at the at that painting on then it seems, and other things it was in. And the face is just all the little dots. Well, whole idea is to have the dots, but have the complementary color inside of all those dots, and they thought that it would make it brighter and stand out more. And and it's really cool. I love painting like bet. And, um, it really does at interest and depth. And, um, it's hard to put into words. You're gonna have to trust me. So So this is your assignment. I want you to take your canvas and paint the under painting by using all the complementary colors. Map it out. I'm gonna show you on mine. And I'm just gonna do really quick, really rough it. Snow gonna show the under painting. So I don't want you to do like this perfect painting. You don't have to go that far. It's just kind of the colors that may or may not show through. Sometimes I'll do a painting and you really can't tell, but there's an under painting. Let me see. Um, I have this one right here. So this one I did under painting on with the opposite colors underneath. You cannot tell that there's an under painting anymore. It's completely covered. It was really warm under painting, and it doesn't matter because you can't see it. Don't get caught up in whether you're under painting looks. It's OK. You'll see once I do mine, and then I'll show you how to go on top of that. So I have my campus ready. This is the image that I'm going to be working from. I just chose a little campus, and I think that's a good size for for this project, because I don't want to go to big. I want to keep it doable. I'm gonna get my palate ready. A lot of times I use paper plates as my palate. It makes it super easy and pretty cheap. I'm using a lizard in crimson yellow oxide, cobalt blue sap, green white. I'll probably throw in some Payne's gray, and I might throw in a couple other colors. We'll see how it goes. I want my sky in the end painting my finished painting to be a nice pastel light, soft blue. I wanted to be gentle. So my under painting is going to be the complementary color, which will be the soft, gentle orange. And the greens are going to be a little brighter. So I'm adding red in the same value and tone that that is exactly the complementary color. So if I wanted to be really dark green than I'm going to do a dark red If I want a really light blue, then I will do a really light orange I'm so for and you can see here that I'm just quickly mapping it out. Okay, so I did my under painting and you know what it looks like now? It is a marsh. It's a scene of a marsh and I live in on the sea coast of New Hampshire and it's ah Marsh from Ipswich, Mass. On it was the sun was going down such a beautiful day. But that under painting, you can't quite tell because it's weird looking right. But so what I'm gonna do now, um is paint the right colors on the top of it. So I painted the under painting with acrylics and acrylics dry so fast. So now I really love using oils. I'm still pretty new at it. I feel like I am still a beginner in oils. I used to always paint with acrylics, but I am really enjoying it. So I'm going to paint in the oils and you'll see I want you to pay attention. Teoh the quality off color because underneath and the depth that naturally happens without me having to work out. It is hard because I have gone through and done that quick under painting. All right, so here we go.
4. How to Paint an Underpainting: painting part 1: Okay, here I have my under painting and it's dry and it's really rough. It's just mapped out of what I want my landscape to be. At the end, I'm gonna work in oils and I have a piece of glass here that I'm going to use as my palate . So I'm just going Teoh, put all of these on my palette and start going from there. The colors that I'm putting on my palette here will be listed on the supply list. If you are interested in knowing the exact colors that I used, I'm just mixing up my paves and trying to get a really nice light blue for the sky. The complementary color of blue is orange, so I've painted my under painting with the light orange. I'm trying to figure out trying to mix with my oil paints the right color blue. I just want to point out that I use my turpentine almost like I would with water and acrylics if I want to send it out. Um, I'll just dip my brush into the turpentine a little bit, Otherwise I can use my medium that is is like linseed oil or some other kind of medium on that lends it out and makes it more translucent on. Really, I've decided to paint the edges of my canvas with this painting. This is not necessary. It's just a preference. Sometimes I go through different phases, and sometimes I love it. And sometimes it drives me crazy that paint the edges. But I think it's a nice touch. - I'm purposefully using more medium here so that I will send my oil paint out enough that you can see a little bit through the grain to the under painting. Because in my experience, I like to have that glow showing through. Sometimes I like to come and with a dry brush on, do some blending. It helps take off some of the paint and blend it nicely. Here I am, starting with my greens. I'm using sap green and olive green and some yellow cad yellow. You can see how it starts mixing with the blue very beautifully. That's one of the things I love about using oils that you could blends nicely with the other colors and kind of utilize the colors that are already there. - You can see that I intended to do a little lighter green where the red is not so great. I may change my mind in a little while. I have that violet there because I'm intending to add more yellow because the brightness of the sunshine is going to be going through there. And I thought that would be a nice, um, thing to show through if anything did show through through on and painting.
5. How to Paint an Underpainting: painting part 2: - you can use different rushes for different textures. This is a cheap kind of bristly hard brush, and I'm about to do Cem some grass up front. So I think I want that texture. Where is in the background? I wanted a softer feel, so I was using a softer brush that has a more gentle touch on on the canvas. So you wanna keep this kind of thing in mind when you're painting that depending on the brush you use, it will have an effect on what your paint goes on your canvas and looks like how it how it goes on the campus and in turn what it looks like. Can you see what I'm talking about here? Let me civic to see the difference between how it went onto the campus and how it looks - because the outer layer is wet and under, painting is dry. You can take a tool like a palette knife and scratch off the wet paint, and underneath you will be left with the color of your under PT and off my under painting completely covered on. I'm just going through and kind of fixing things that are bothering me and working on details
6. How to Paint an Underpainting: painting part 3: Sometimes I like to come in with a clean, dry brush. I'm soften the edges of some of the paint. It's a nice thing to do with oil paints. I enjoy that. Look, - here I am coming back in with a clean, dry brush to soften some of those hard lines again. I'm gonna call it done for the purpose of this class. And, um, I want to show you how it's kind of fun, sometimes a different way of signing. You're painting. I know I'm not definitely not the first person to do this, but I enjoy doing this when my paint is still wet. Sometimes that it doesn't work because my under painting my I have too many layers that have dried too long. But when you have an under painting that is, draw in a over painting that is still what you can scratch out your signature and it comes out the color of the under painting like it's a nice touch. I'm gonna do that here. I'm just going to use my palate night. Okay, now I'm going to show you some of the things close ups you can see. Here's the signature. How it looks scratched out with the under painting showing through. If I pan slowly over the painting, you can see that the under painting is showing through just slightly, not noticeably, but it just gives it a glow and a warmth that wouldn't be there otherwise. Underneath this really light blue waas, a yellow and underneath, this kind of like green was a purple under the sky. It was like a orangy yellow. You could see it showing through here. I think it gives painting a quality that nothing else can. Maybe if you do a lot of layers with your oil pains and, um, mediums and things, maybe you could get a similar look. But I really think it's an easy way toe. Add some interest in depth to your to your paintings. Thanks for attending this class about under paintings. I hope you enjoyed it. Here are some of the pictures of the progression from under painting to finish painting, so I hope you try an under painting. And when you do take pictures, even if you think it looks ugly and then share the process with us here, Thanks for sharing this time with me. I'll see you next time. Friends
Brittany Soucy, artist
