Acrylic Paint Practice: Propel Forward By Stepping Outside Your Comfort Zone

1. Introduction: Hey there, my name is Christina Moir and I bet you're wondering if this class is for you. Well, let me give you a little intro to help you decide whether it is because I know how it is trying to find the right class and the right teacher and you know what, I might not be it, but I hope I am and I hope I can help you improve your art skills so you can have more competence. This class is going to help build your confidence by kinda pushing it in the ground a little bit, by going outside your comfort zone. If you're an acrylic painter and you're kind of an intermediate. You're ready to push outside of what you'd normally even doing, or you're just feeling maybe stuck somewhere and you want to branch out a bit. This is the class for you. By example, i2. I'm going to step out of my comfort zone by using tools that I rarely have used, and also by using subject matter that is not my forte. And I'm going to combine those two things with a medium that I love, acrylic paint. And we're going to find new problems and new solutions. And it's gonna be a lot of fun. And hopefully we'll create a piece that we really love. But you know what, in the learning process, sometimes we make things that we don't love and that's okay too. But this class is going to push you outside of that comfort zone. That's where you learn the fastest and that's I think where you're going to learn to propel yourself forward. So if you're ready, let's get started. 2. The Project: Okay, Let's talk about the project. So in today's class, we're going to take a photo of a genre that we're not familiar with, but in picture that's still engaging. So let's say you're normally a landscape artist. For me, I've painted a lot of landscapes, I paint a lot of animals and I really feel pretty comfortable there. Portraits would be a little bit outside of my comfort zone for sure I have done some portraits, but I do, I don't feel as confident in them. So take a subject matter that's maybe you're least competent with. So I found a photo that I thought that would be hard. I really liked the photo and I can see how it'd be fun to do. Take something like that so you can keep that interest. And then we're going to take a tool that we're not familiar with. So if you normally use a palette knife to paint, I want you to grab a brush instead or grab some brushes. If you're the opposite. If you're like me and I usually like, always, use brushes to paint, you're going to grab some other tools. So use what you can find. I have a plastic fork. You can use a plastic fork, you can use a craft, a squeegee. This is actually really fun to use. I've used a couple of times before this project, but definitely not comfortable with it. And this palette knife and another polynomial. So I have a couple different tools that you can use. I have a list of materials and things that you need to make this project happen. So take a look at that list, you can print it off, take it with you to the store if you really want to follow to the t exactly along, if that's your preference, if that's where you're at, That's cool. No worries. But if you're ready to branch off and you're like, You know what, I've done a lot of cityscapes. I'm ready to try something totally different. Go for it. Just make sure it's not where you're comfortable. That's the key thing. If you're feeling comfortable with the piece, I think you need to pick something different. 3. Materials: Okay, Are you ready to push yourself out of your comfort zone and really explore something new? That's what today is all about. We're going to try something different. So if your comfort level is brushes. Brushes today, bye, bye. Hello. Less familiar tools. Hey, there's some brushes that snuck in there. What are they trying to get into there? I've got everything from a craft squeegee, like a three-inch craft squeegee. I've got plastic forks, plastic knives. You can even get a plastic spoon. I've got palette knives. Note some of you might be familiar with palette knives. I never use them. So this is all out of my comfort zone. I'm going out of my comfort zone. I invite you to do the same. Because what it's going to do is not only am I going out of comfort zone with the tools I'm using, but I'm also going out of my comfort zone with the subject matter. So these are ways to help push your style, push your skills, and learn something new. Because if we just stay in the same place, It's not very exciting either and we want to really push our mind or creativity. So this is an eight by eight board, wooden board. You don't have to buy the same thing. You could be using a different size, you could be using a different shape. I will include the square image that I'll be using if you want to follow along exactly. But I do encourage you to take it to your own place. Like if you normally paint streets and buildings, then this won't be out of your comfort zone. So choose a picture that is out of your comfort zone. This is an intermediate class. If you're a beginner and you want to try it, go for it. Maybe follow along with what I'm doing. Maybe that will be a little bit easier for you. But if you're an intermediate or maybe advanced, I encourage you to do subject matter. You never do something totally different. So for me, I'm doing something really out of my comfort zone. And that is not only buildings which I don't feel very comfortable with, but also cars, streets, I never paint that. So that is really out of my comfort zone. Plus we're gonna be using tools that are out of my comfort zone as well. And that's really going to push my skills. It's going to push my creativity to figure out the problems. Because when you're painting, you're figuring out problems. You're creating solutions and finding what works. So that's where we're going to do. I'm working on a square image. Just makes sure that if your image is not a square, that you edit it to create a square and also make sure if you're planning to sell it in the future, that it's an image that you're allowed to use commercially. So I like to use pixels for that. Like I said, the tools that we'll be using, I want you to find tools that you never use to paint with. I've only painted with these once or twice. I'm not really comfortable with these tools. Palette knives, something different. Maybe if you're a palette knife artists, you're going to try a brush or maybe if you don't want to push yourself too hard, you're still new to painting. Use brushes but try a different brush or maybe at one point try the palette knife. So that might be a way to make it a bit easier. If you're a beginner intermediate, you want to still follow along and try this out. So get your image, have it nearby so you can reference to it frequently. I'm always looking at my reference image. I have that nearby. I'm constantly looking at it, finding where I'm making decisions of where I'm placing my piece. It's not just memorized in my brain. If you can do that, great works for you. I also have a couple of jars of water. The water is not very deep because my brushes I'm not using brushes. So there you go. I guess that doesn't matter, but we don't want to be washing in-between colors. Also have a rag or something. These are nice. They're kind of like in-between a rag and a paper towel. And I'm not sure where I got them, but they work really nicely. You're wanting to paint palette, painting clothes if you're getting messy. I also like to have a little dropper with water. This isn't necessary, but I like to have it. I'm acrylic paint is what I'll be using and demonstrating with acrylic paint dries quickly. So if I've mixed a color and I need to order, I just need to add a bit of water to my paint mixture instead of dipping my brush into water into the jar, and then that dirty Is the jar and contaminates it. I could just take this dropper and drop some one or two drops. Usually you just one drop is enough depending on the size. Look weird. You got to draw on the board. Perfect. So I like to work from backwards, forwards, and sometimes lighter, darker or darker or lighter depending on the image. I'm gonna be working from this image if you want to follow along, I do need to find edit it first to make sure that, oh, there it is, square now, I had already done that previously. So you just edit. Make sure it's square and then have it nearby so that you can work it. So in here we have this lighter section. I think that's where I want to start, get that in place and then start building around there. Maybe structurally. If you think about someone like building a house, there are going to create the foundation, then they're going to build the, um, I don't build houses, you guys, I don't all the terminology, but they're going to frame it before they put in the Electrical and all those things, right? So don't fixate on details at this point. And also just be free. Like let yourself tell yourself just right now, hey, you know what? I'm going to have fun and I'm not going to freak out. I'm just going to have fun with this and give it my best shot and try to create solutions if something's bothering you in the image, either you need to trust in that moment that it's gonna get better, just keep going. Or you need to reevaluate, maybe make some changes. Because I'm using a paint palette, things might go on thicker than what I would normally do with a brush. I paint quite thin with a brush. Then let's say I put a blob on and I don't really like it. I'm going to probably scrape that paint off so I don't create texture in a place. I don't want texture. Okay. I think we have all we need. We do need paint as well. So as we go along, I will show you what paint we need, and I will have a list of materials I'll be using as well. I think we have everything we need to get started. So let's get this going. In my image. I'm seeing some cream tones in this section I want to start with, so I'm going to grab some white. I'm going to grab some yellow tones in there too. So raw sienna might be sufficient. But if I want to amp up the yellow and maybe make it a little more bold, I can throw in some yellow ocher. I'm also going to want some darker tones in there that I can throw in. So I'm going to put in some raw umber on my palette and I'm just going to start there. You know what, I see a little bit of blues in there too. So I might just grab one of my blues, Prussian blue, something around there. Let's just have those on hand ready to go, just to have some blues. I've got ultramarine blue, I've got cobalt blue. I might end up using these throughout. So just have some of your blues out there. You don't have to have the exact colors I use. And if you're using a different image, obviously, you might have a totally different color scheme. But if you're following along with this particular image, this is what I'm starting with, and then we'll figure out the blues as we go. But let's get this base going. 4. Squeegee, start us off!: This part I'm probably speeding up a bit. Get my colors. I actually don't put mine in the same spot. Each time. I kinda like to have a pilot that's all over the place. Just a little bit. Remember our palatal, this section is only this big. Sometimes they go a little bit crazy with how much color I'm using and all that. So I'm going to let myself not go too crazy for details right now. And I want to leave it loose. Want to leave it loose. And this is gonna be, it's not gonna be easy for me. This is not my typical way of doing things. So really push yourself, use a squeegee that is really unusual type of thing to use. And also because I haven't just sold this, there will be soaking in. So I might have to do more larynx or it might just be kinda fun to see what happens with not using adjust. So if you really want the colors to come forward, just so this first and then do your layers. But let's just go ahead. I'm gonna take my squeegee and get some different colors on it a little bit. Mostly want white, you can even mix it right here. And then I'm just going to kind of map out, this is kinda going to help me map out the beginning of my painting. So I'm just going to drag the paint onto the canvas. I just had a cool idea. Sometimes when you're actually doing the work, you have ideas and whether you want to go for it or not, that's totally up to you, but I'm actually right now it's going opposite. This would be kind of cool. I wonder if I make it look more like a landscape than a cityscape, just because that's my style. So you will encounter various moments in this process. I need more white already. Where you're going to need. You're going to make decisions whether you stick with your plan in the beginning. Okay, come on paint. I need to grab a new white. Want to make sure I get oh, yeah, there we go. There's the white. Okay. You're gonna make decisions along the way. This is your work, so you decide, but I do think that what makes things work is when you make a decision and you stick to it so you make your own rules and then you stick to it. If you keep just flip flopping all over the place, It's not going to function as well. Let's see if we use a palette knife. What kind of we're just we're testing the waters here. I'm trying to kind of I know that these are buildings here, so I want to make it the correct angle. I'm not too worried about detailing right now. I'm just thinking, okay. The tone, like the hue. Hue, tone and printing of good base because I could add some detail after. So I'm just figuring out my tools. It's part of the fun. As we come down here gets a bit darker. So I'm going to throw in some down here. And maybe it's just gonna be really abstract and maybe we do something abstract and just shocking. Don't really usually do anything abstract. Very kind of a rare thing for me. Tend to like to paint with more precision. When moving. I wouldn't say precision, but just more realistic work. So now I kinda like this idea of trying to get these building lines. That's the one thing. I mean, I guess in nature you do see strong lines, but I just feel like the lines in cityscapes, there's a big difference to them, right? So there's all these windows and the architecture has all these neat things. This is a wild, you guys, this is wild. This is so out of my comfort zone. But, um, there's, there's things I'm learning right now. I'm learning how this tool is working, what, what's really important in an image? What's important to me in an image? What are my what needs to be there and maybe what I'm adding there that doesn't need to be there at times. So I'm just going with the colors here. I'm adding in this raw sienna because it's gonna get darker or this way as we move. Towards the session, I'm actually loving this squeegee. That's kinda cool. You know, our paintbrush won't make those kinds of lines, right? I do need to blend this more and watch my angles a little bit more. Oh, look how that pulled the paint to. Want to pull it in that direction a little bit, maybe it gets more white. Pull me in the right direction. I mean, it's, it's neat. It's neat to see what comes of certain actions that we take and where our mind is going to create this outcome. So I really find that it's quite an interesting exercise. So here I see more flat building. So I'm just going to kind of establish this top section. And then I have no idea you guys, when I get to the cars, I never do cars. I don't know if I've ever done a car in a piece. So that will be interesting for sure. But that's part of the growth that you want. If you want to grow as an artist, experimenting different styles and methods and pushing yourself out of the comfort zone, it's really going to teach you something quicker than staying in your zone. Now, of course, if you want to be a portrait artist, that kind of thing, you're going to have to practice a lot of portraits, but need this out of my way. I don't seem to be needing my water much. So I'm gonna see if I can get the right angle. It's kinda neat to just drag paint instead of, I guess a brush drags paint too. It definitely has a different feel, a different a different mentality going on right now. I don't feel the need to add in the blue at this time. You certainly can take a look at your own image or see how maybe for you it would work. I might soon need something a bit darker just to match the depth of the tonalities in this painting. I'm, I'm kinda gearing towards this one here. This is a Prussian blue phthalo. Now, you don't have to use this exact blue. Like I said, if you're following along, it almost has it has that deep almost teal like quite but almost a teal like feel to it or something about it that makes me think of that. So I'm going to throw in that was lovely. And I want to make sure that my angles are correct. So I think I'm not going on a strong enough angle for this image up a bit higher. So mix that in with the brown. And if it's not dark enough, we can grab some other colors to mix width, but just depends how much of the blue you want, kinda visible, throwing more brown. And I'm quite happy to see some of these things that are slightly unintentional that happen. Okay, so if I want to make certain things happen, I need to plan it. So there's a little bit of lighter tones of this blue popping through. So I'm gonna kinda grab hold of this and I kinda like how some of this is showing underneath. This would if you're working with wood or you haven't yet and you're thinking of it, it might be worth trying. Okay, that was a little too much. So Kate will go in with some more blue and brown and the blue a little bit less green. Like if I just take a bit of the brown that will help to dull down that blue if we don't want it to be too bright, I want the cars to really stand out. Because when I look at this image, I see these cars really stand out. But you see this angle right here. You can see that I've taken at like this, even though you can see it's like this. So if I want to match it, I need to do something about that. That's better actually. And then maybe some of the blue in these apartments or whatever's going on up here. I don't want it to be that white, blue mix. I think I might need some more brown hitting the bottom of the barrel. Let's get some more brown on their raw umber is what I'm using. But again, I just like to take a little bit out at a time, An up to mix. And depending on the size of the piece I'm working on, but you don't want to waste. I'm assuming you don't. These water jars are actually just in my way. Normally I'm going write in for the water a lot. But what I'm gonna do here is I'm going to bring this in. And I know it's reddish brick kind of thing going on here. So what I'm gonna do is see how that's given me a nice red tone. I'm going to go in with some raw sienna. I know it's not the same tone is what I have in my image, but you don't have to follow my image exactly. These are moments so you can choose. Or if I want to make it a little more red, grab a red. Make it a little more red. So I think I took the red too far. So what I wanna do is maybe draw a line all look, that's really cool how it pulls off the paint and maybe bring some over here. There's a bit of action happening over here. There's people walking. It's gonna be kind of. 5. Completing the base layer: So I'm just taking that Prussian blue and putting it on the street now. And I'm going to want to mix it with some white looks like I'm just going to kind of yeah, I'm going to want to mix with some white to lighten it up. Why, Please? And I don't want it to be too bold, so I can take a bit of brown in there too. I want it in. This is maybe where I need to wipe off a bit. So what I'm gonna do actually, so I've got too much product, product, got too much paint, which is the product I guess on this little thing. Maybe just wipe off my squeegee a bit. There we go. Then I can go in here and get right because it doesn't blend the same as a brush. This is giving me some cool vibes. I'm kind of digging the vibes. It's given me here. So you have cars in the way of the area where everything disappears now I do want the buildings I think, to come down to about here. So from there, we'll have angle of street starting this way. It's over this way as well. It looks like it's raining or something. It's kinda cool. It's kinda cool. Getting more blue does look like it's lifting of it. So if a paint hasn't set, it will it can lift. And that's the same as a brush. I'm working with a brush. So I should know better. No excuses there. And I do need to make this building area stronger. So I think there are some people there too, so couldn't make it a bit messy. Looking. I mean, just not worry too much about making it look like a structure. But I think I'm going to try and get that bit of a stronger line. Mostly just using this as like swiping. And then we just move the paint, add more paint as needed, blend in a new tone as needed. So if your intermediate, you've tried some of this before, but maybe not with this tool or maybe not the subject matter. Maybe you're pushing your boundaries a bit and I hope you are because that's the whole point of this lesson is to get outside that comfort zone and find out maybe you have a passion for using a squeegee. Maybe you have a passion for using a palette knife. You didn't know you had before and now you do. Maybe it will help your brush technique. Maybe when you're trying to create a new look, you'll know how to go about doing that. It's all kinds of things happening. I guess that's where my street line is going to end. So I'm just gonna kinda of people, there's buildings that have their little canopies and things. So I wonder if Bork would be better. I'm just trying to using instead of the whole edge because it's quite a long one. Just the short end. To create these marks that show us where that is. So interesting to see how using a different tool can really change a style of a piece. You take your piece and really do something different. There's a sidewalk. It kinda comes there. And we just take a little bit of brown on the tip and just scrape it in a bit. I want to add in more detailing up in this section here, if you'll look at supposed to come out more. Haven't been true to that. I wanted to kind of match these two sides, showing that they're at the same level in depth. And just the way the lighting is, I really want that light to really pop in the back. Give us some interesting features. Now I'm looking at the angle on my image holding it. This is the angle marking like that and then bringing it to my image and using that as my guide. It's kinda like creating your own ruler to measure something. I do those go up. You can use your own measurement. Create your own little measuring tool. Right? Pulling some whites, pull in some darker tones. See what happens. We need some more like window like things up in here. And I just don't want to mess too much with it either. So I'm just going to make a few marks. I think it's kinda darker down here. It's, the light really pops up here. That's where I really want my light. So look at your tonal values. Throughout your image. See where, where the lightest part is. What, what do you think emphasizes what is emphasized in your image? We can brighten up that white area back there. So it's coming along. It's coming along. It's good to take a little break once and awhile. Once you've finished certain areas to you don't want to go necessarily too far unless you're in some kind of speed painting contest. Which case, Pink quickly. If you're not, you're just painting leisure. Without any time constraints. Then to take breaks, to re-evaluate, to evaluate where you're going with your piece, to make sure that it's in the correct direction, that you're enjoying it. And let's just take a quick lift that because you're on a bit of an angle. So there we go. It's pretty, pretty cool so far. It's kind of neat. Working with the squishy. It's totally different. I'm feeling a little uncomfortable. This point in your piece, you should feel a little uncomfortable, but there should be parts that you're starting to feel that you're starting to like, okay, this is working or find areas. And let's let things kind of sit a little bit. And then when we come back with fresh eyes to take a look at it and see where we want to touch up and figure out like I'm already seeing some things, but if you want to take a quick break, you're just watching at a time you don't have to. You can, you can pause at any moment. That's the beauty of it. Pause at any moment. Mix some with white. You can make some color on your palate to with these tools. A bit of a grayish tone here. In this building. The one next to the orange is kinda agree. I don't know if I want to indicate the windows are not. These are questions you ask yourself while you're painting. Kind of questions. Do you ask yourself? Do I start putting people in it? Figure out what moments, right for doing those types of actions. Just gonna kinda indicate these, indicate where the people are, just using the corner to give a little more, a little more control. And then you can use a tool to scrape to create some detail. That's cool. Showing here and I don't know why. Okay, cool. I'm going to brighten up this section now, so I'm gonna kinda clean off my squeegee and then brighten that up. 6. Background - second layer: Hey, I've cleaned it off a bit. There's still some stuff going on there, but it's further up, so I think it'll be okay. And then I'm just going to grab some of this white. Really brighten this up here. Maybe try and get a semblance of some semblance of building tops. So strong edge, maybe there. Strong agile on here. Okay. And then throughout their own little bit of a more of an angle than I've indicated still up here. Okay. These ones come on more of an angle and then these ones are this is a stronger angle up here. Then as it goes further away, the angle changes because it comes in this curve. So I'm just trying to mimic that a little bit. It's like I want to control the paint like the way I'm used to. And that's what pushes you outside into a new realm of learning. Maybe having a shorter one would work too, or I could try the palette knife a little bit to see how that would. I still prefer. I'm preferring this one. Right now. Maybe now we need to bring in some of the windows. Just by taking a little bit of blue, some white. Let's mix it up a bit. And let's see how that's a little too bold. We're going to take some brown to Dolan it a bit, and that's giving me that greeny blue. Then I'm gonna go in and make a few windows. Maybe this way it would help you make the windows more properly. It's too much. I have some white on there that's too bold. There we go. Even some of that blue, make sure it's mixed well, otherwise you're going to get what just happened to me. So I'm a little too bright, pops out. The brown is not gonna be too bold, so I'm not too afraid of the brown. But the question is the what method works best? When I make a line like that doesn't seem very strong. But when I do these, will stamps does seem to work a bit better. And to me that does indicate kind of buildings more so that to me already kinda looks more like a building even though I'm just kinda stamping. Just kinda weird, but I'm gonna go with it. Works. It works. Might need a little water on the color I mixed. So take a water dropper, drop one, drop their stood, move the paint a little bit more. The first bit of water we're using on here, isn't it? The fork? Let's try the fork. See what the four could do for us. Oh, you guys? Check it out. Hold. It's our window maker. What's a three times altogether that works pretty well. Can even kinda do some lines like that. Window maker. We got a window maker. It's scratchy sounding. Morning. Or those who hate that scratchy sound. I want to plug your ears. Okay, I don't want to go out of control, so I'm going to mix a little white in here. I guess having none on the right angle would be correct better if you hold it on this angle. So we know it's we're doing perspective correctly. So for instance, right here is going to look a little off. So I could take my finger finger painting. Finger-painting. Oh dear. We've made a little mess there. That's okay. You can scrape it off. Hopefully. If not, we can just paint over with some of that brown there. Maybe. We'll just do a new thing here. Just do things correctly so that it actually works. Yeah. So if I go over this here, so I can fix my, now that I know that fork works pretty well to do that. And take a little more of this raw sienna, mix it in. Here. Don't wanna brighten that up too much in that area. We go some of this bluey tone in here. So you can kinda just fix things like this by creating layers. Brushing over. Actually what I'm liking about what's happening right now is I'm kinda blurring out some of those windows so that it's more in the distance. And there's still the underneath layer indicating the windows still might be hard to see. Can you see there's still this underlayer and I'm liking that. Happy accidents right there. Thank you, Bob. Okay, Excellent. Let's leave it there for the moment and continue on. 7. Taxis - base layer: Okay. I had to take a little break so I made sure that my paints, if you have a lot of paint, that's what wrap it in. Plastic. You can lay the plastic to reuse again. My dog thinks I'm talking to him. Okay. So this is dry. I'm ready to work another layer on it. So make sure when you're working your layers that if there's anything you want to blend, that you blend those things right away and then go from there. So what I'd like to do is set some, use the white because I've got a lot of white. This is sometimes how we plan things. Okay. If I have wet paint in a certain color than I like to use that until not wasted. So that's kinda my idea right here. And I think for the car, so when you're putting a light color, the cars are yellow because their taxes. When we're working with that, we want to make sure that the taxis, the yellow, doesn't just sit right on top of this blue because it's not going to pop in front of it. So if I take some white first and then do an outline where the yellow is gonna go. That's going to help me put yellow. It's like a primer, right? So we're priming the cars and then we'll go from there. So because this is where I want to make sure that it flows from where I've started my road. So I'm gonna go in and make sure that I get really look at my reference image. This, especially because this tool is not going to lend itself super well for me to do what I would normally do. So I'm gonna kinda get the shape of it going. Can try a different tool, see if the forks nicer or make sure I'm getting the correct length of this vector might need to be a bit higher. I'm going to bring it up a bit higher because I don't want the road to be in line with with that. I want this to be higher than the road. This is gonna be a bit abstract, right? This is almost like it's raining or something. We've got these kind of blurred effect. So now this is kind of building up paint here. And then the next car is overlapping. So I kinda like to start with putting some things in place to give me some idea. So actually this car next to it, we could put it in first. And that will help us set kind of a measurement for the next cars that we're putting in. So you can kind of gauge where those should be. And it's really pushing me. Because if you are usually working like realism and you have to use a tool that's kind of pushing you away from that. You're going to grow. You're going to grow as an artist. It's, it's exciting. So what we wanna do. So I just want to make sure that my proportions are pretty accurate here. Hey, right now just kinda looks like a white blobs. Maybe you're I don't know. Maybe you see something else. So this one is overlapping and it touches all the way to the edge of this. I'm going to this next one. Bring it down. Pull some of the paint downward. Try to get this shape accurate. How far does it go down? So comparison to work with this person, it does end above that. So see how I make little markers in my brain. I'm like, okay, this, as long as you said other things in place accurately, and then you use them as a measurement. Sometimes using this edge and sliding. It kinda works. That worked on that end. So I wonder if I should try and do that on that and I'd not straight across the top. So that's going to be a problem if I leave it like that. And on this side it's actually more of an angle. So I wonder if I can scrape a little bit right here. Different tool. Go. Think of it as an exploration. We're exploring the tools and everything. So that's why we should have fun with it. Dry and have fun. Don't get too frustrated with yourself. I think I took out too much white. I think that's okay. And then this guy here doesn't come to the top of the car but close and it's further away. Here. Also has to make sense with the whole image. What's your angles? I said you can use your tool to measure the angle, keep yourself in that same position and pull it over. And because the windows you could actually, you could try to just paint where the yellow is gonna be, but I didn't really do that there. So although I could scrape actually. So if we scrape those areas where the windows might think I want this rounded one. Scrape a little bit. Got too much paint on. There. We go. This way worked a bit better. Let's try that one has a little window showing. Not used to scraping on my canvas, you know, my art piece. It's not typical for me. Okay, and then this one here, sliding around a bit. Be creative with how you use your tools, can create all kinds of things. It's helping maintain the theme too. Why, why I'm thinking does scrape instead of paint over top is it's going to keep the color that I've used underneath rather than building on top of it, it's going to have a bit of a different feel if I just build on top. So I'm trying to scrape that off instead. Scrape that line down there. That's the front of the car? No, but I'm having fun with scraping. You just never know what kind of fun you're going to find with experiment Dean, things. Should we even do that bit? Why not giving it a go? There we go. Okay. Let's continue over here. Can do it this way as long as I don't have any paint to a point where I don't want it. Watch my angles. These angles can be so tricky. Do you think it's supposed to be one way, but you've got to trust. What really is trust? What really is not what you think it is. Break this rounded a bit top, a little bit rounded according to my image. And then we're gonna be able to, once this dries, we'll do our other colors on top and the yellow will really pop and we won't have to do, like we might have still have to do a second layer just but, you know, we could have done yellow right there, but it would show up a little bit more green like working out my angles, making sure I'm hitting that rides. Watching more things. There is a nice golden glow here too, that I would really like to add. It's going to be a little tricky now that we didn't blend it in with the blue, but we're gonna give it a go once we get into our yellows, I think Kim feeling pretty good about those. 8. More background refinement: And let's see if we want to highlight any other people at this point. I know that there's this walkway here. Great to kind of pull that in. I kinda like that. It created that kinda dry line. Can do that over here too if we want or just leave it there to be its own. See if this person over here, and I kinda want to take some blue, some brown mix, like what we had done before, kinda create like a muted tone that's not going to look too bold. There's a person walking right here. It's going to help give us a little bit of perspective as to how big everything is. Right? So mostly we're in dark pants, will just think, going hard to see really kinda abstract looking. Figure. They there. They moving, is everybody moving fast? Brown in this one? Different colors because people are wearing all kinds of different things. So make sure we kind of indicate that there's some differences happening. Interesting. They'll keep it. I don't know why. I think there's even like a street sign, windows signs. I wanted to keep those with just a little smear. Maybe there's some doors like we're just making indications. Things. Probably think of what do you what did you just do? Why don't you explain yourself? I like to listen to my piece too. So maybe maybe I'm not following a rule. Maybe I'm just feeling something and go on with it. It's kinda like play playing around. Can always over the sections. Not really been worked out too much. I mean, I don't love what I did just now, but I can play around a little more and see what's up. We can do here. I really loved this section here, actually, I don't want to mess with that, but I would like to do a little bit of markings in here, kind of windows and things like are indications of Windows, you know, little bit of overlapping to give it a little interest. That's pretty cool. When you do that. That's a little fun. One to the next whole signage there. We'll do the same up here just a little tad bit. Like in this little mixture of we're kind of creating patterns with our lines. We want a bit of that, but also leaving it. I feel like I want to leave it a little bit random just because of the nature of this piece being a little bit driven in chaos. It's almost like I'm changing it up. So you can't really say it's one particular thing or another. It's creating nice layers to when there's anything that's sticking out to you as kind of standing out. That's maybe something to look into. Maybe you need to work on that section. When things are standing out, it could be a bad thing. Could mean there's something that needs to be fixed in there. I'm going to bring some of this into here. So it's not just the stark change that might have been a bit much little white. Mix it up. Maybe we'll bring some of this into that section. No windows, balconies, You got all kinds of things going on. So create all kinds of lines that especially if it turns out that we're kind of creating some kind of rainy scene. Alright, well, but all the depth that it creates and kind of mystery and intrigue. I'm actually really enjoying this. It's so funny because you spend so much time making things look realistic and fixate on that. And then you do something like this where you're kind of throwing some of those rules out the window and it's quite fun. And also quite like, Oh, maybe I shouldn't spend so much time getting fixated on certain things. I'm adding a little bit of water just by tapping into my water corner of it and then mixing. Just to get a little bit more movement in my fluidity. I do like that. It's a bit mysterious. Not like I said, I do like to to do realistic things. Oh, this is, I guess it's abstract, but it's not like it is going to look like a thing, but we're taking it into a different way, but I'm starting to feel it starts to come to life. And then you have to listen to your piece. I wanted you to start to figure out what your piece is saying to you. Where it feels problematic, where it feels like it's working, where you might need to create more depth or something. And that's one reason I think it's great to make sure that you are sharing your projects in the gallery here. Because if you share, then I have a chance to give you some feedback. I think that's a wonderful tool when you can get feedback from another artist, from someone you trust. It's, it can be really helpful in moving forward with your piece and everything. So I'm quite happy with how this is going. This is pretty much dry so I could on my yellow but I think for now I'm just going to call it a day. But for you guys, you'll just keep carrying on with the lesson. And moving forward. Again. We'll take a look. If there's anything standing out in some negative way. We will fix it up for me before I put this away, I feel like this is kind of standing out to me and I'm just going to kind of see if I can do something with it. Peeled off a little paint or something. I think the boldness of the read is throwing me off a bit. I don't want to mess it up too much sometimes when you get when you're ready to call it quits, but then you keep going. Sometimes you can mess things up. So just think we need to bring some of this brown into our blend. There we go. Wet it a bit so I can maneuver. Could be good, kind of like a wash over top of it. Scrape over, see what happens. Be brave. It's kinda neat. I'm just never know what's going to happen until you try it. Give it a go. Maybe we need to make this side. Later. My water jars keep getting in my way. Beautiful. Okay, well, I'm feeling pretty good about it. I'm going to leave it right now. And the next step is we're gonna get our yellow and go yellow over top, create some shadows and then see what details we need to finish. So already quite a, quite a good level of progress, but I do think it's good to not do it all in one day to give yourself some time in between to refresh. And after we sleep, our brain kind of resets. And then we can see it from a new, fresh set of eyes. Maybe hold it up on the wall, see if there's anything that sticks out to you in a bad way and move forward from there. Awesome. 9. Taxis - yellow base: Alright, let's continue on and get started with the yellow on these fun taxicab. It's going to really make this painting really pop. It's going to really put that icing on it. Because we have all these blues and browns and having a pop of yellow, it's gonna be amazing. So I've got here this cadmium yellow deep hue. And as you can see, the lid broke off. But you know what? We're inventive. We're going to see if this one works. I can get to any of the paint because this would be a great color to use for the taxis. If you are ever stuck where your paint is not coming out because it's dried up to here we can actually use can use some tools. And so we'll see if that works and get back to that. After using a screwdriver, I was able to manage to get some of the dry paint out. And we'll see if that works because that's not ideal, but I think I'll put a better the tape is not going to be a cover enough for this. So be sure to maybe squeeze the rest out into a container if it's worth it, it might not last. So we'll see. Okay, I've also put some medium yellow, cadmium yellow. We have the deep and the medium hue. And so we're ready with that. And I've put some raw umber as well on my palette. Also just be sure to have that reference image again close by so we can see what colors we've got going in here. So we've got some reds, but these details don't worry about those right now. Even though a bit of white, we can add that on top. What we want to focus on is getting a nice base. And maybe we'll bring in some white to, or just see if we can work that in. So we leave that bit lighter where there's highlighting on the top that car. So let's play around with that and see where we go. Alright, let's go. Okay, so hopefully your deep hue is not like mine, where mine is kinda well, you can see how I make things work too. So I'm mixing just a bit of water in with it. And since acrylics are water-based, should be able to revive it now if it's dry, you can't revive it, but if it's still has some wetness to it, you can play around with it with a bit of water, just don't oversaturated because then it loses its strength. The acrylic polymers break down and then it doesn't hold up and you might end up with cracking years down the road, but haven't really seen that with any of my work and I often I have watered them down decently. So who knows who knows the truth of that? I'm going to take some of this that I've just mixed up and I'm going to there's not a huge area actually of this yellow. So I'm just using this rounded tip. You can see already actually do see almost a green underneath. So we might have to do multiple layers. We'll just see I've got a little something hanging off of it, grab a cloth and just clean off the knife. So make sure your tools are cleaning. They don't have little. Sometimes they can get dented and then they're pulling they won't pull a straight line. So that's something to keep in mind because I'm just going to kind of cover the area going with right now. Then we can add details on top. Let's give ourselves a little base. Sometimes it's just easier to create a base and then work from that. And we will add in are the yet the lighter yellow to help like while this is still wet. And it's up to you if you want to make sure you go right to the edge. If you want to overlap into the gray. We're dealing with small spaces, we have to be very cautious with our attack. Bit shaky. That's okay. It's still work it out. Or if you're trying to do a line sometimes just stabilizing, using your other hand, stable onto something that's. Not moving. And then you can use this to kind of give yourself some more stability rather than just holding your wrist in the air. You'll see some artists using a tool that they're actually there when they're getting the fine detail and they're working on the larger painting. They have this stick like tool that helps hold in place and they just rest their hand and yeah, anyways, we got to keep working while this is still wet. Stop the yak and lady. And right now it doesn't look like much just because the one block of color just takes it into a very unrealistic place. But maybe that's what you're going for to it. Maybe that's the style you like and maybe you're discovering that that's something you want to explore some more. So that's one of the great things about trying something new or out of your comfort zone. You're going to discover things you didn't know before. And that's always exciting. Catalysed growth propel you forward more quickly. I just said yes this morning to speaking at an event. And honestly, I'm pretty nervous about it. It is going out of my comfort zone, but public speaking is something I would like to do more of. So kinda need to get over it, right? Alright. So it's funny how we might want to do something, but also feel like nervous to do it. I always used to do a lot of dancing and even dance teaching and their nerves before going on stage. And I think that's pretty normal. I don't know if you should lose that because it's kind of the excitement of it. There's it shows you care to rate comes down here that we're going to have to work a bit quicker. So we can blend in those colors because especially when you're using an older paint that was kinda drying up, it's going to probably not blend as well. So maybe yours is going to be better than mine, but that's okay. We'll just work with what we have. We want to try and scrape that bit off that's getting into his own. I didn't want it to go. There we go. Let's get some of that lighter tone and bring it in places where you feel it needs light. Give it some little something dynamic. Maybe you were going a little chunkier on the surface, you know, more texture. It's more yellow. This kind of medium yellow on the back of this where it's closer to us. 10. Taxis - adding dimension: Feel so weird to put like a chunk of paint for me. So maybe if you're used to putting a lot of paint, maybe try doing a really thin amount. See how that challenges and opens up the mind. Now that one's quite orangey, this one's quite more yellowy, so I'm gonna kinda leave it like that. Now we need to start getting a little bit of this mixed. And now palette knives are great for mixing. So we're already using a tool that mixes well. So that's wonderful. And we will go in to areas where we need to blend in some. I'm just kind of mixing it in with the existing trying to create the shape that I want. This kinda comes to a halt. That darker in the front, on the sides. Try mixing in that section. It's kinda creating stripes that I don't really want. So I'm going to take this other knife and try to scrape some of that. Oh, where's my spatula? This might be the job for the spatula. Actually are a couple of streaks in here too. That might be a good time to little highlights where other cars and shine are reflecting. I feel like it's not, you know, when you're used to a brush, it's so different to try to do this with a knife. And the way you blend is certainly a different story. Like I can get some wheels right at the frontier. But it should be on an angle. So I want to go too far, scrape some of that off. Maybe even just like Yeah. We're just hadn't brought it down low enough. Actually. It has some shadow underneath. So I'm just going to take my knife and ring that shadow under the car. We have to make sure it blends well with the rest of the scene too. So we might bring in some blue to help with this or will scrape to see how that can blend in a different way. I was kinda cool. It has some yellow in there, so that's going to leave an interesting kind of streak. Let's do some browns with these sides. For their already kinda setting. It's not simple to be blending with these tones together. So I'm just going to mix it, maybe premix it a little bit more and put it on top. It might be the best way. Learning as I go as well. Going out of my comfort zone. And it gets kinda fitting that this whole class is about that. And I too am doing that. So I'm not asking you to do something and I'm not willing to try. Why not? Going for it? A little bit of darkness in the window there underneath the vehicle. I think this brown because we've used it before and the other bits of the image. It seems to be working for my purposes. Bringing this up, but don't really love those stripes that are in there. That's more of that deep hue in there. I don't want it to look cheesy and this wheel is barely visible. So I'm going to make sure that I'm. I see now correctly, this right here is not the wheel is. Sometimes our brains want to tell us, Oh, this is how it should look. Then in reality it's not quite like that. So you can have to fight the one side of your brain that says, logically, it should be like this. But then in reality, it looks like this. I'm so tempted to use my finger, but I know I want to maintain the integrity of this of this whole exercise. So do your best to find ways to make the tool work for you. Oh hello, that added water on, onto my palette, onto my page. So don't mind dabbing off some water. That's okay. Because the knife is not going to be able to soak up any of that. Maybe let's get a little more yellow in there to help it along. I think we're getting somewhere. We're just going to keep going to add more depth. So there are certain areas where you might see some stronger lines. So kind of try to pinpoint those where they're placed. And placement means a lot when it comes to what we're doing here. Because we're kind of creating an abstract composition with something that's not abstract. So it's, it's kind of an interesting game. I hope you're having fun with it. Now. One thing you can do as well, the paint is still wet. You can add some of these lines and details where if we wait until after they might be too strong. So like here for instance, maybe we want to add in carefully these kind of lines, right? Sometimes it's those little details that become visible that really make a piece identify the object. Really helped to identify it. So once I add, I mean, you might be able to see that there are cars. I mean, you already know that. So it's kind of hard for you to be the judge. But someone that might look at this, you might already guess, okay, this is what this is. But by adding in, when we add in the lights, that kind of thing, it's going to make it even more obvious. Or if we add in sorry, if we add in these little lights here, if we add in a license plate, those little details really identify an object. So I'm just making a shadow. If an object is inner space and it doesn't, if there's a light, there should be shadow somewhere. So if we're not including the shadow, it's not going to be sitting right. I just want to wipe that. Was a bit wet when I wiped it. So again, make sure your tool is clean. Don't really want yellow down there. Okay. To make sure my shadows are matching the other shadows as well. So what we're gonna do a light section there. So I'm not too worried about that at the moment. I'm continuing to work in some of these little details. If they're visible lines, Let's add those in. If this starts to get a bit gummy, I'll just take some of my water from eye dropper. Drop it in there. Just help to mix it. It'll be more, a lot more runny too. So if you're trying to do fine line, sometimes it's nicer to have oh, thinner paint. Like there's a line here. There's a line for the trunk here that I want to get right. I kinda did not get it quite right. I wanted to go up. I think adding those dots of the red will be fantastic. When I add these little dots of red, I'm really, I'm feeling that I think it's gonna be pretty awesome when we do that. I want to get little lines to, for the windows right here, kind of ground them in place with the shadow that it's giving me. It seems like it needs it. Do want to kind of get it on its edge. Can be tricky. Little mirror right here. 11. Taxis - details & surroundings: Okay. Don't forget these little details like the side mirrors. Those little details. I love them. Want a tiny tiny little. The paint is not picking up. There we go. Let's too far away. Learning, learning the ins and outs of your tool. 0 and the top. I'm trying to go to zoom in to see, alright, alright, so this one here, you've got a little topper. Just noticing this now getting those details and you'll notice things. Maybe you didn't notice before. It's the top bit where the classic top bit of the taxi, taxi on it. We can't forget that. Don't forget that. Iconic can forget that. You're dealing with something iconic. You gotta make sure there's certain details that are not missed. A taxi. That would be one of them. This one up here. This is kind of dark inside. It. Might have to do it on top after I was able to kinda do it. Let's just fix it up. Square root off. Oh, my word. My tool just fell out of my hands. That was funny. So might've been better to do that after. So trying to mix because they're both wet. But you could figure it out. You can work it out. This has some lettering in it so I could kind of mess around with it a bit. So see this yellow light, kind of a street light going on. And I just wanted to throw that in there. There's some reds, there's some all kinds of things going on. I just want to draw that in. Adding my own in there too. Just wanted us a second one in there. Maybe there's some yellow signs so we can throw in yellow here and there. Maybe there's some yellow on the people. Maybe on these various areas. You can kinda see that it looks a little green when I when there's showing some yellow underneath the blue underneath the yellow. Okay, So I think we're almost ready for our whites. And I'm going to get some white so that we can start mixing in some of these white tones that we need. Clean this up so that's nice and ready to first use. Let's go. Okay, now that these tools about a bit of a wipe down, let's get some white clicking. Getting more white out of this. Yep, good. I think that's all we'll need. Some white. We have some yellows, perfect for doing this below. Let's add a little white into the cars though, while we've still got some wet paint. Now what I'm gonna do is take I'm going to mix, learned my lesson before it and just mix some of that. Maybe this deep hue sometimes we think makes the lighter yellow with the white. But actually sometimes it's better to mix the deeper hues because then we kinda keep, like try it out, you'll see how it's different. Okay, So now we're just going to add in some highlights. The biggest highlight for me is right in here. Now, you can also move your painting so it's more comfortable for you. It's going to add some good highlighting in here. So good detailing. Some random there. In this one, it's a little bit of white. You can see when I add a bit of white, it can really bring it forward to. So for one, I want That's going to be almost pure white that I want there. So let's just start with those lights. Let's get those lights and just watch your positioning. It's going to make a difference. Don't make or break it. We don't want to break it at this point, so let's make it and it's happened in, Let's get back into this mixed color. Check. You can always check your tool to see what's actually on it that can help. Up here has some highlighting. I want to include. It's almost white so I can almost go more white than yellow. So listen to the image. What's your reference image telling you? Not what your brain necessarily is telling you. It's being an observer, an interpreter, I think too. Some ways I'm I'd say I'm pretty observant. And then another ways I'd say, I can be very non observance. It's the opposite. Aloof. Just trying to make it look like a nice blend isn't always easy to achieve, but we're working on it. Maybe if I swipe it a little more. Because if you do dabbing, that's going to create little stippling type effect. If you want it to be smoother, you need to kind of scrape a little more, some strength and I'll swipe it down a little bit. Okay, this is gonna be a bit scary. Going in. Going in here. That's gonna be what? Scary. Okay, let's not go there yet. Let's finish some of these card details. See if there's any anymore lightest color needed. Head. I would definitely need our little license plate in there. So I think it's maybe a square tool is a bit better for that application. Man, how I would love my angle brush right now. That's not the point. Find solutions. The tool that I have. There are some highlights on the side of this car. To kind of get those in there. Let's get this license plate on. Hey, we got a license plate on this guy, too. Good, good. They're all in good citizenships. Good. They're good citizens, I should say. Okay, Wonderful. Okay, Okay, here we go. I think I want this a bit lighter. Let's also check for any like this needs a little bit of something in there. See how that brighten it up, just a little bit of that white and then you kinda have that fanning out effects. So there are some fancy things. With these tools I'm loving. This guy should be wearing different color. Do you see how I'm avoiding this part? Can make or break us, can make or break us. People still want this person to be pretty honest, very abstract, like there's something there but you almost don't know what. I love. These. They're kinda like ghost-like people having fun with that. Maybe some brown. Like Kristina do it. I know I know. There's some like words on these buildings. Okay. Just literally like this is what's great about a palette knife. Just scrape across and sometimes it works like magic. I love that. I can just magic right there. You know, even some of the lettering on here, you can just kinda tap. And it almost gives an illusion of lettering. Some paint on there. Cool. It's coming together. It's coming. Should come in. Okay. This one's a lighter side window. 12. Street details: Side mirror. You can see the correct words. It always helps. So I'm going to use what I did here as an example of what we can do down here. So see you when I first started, just use the yellow and it showed a lot underneath. And then I waited and added some pop of color to where the areas and we're going to need that. So when I look at my picture, I see this kinda fed out colors. So that would be really good to be blended. But what I'm going to try, that method I used on that light. So I'm going to prep my naive. I kinda just been using a cloth and wiping the excess off. Can also often peel off. It's kinda nice thing about metal. Even glass. You don t have glass knives that I know of, but glass containers but easier to clean than plastic often. Okay. This is kind of a rubbery tool, so it comes off pretty easy off this too. I'm just kinda scrape it off. Okay. Question is which tool? And I'm enjoying this tool right now. It's rounded. So that's good for created around, for creating rounded things. So what I'm going to have these other ones ready, and we're going to start with this yellow. It's okay. I'm gonna go in the brightest sections and then kind of scrape down or whatever direction seems fitting. I think down was the right way to go. I didn't need to kinda pull it this way too. I think that gives it an interesting almost like rainy do has almost a brown tone to it too. I think I almost need some raw sienna. Put that on my palette just a tiny bit. And again, kinda have any cohesive color palette really helps for the overall image. So I'm just going to tap on some of that too. Okay, my trust scraping with another thing, maybe this guy here will scrape the whole thing. Well, that's pretty cool. I mean, I don't know if that's what I wanted, but I mean, it's kinda cool. One's a little bit more pancake flat. And this one here is more lengthened. And this one has a sharp top to it, then blends out. So let's get this cut. Remember this guy has wet paint on it, so make sure you wipe it first. And then we'll go in and try to blur it out in other ways and maybe even turn turn your palate so it's whatever is comfortable. I just want to blur the lines out a little bit. Alice doesn't have much room left on and I'm painting on missile hills. Oh, the messages that you make. A new one of these. One of these. Okay. Cut that in pieces can help do. That's what I just did and that seems to be good idea. Okay. This has a bit of yellow on it and just wipe that off. Grab some. I think I do still want a little yellow in there. I mean, there is some yellow here. Not when they're just you really want it to look like it's those lights that are causing this kind of effect. Okay. When I scrape, it's just pulling that off because it's wet paint. I think I just need to kinda dab. Maybe try dabbing more. I think it seems too bright. I'm going to try and make some little bit of brown. Brought up just a little bit more. So mixing, sometimes you can mix on the board. Sometimes it doesn't work out the best. There times does the trick. Oh, yellow in there. I almost feel like I could have left it as it was in the beginning when I first scraped it and it was like, really great. Let's let's work it out. We'll fix it. So this one here. Oh, wow. Okay. I want to really scraped quite a bit right in here. It looks like it needs to be blended more. So what I'm gonna do is add some. Because he's too, when I'm looking at my image, looks kinda like these two kind of almost forged together. Mix off the palette. That seems to do better for me than have yellow or white. Okay, let's try that. I think if we kinda pull it across a little more like this intention, then sometimes you can have, you, sometimes you need to give her away from your reference image just a little bit to make it work. Let's kinda help. I feel like I need to kind of try new method if it's not working, what you're doing, try something different. So working in these blends here, I'm kinda digging it. I think I'd like to kind of fix up some in here. I'm not sure for what kinda wanna scrape across to do that. So let's let's try it out. I don't really want yellow. I couldn't make some more blue potentially. Or just kind of graze across with this color we've created. That's kinda cool. Creating a funky texture there. Don't like how that white got there at all because that's not where I want the highlight to be. So, but it's really fun to do this kind of light grazing. The kinda figure out what's depending on the ground there. Some textures. It's kinda funky, funky, fresh. Play around a little bit. See what happens when you try different methods of using your tool. Just like that, dabbing kinda did some cool stuff. So I think next I'm going to add in the Reds, see where I'm at. Evaluate. Oh, wait, you know what the lights on. Let's just brighten those up just a tad bit. Touch. Okay, so now I'm going to let this do its thing when a dry. And then I'm going to add in the reds and then evaluate the whole piece, kinda see if there's anything missing. But I think I'm going to add in some reds here and there, like in signage. You know, that kind of thing to have these pops of red that are almost unnatural. We've got lots of natural colors. These yellows even have a lot of, I mean, I guess it's not natural, but you do see those yellows in nature a lot. But once we pop in those reds, it's just hopefully going to really come together. Really pop and then, yeah, just evaluate. Just really evaluate if there's anything else we need to add. If there's anything that's looking not quite right. Like maybe we just need more colors for the people that are walking around. I think with the red, it's going to help to do that. Maybe I'll get into some more blues, will see. Let it dry. Rest your brain for a minute and see, and come back to it and reevaluate. 13. Pop of red!: Alright, now things are dry. I'm ready to get back into it. So let's grab some red. I'm going to grab a cadmium red hue. And I want this warmish red because I want it to really pop. And I think that's just going, that route is going to pop more because I have a lot of these cool tones going on. So I'm also not going to mix it with white. Normally I would put white below or mixed with white so that it pops forward just like we did with the yellow. But I think for this one would really like to just let see what happens and see if it's better to do it that way. So now the question is, which tool I want to use? Don't want to use this guy? Or do I want to use this guy? And you decide what you want to use. I think I'm going to continue with this one for now. I guess I'm just in that kind of mood. I've got just the solid red, no other color getting mixed in. And I'm just going to find those brilliant spots in the piece where there's pops of red. So I guess if I just zoom in to this image, you'll be able to see the tail lights. There's some signage that's fluorescent really popping out. So we've got some more tail lights. We've got little bits of red throughout. So think I'm just going to have pops of red here in there. Ok, keep my reference image open and available. So I think I would like to start with the tail light. And it's not just a regular shaped tail light either. So that's going to make it more interesting. Someone who's blob it on first. I'm trying to make that the shape that I'm seeing within. Yeah. I'm already feeling like if I had gone with a cooler red, it'd be too cool. Like, You know what I mean? Even this almost feels too cool. And if that's the case, I'll have to add some yellow. But I think for now I'm just going to stick with the red because I wanted to have that intensity as well. Okay, so over here I actually, when they touched it, there must have been two sides that touched and made a bit of a what I would call a mistake. However, I'm kinda dig in it. So I'm going to actually leave it like that. Not even try and connect it because I kinda, I'm digging this like blurry vibe that's going on. You can zoom in on your image if you need to get to the spots that need for painting. Not just two little red eyes, almost. Sure you don't take too much paint on there. You might get a big blob where you don't want one. You guys digging it. Okay, now to play with reds in signage and that kind of thing. So let's see where this takes us. I mean, I could mix it with some yellow to see if I can lighten it up. Or I actually, you can grab a fluorescent red. I think I might want to do that, so let's grab that. Okay, So if you don't have fluorescent red and you don't want to invest in all, just get a small one. This one's quite large unless you're really into it. But I have this fluorescent red, compare it to this now, it's not the best for mixing, I would say. But if you need like pops of fluorescent in your piece, that I want to give this a go. So I wanna do it. I want to go for it. I want that element of that. Now if you don't want to go that route, maybe either just stick to the red, get a lighter red, get an orangey or read, or maybe mixing a tiny bit of yellow and see what happens. I would really like to try this fluorescence. For me. It looks a little more fluorescent than just read. I think it's gonna give me that bright neon light that I'm yeah, that's what I want. That's what I want. I always love when I do something that works out. I like it. It's kinda odd and I love it. There's a sign in here that has fluorescent light that I want to bring in. Another unlike up here. Now, you can kind of play around like maybe you want to add in more. I would like to add some red on the other side too for some balance. Plus I do see some in some of the signage and stuff. So you can just kinda now before when we were kinda blogging around with that gray tone, that one you can do a little more freely. I feel like this is you got to be a little bit more intentional. But who might've say that? Give it a go, break the rules. But some of those rules that we say do this, if I still have some yellow available to sign has like yellow and red, then we might want to get more color into the people. I see something like light blue. So I may grab like a cobalt blue or just mix whatever blue you have with a bit of white if you want it to be a bit lighter. This one's a nice one for a lot of different purposes, but it almost has that denim look. So you can see we did really didn't use much of that fluorescent and I might use a bit more. But for now I'm just trying to play balanced game. So bounce a bit of the reds, balance a bit of the Blues. Okay, so let's get into some of those blues. 14. More surrounding details: Alright, so I'm gonna grab this blue. And I don't want, I guess I want some bold blues, but if I don't want it to be too bold, it take this blue and mix it with a brown or even little word. It's going to take some of that intensity away. When you mix, anytime you mix a color, it takes away a little bit of intensity. Maybe makes it a bit with white. You still have weighed available or get some white on your palate. Makes it in lots of people were blue. It seems to be popular. Says a bit of blue in it. There's even some people can hear maybe somebody's getting into the taxi. Maybe get some darker blue in there. Maybe there's a sign with blue. That was cool. Just do a little Blache, give it a go, see if it works, if not trying to scrape it off or, you know, figure out another solution. Okay, Let's see, Let's mix a little bit of, Let's just see what happens when you mix a little fluorescent and liveness. Just makes a different kind of like purple. I want them much kind of read with people. I think I want it to be a bit more purple. I'll just go over top. Because they want those special read moments to be more about where the car lights are. I think I don't want to overdo it by putting it just everywhere. Just going to scratch this out a bit. I think what I'd like to do is make a bit of a skin tone like some flesh. Various flesh tones. Maybe grab a little bit more of this number. We can maybe a bit of raw sienna, if you oh, actually, I think I still have some what? Yeah, I do. You can mix that with a bit of white if you want a lighter tone. Just depends on make some variety variety of skin tones going on. A person? Yeah. Okay. Almost looks like there's just a lot of chaos going on. And what I think is neat is it just lens lets the viewer create more stories. So what might be going on? Why things look a certain way and all of that. So I mean, it creates a little level of intrigue. Let's just say that's what I'm going with. What's working for me. I'm good. I want to take away some of this red over here because I want this to dominate the red, even these streetlights there. I think I want to just take the dark red and go like that. I don't know. That's for you to decide. Which I'm kinda thinking I did like I think I don't like that There's two so close together. But I was just kinda following the guide. I think there's like this flag up in here. Some things that are up and kind of great little indications of a variety of things going on. I would like to, I feel like this is not dimensional enough. These lights here. So I think I would like to work on that a little bit, but let's just finish up in here what we're doing. Let me get a little bit of the purple in with that sign, maybe a little bit of weight. So I'm just, I'm not adding any color. I'm just trying to create war stories by moving the knife around, maybe scratching the surface here and there. Just having fun with it. Maybe we'll mix some blue with this brown. Maybe even some red. For this bit under here. Because I'm not feeling that right now. Even this one over here, it's needs a little more blue in it. Even if I just scrape over a little bit of blue. Just means something different. Just feeling flat. Again, just mixing some of the burnt umber with that cobalt blue and some of the red. You can see my thing's not totally flood. Can see how that could become irritating. My apologies. Grab more paint. There. Maybe. Add a little depth here in there. Don't really want it to get into my highlighted zone. Don't want that to look like a wheel either. So I want to try to squeegee that off right there. There. That's better. I would also like to get a little more detailing, so I'm going to put this away for a moment, grab the squeegee and see if I can get some detail work with the squeegee better than that. So just putting the droplet drop of water so I can use this almost like a pen. I don't know if that's cheating, but we'll go with it. And then I'm gonna go into an area where I feel more competent and adding color. So I like that this is a bit more bluish. So different working with like a squeegee instead because it doesn't hold paint the same way. That approached us. Slides the paint around, so it's a different experience. One side using to erase whatever works. Really like the front of this card, like to fix up a bit. Just looks something looks a bit off to me. And so wherever your eye is looking towards, like what what's going on there? Something look off. The probably you're probably write something probably is off. You need to check in trying to lift some of that. It's kinda dirty, clean up my yellow. They're not love him. We can bring more yellow on top. Fix it. It's too much. The Brown has gotten a bit money, so lets just grab a little more yellow. So I'm guessing with my guessing, I'm going to say using a palette knife with this kind of rough surface, probably not the best idea. If you have a better surface. That might be the way to go. Just going to try to sharpen up this line here. I know this isn't the darker yellow, but no, that one has a few issues in itself. Okay. So for me right here, should be not white. I think that might be what's throwing me off the location of this white spot there? Not right. Get the white backlog in there. I know there's some blue in there, but there is a lettering too, so should be able to make it work. I would see how far I can go before having to add more paint from the tube. Like that splotch on there that looks a bit better. Let's add, let's, let's let that sit for a bit. We'll add some red to some yellow to kind of maybe do a bit of an orangey tone instead of the brown and see if that works a bit better. 15. Taxi - refinement: So let's mix some red, some yellow. You won't need much red. With yellow. Red is super powerful. Start with your yellow and add Red Sea. So still it's getting there. We could see I didn't need much red at all. There we go. So if you were struggling because you didn't have that deep yellow, you can make a deep yellow. Just add a little. Let's wipe the knife so that we have a clean knife to work with. Okay. I didn't really wait for this to dry, so I'm just going to go over top of it. I just and I get sometimes quiet when I'm working on my art. I don't know about you. If you get pretty focused, It's good to be focused. I guess. I think this is getting there. And you know, what I just noticed is there's this there's a stripe at the bottom. I don't currently have in the image like that I haven't put in. So I think that will make a big difference too. I had a little bit to these two. I'm liking this tone that I created and I like to use is a tone that I find that I like in all areas that might work for it. The other thing, there's kind of a haze around that. So I don't know if I'm going to try and figure that out or just that kind of worked. There we go. Then align across a little bit stronger. Just trying to guide the paint knife. If there's any moment you're struggling with your piece. 16. Finishing touches: If there's anything you're struggling with your piece, then please reach out. Share your piece in the gallery. Even if it's not finished. And I will, I'm always checking to make sure I respond to any comments and things like that. So keep that in mind. Happy to connect with you. Let's put a bit of orange, the orange in the scene over here. There's gonna be some orange going on. In fact, there are these kind of pylon type of structures here. They are different than the pylons, I know, but they kinda just protect people from cars from going onto the sidewalk or something like that. Orange. Don't want that to look like. Same thing though. To some swiping. This, this bit is pretty fun to kinda just give some semblance of things that are happening over here. Some blue, I don't think we have any greens going on. We could add some greens. I don't want to veer off the path too much with our color scheme. But getting close, I mean, close to that edge. Finished. You get to decide. So it can be hard sometimes to figure out if a piece is finished, but you kinda just have to go with your gut. Something within practice. You kind of learn what you feel. If I go further with the piece, will it improve it? Or what will I be diminishing? Like to take some of this darker. And here we're starting to lose depth. I don't want to lose depth. Yeah, I think it's pretty interesting What's going on here. I don't know if it's not sure if I love it or hate it. There's these dark. It's actually actually have these. I should have done dark first and then the yellow over. In fact, if that happens, sometimes it's worth it to just go over top of it with the color that is in the background. If there's a stripe like this has a strip of yellow on a block structure. You're going to have an easier time doing the stripe of yellow after you've done. I can try to just because it's not the most vital part of the piece. There's kind of a line in the road. Going to add in a little bit of more interest here. Scrape some of the door. It's kinda nice because it's pulling into some of the crevasses and maybe giving us this illusion of a street. With that. I guess that's pretty cool. If you say it as I guess it is. Alright. I think I need it to be a little more blue. Lives that blue affect. Take this other one and just kinda blurry it almost. I've got a bit more blurred out with this. Do like the squeegee is pretty pretty awesome. Side to side. Do think I don't want to lose that white there. So let me add in a little bit more. Let's squeegee it again. See what happens. Squeegee madness. It's a bit of blue in there to bring more of a gray, which is great for this roadway actually. That did more of a smooth and a little more smooth than I wanted just because it's smooth section rather than it being textured. Once he started creating layers, like in here, I've started to create layers. And so I have kind of my own texture that I've created just with the paint. Cool. I think gone digging it. Sure about this section here and kinda wanna darken or take off the white. Just take some blue and brown. Go in there. And now let's take the squeegee madness. Like the squeegee is good at getting things kind of blurred. A bit. Cool, cool. Okay, so once you feel like it's finished, we give it a moment to look over it, see if there's anything you want to change, then we can sign it. Now it's up to you if you want to sign with your tool that you've been using, one of the tools you've been using. I'm open to that and I think sign-in with one of these roads would be pretty cool. I mean, if you want it to stand out or not, depends what you want to do. So I'm going to take it's kinda fluorescent color and I just do Okay. Did I do my initials? So I'm going to leave that up to you to decide. Okay. I'm kind of looks like an adult. I think it kind of goes with the flow. Usually do KM and then 0. 0. Okay guys, what do you think of your result? 17. Conclusion: You made it to the finish line. Congratulations, you have a finished piece. Whether you like it or not, whether it's going up on the front, in the front for everyone to see whether it's gonna be gifted. That's up to you to decide now. But thank you for joining me in this lesson. I really appreciate it. And if there's any value you found in this class, could you please let me know in the review? Did it meet your expectations? Did it exceed your expectation? I want to exceed your expectations. So tell me what it is that I can do to do that. So if you're like, Yeah, this met my expectations but it didn't quite exceed what could make it better. I want to know, So thank you so much for creating that review. Well, that's all we'll see you in the next class. Thank you again for joining me. See you next time. Bye. Now.