Acrylic Painting: A Common Raccoon

1. Introduction: Acrylic painting is a versatile medium and it's my recommendation for anyone who is just starting out. Welcome to my acrylic painting series where in each class study I demonstrate my process as a painter step by step so you can practice along with me. These studies are great for beginners and anyone who'd like to brush up on their skills. In this class study, I'll show you how to paint a common raccoon, a wild critter found in many places in the world, mostly North America. And in my neck of the woods, they're often seen foraging in the backyards. My name is Brigitte Miller and I'm a decorative painter by trade. I've been painting in this medium for over 30 years, and more recently been teaching in-person and online classes to help others learn to paint for a hobby or a career. In each class in this acrylic painting series, I'll go over materials you'll need for the class. Then we'll dive in and complete one project study lesson by lesson, using my process. I'll demonstrate every step and give you tips and tricks along the way. Then I'll ask you to upload your project if you'd like feedback from me, as well as others taking the class. I'm thrilled to present this acrylic series to you here on Skillshare to get your creative journey going. So without further ado, meet me in the next section and I'll give you more details on the class project. See you soon. 2. Class Project: Raccoons are interesting little critters. Many people consider them rodents, but they are closer to a cross of a cat with a bear. They're adaptive, very intelligent, and belong to the same family of animals as skunks. Some recent research of urban raccoons suggests that they're smarter than cats and dogs. In my eyes, they're just as adorable too. For the class project, we'll paint this study of a common raccoon with acrylic paint using reference photos. I'll go over every step, lesson by lesson, starting with the materials you'll need and you can follow along pausing as needed, or watch through and paint on your own. Once you've completed all the lessons and the painting is done, I'll ask you to upload your finished project to the student gallery for feedback from me and others taking this same class. To submit your project, click on the Projects and Resources tab below this video. Once there, you'll see a blue Submit Project box to the right. Click that and then you can upload your image from your photo file. Once it appears, you can adjust your photo by clicking on it, enlarging or reducing until you get it just right. Then push the Submit button, that becomes your cover image. Then you can type in a title for your project, add details of your process, and add more photos if you'd like. Then click the green published box. And just like that, your project is uploaded for all to see. I look forward to seeing your painting progress and I think you'll enjoy seeing other approaches to this class from other students as well. It's a valuable resource in the learning process and it's very rewarding to see the comments on your work and be an encouragement to those who are also brave enough to post their paintings. Upon completion of the class, You'll also receive a Certificate of Achievement. Let me know if you have any questions along the way. There's a Discussions tab below this video where you can get hold of me. My aim for you in this acrylic painting series is for you to build your skills with practice so you can tackle anything you want to paint with confidence. I'm excited to meet you. Meet me in the next lesson where I'll share with you the materials I like to use. See you soon... 3. Materials: In this lesson, I'll go over the materials I'll be using for this class and for the most part in my acrylic painting series classes in general. I made a convenient materials list for you that you can download under the Projects and Resources tab below this video. The first thing on the list is paint. Use the best paint you can afford for premium results. You'll need top quality paint. In this class, I'll be using Grumbacher Academy brand, but any heavy body acrylic like Liquitex, Golden, or Windsor and Newton brands will work as well. I would avoid Artist's Loft brand or anything you find at the Dollar Store. They're too sticky and they dry uneven and it will be very frustrating, especially as a beginner. Specifically, you'll need at least all three primaries, blue, yellow, and red and white. If you have Mars Black and, or Raw Umber, that would be nice too, but it's not absolutely necessary. I'll explain why later in the class. For brushes and tools, you'll need a 3/4 inch flat, a 1/4 inch Filbert, a number six round brush with a nice pointed tip, and a number one liner brush. A palette knife. I like flexible metal ones with a little bit of a rounded tip. Number two pencil and as an option also a red pencil. You'll also need water for rinsing out your brushes. Acrylics can adhere to many types of surfaces. My favorite include pre primed canvas boards like this one. I like that you can also catalog your artwork on the back. There's also pre-primed wrapped canvases that are stretched around a wood frame. You can also paint on watercolor paper. I use 140 pound. And when you're painting on watercolor sheets, it's a good idea to prime them with Gesso, or white paint before you add your design. This will prevent the paint from absorbing into the surface. Lately, I've been using this acrylic paper. It's 185 pound, very thick paper. And it doesn't need to be primed ahead of time so you can get right to your painting. I also like to frame it in the ready-made frames made for photos. It looks very nice and many of those will come with mats. It makes it really easy for me to frame my work. Any of the surfaces I've mentioned will work for this class. You'll also need something to put your paints on. I'm just going to use a paper plate, but you can use a professional palette if you'd like, or a dish, a spray bottle would be handy. Some paper towels or a soft cloth. A couple pieces of dark colored card stock. We'll use this for practicing breast strokes, For transferring the design to your surface, you'll need tracing paper, graphite paper, or carbon paper. And the downloadable sketch or a copy of the final painting. You'll find the downloadable sketch and the copy of the final painting under the Projects and Resources tab below this video. You'll need some tape, and I like the low tack kind. And lastly, a hair dryer to speed up the drying time. When you've gathered all your materials, meet me in the next section for the first step, transferring the design. See you soon. 4. Sketch/Transfer Design: For this class. I researched Raccoons and found some copyright free photos from Pexels.com and Unsplash.com to use for my design study. I included them for you to download if you'd like to use them. And they're under the Projects and Resources tab below this video. Another photo that inspired me was from a student photographer here on Skill share, Ann Right Doublestein. When browsing student projects, I came across this delightful photo that she posted as her project in Reuben Clark's wildlife photography class. I quickly asked her if I could use it for this class. I have a link to that class in the description area, if you're interested in improving your photography skills, and you can see Anne's project in the project gallery there for the step by step demonstration, I chose to use acrylic paper by cans on, so I will affix it to my studio table with removable tape. Taping it down will minimize the amount of buckling. I'll be matting my finished art piece, so I'm just barely catching the edge with the tape. If you like the look of a white border, you can use the width of the tape with the edge to create an even border around your design. Make sure the tape is removable and burnish it down well, or the paint will seep under it leaving a ragged edge. Another way to avoid the ragged edge is to tape it down well, then gesso a couple coats and that will seal any areas where paint could get under the tape and then paint your design after the Esso dries. You could also use white acrylic paint. There's several methods of transferring a design to your surface. One way is to use tracing paper for this raccoon study. Download my finished painting, and then trace the main areas of color using tracing paper for the painting. The sketch does not need to be high in detail, I just need to know the basic proportions and shape of the face, where the eyes, nose and ears are, and where the main colors change. Then turn that tracing over and completely cover it with graphite pencil. Or you could also use chorical, then turn it back over and retrace your design to your surface. Or easier yet, you could use carbon paper or graphite paper instead and do it that way. Either way works just as well. Sometimes carbon paper or graphite paper can be hard to find. I want you to know both methods for this class. I included my sketch for you to download, and you can find that under the Projects and Resources tab below this video. I just want to make sure you know the process when you want to paint your own pet or a different animal, you'll know how to do the entire process. This method will get you to the painting straight away, So I use it for my painting classes. But I do have to say sketching and drawing are very important in painting, and I would encourage you to develop those skills as well. It will help you observe and study your subject for more accuracy. There's many wonderful classes here on skill share. If you'd like to explore that area more to keep my sketch from shifting while transferring, I tape it down to my surface. Just a couple pieces of tape works. I also like to trace with a red pencil so I can tell where I've already been. Then I also check periodically to see if I'm using enough pressure to transfer the carbon paper to the surface once you've transferred the design. Meet me in the next lesson for the next step in the process, which is underpainting. 5. Underpainting: In this lesson, I'll demonstrate how to underpaint your surface. Underpainting is the first layer of paint that goes down onto the surface. And it's usually a mid tone color. It isn't a must that you do this step. But I like to underpaint or ground my surface for several reasons. The main reason is that I like to have the underpainted color show through. If I miss a spot in the subsequent layers, either accidentally or purposefully, I choose a color that complements the main colors of my artwork. It gives my final piece a beautiful cohesiveness. Using a midtone color will also help me gauge my values, which are how light and dark my colors are. This is why some artists use a gray palette for mixing colors. The white canvas is so extremely light in value that it makes it difficult to see the actual colors that are mixed. You may want to try a gray palette if you're having difficulty achieving accurate colors, especially if you paint realistically. They have gray disposable palette paper as well. For the raccoon study artwork, I chose an orange underpainting. I mixed red and yellow together, and that gave me a bright orange. Then I added a tiny amount of ultramarine blue, and this gave me more of a rusty orange. If you'd like more color mixing practice, you can do the paint mixing exercise I have in my beginning acrylic series, Introduction to acrylics class. It's less and five. It's a great activity to do every time you have a new set of paints too. Using the 34 inch flat brush, I cover the entire surface with this mixed color. It doesn't need to be solid. I actually make mine fairly thin with water so I can see my sketch through. Then I dry it completely and quickly by using my hair dryer. When you are finished, meet me in the next lesson where I'll demonstrate painting the background. See you soon. 6. Painting the Background: For the background, let's keep it simple. Using a few greens with the suggestion of foliage in loose brush work to do this. First, mix yellow and blue. To make green, you'll need a lot less blue than yellow. Then I mix a little darker green by taking about half that mixture and adding more blue. Then I repeat that again to get one more darker shade of green. If your greens are brighter than you'd like, add a small amount of red, which is the complimentary color for green. This will tone down or desaturate your color. If you want to learn more about mixing greens, I have an exercise in my beginning acrylic floral class that could help. Just click the link to that class in the description of this one, and jump to lesson five. Once you have three to five greens in three values, light, medium, and dark, use your palette knife. Or 34 inch flat and add the darkest green to the upper left of your surface. Let as much of the underpainting show through as you would like, then continue to paint the background, picking up lighter green. As you move to the right of the canvas, my light source is coming from the right. So I'm making the right side lighter in value. Using the 34 inch flat brush turned on its edge. I lightly add short strokes to give the jist of leaves. Having just a loose suggestion of leaves will help my portrait stand out more and look forward of the background. This gives my painting more depth after you've covered the background. If you like a little more texture, use a palette knife to scrape off some of the green while it's still wet. This technique is called scrifito, an Italian word that means scratched, after you're finished, dry it completely. And then meet me in the next lesson where we'll dive into painting the first layers of our study of a common raccoon. 7. Blocking-In the Darks: For this step, you'll need black paint on your palette. If you have a tube, feel free to use that. If you don't have black, as many sets do not come with black. And that's because some artists do not use black paint from a tube. They mix their own with the three primary colors, red, blue, and yellow. Some artists feel like the Pre mixed blacks, especially mixed with other colors, can make things look flat or lifeless. My advice to you would be to try both and see what you prefer to mix black with your primary colors. Take one part blue and mix it with half as much red. This will get you a very dark violet or purple. Now if you add a small amount of yellow to that, it'll turn the mixture black. Now if you're using a different blue than I am, or a different red or a different yellow, you're going to get varied results. But in the right mixture with your paints, you should be able to get a dark black. I call it colorful black because it uses all three primaries In my process. I start with the darkest value and move to the lightest in each subsequent step. Here in the reference photo, in the rest areas of his ears and mask, and on his back and other areas, you'll see the darkest values using the 34 inch flat brush. Everywhere you see a dark area in the reference photo, add that to your painting. Following your sketch as a guide, I'm only using the reference photo as inspiration. Not every area will be exactly like the image that I've chosen. I use the corner of this large brush to place the black, starting with the ears, then moving to other areas. I'm loosely placing the paint in the direction that I would imagine that the fur grows. You needn't be exact at this stage. Just block in the dark areas, in the area like you would when you color in a coloring book. You can go out of the lines a little bit if you like. It will look very ugly at this stage. But no worries. Follow the process and step by step, it'll become more and more realistic looking as you go. Once you have all the black areas blocked in or filled in, meet me in the next lesson to start our midtones. I'll meet you over there soon. 8. Midtones (Bridge Colors): In this part, we'll add the midtone colors, which I like to call bridge colors. They're all the colors that are in between your darkest color that we just added in the last lesson, and your lightest colors that we'll get to towards the end. You're welcome to use black from a tube or the colorful black from the last lesson and add white to your palette as well. To mix the fur colors, add a little white to your black. To change the value. Have at least three or four values of your black in dark, medium, and light. When you have those to adjust them, experiment by adding a little yellow and or red to change the hue. The reference photos will help you match your colors. Don't stress about making it exact, though there's many different raccoons out there and they're all wearing different fur coats that vary in color. Just get the general color and placement and you'll be fine as you paint more and more, You'll build your confidence. And mixing colors and placing them will feel more natural to you and you won't need to think about it as much. Using the quarter inch filbert brush, load it with your darkest mid tone or bridge color and add this to the top of the animal's head. Again, paint loosely and in the direction that you see that the fur is growing. In the reference image, aim for chunks of fur rather than individual hairs that will make them appear softer, more like a cat and not like a porcupine. Add that color everywhere you see it in the reference image. In the same manner, varying the color as you interpret it. The fur brush stroke is where you place the paint and pull it as far as you need, lifting it at the same time to taper it. If you work fast enough when you lay down the paint over the top of other paint that's wet. The wet on wet technique will give you other values and more blending will take place. Next, dip into one of your lighter values that you mixed and paint in the edge of his fuzzy ears and above his dark mask and around his nose. Again, imagine the direction that the fur grows and mimic that with your brush. When you use the Filbert brush on the side, it works very well to make small chunks of fur that taper. Add a little more white to your mixture if you need to, and paint the outer edges of the lighter areas to make him appear fuzzier. Here I see a little rusty orange on his bib or chest, so all mixed yellow, red, and a tiny amount of blue to get that color and add that to those areas. Now that I've blocked in every remaining area with the mid tones, I'll begin to refine the painting a little more with a medium grayish tone. I'll add this to the top of the nose to give it more dimension. I'll also add some lighter grays to his body using the same tapered fur stroke. Continue to add yellow and red as needed to your light gray mixture, as this will help keep his fur looking more natural for a softer look. I blend where the light and dark areas meet with a color that's in between the two here. Be careful not to completely cover the color in the first layer because you need color differences to make it appear more three D, switching to a number six round brush. I'll now demonstrate how to make the eyes appear more real. I first refine the shape by adding black, following the transfer guidelines as close as possible. If you can no longer see your lines, do your best to remember where they are or draw a chalk circle where you think the eye should be and when that looks right to you, then paint in the eyes. Before you chalk though, make sure the painting is completely dry. I then add a dark gray spot towards the right of each eye, following the reference photo very closely. With the very tip of the brush, I outline his eyes with the same color. The shape of their eyes are very round. Avoid making them almond shaped like human eyes with that color. I also refine the nose. Their noses are similar to a small dog's nose. My co nose appears a little misshaped in here, so I'll use a little paint to erase part of that by painting over the top with the snout color. Okay. This wraps up the midtones. Now let's give the painting more contrast in the next section by adding the light values. See soon. 9. Light Values: For the light values, add white to your palette. And using your four inch filbert brush, and hence the lighter areas of your raccoon. With more fur brush strokes, you can use pure white for maximum contrast, or you can use a mixture for a more realistic color experiment and see what you prefer. Be sure to make it considerably lighter in value than the light areas you have. You create high contrast to give your raccoon a three D look. Here I've switched to the number six round brush to add guard hairs to the raccoons fur. The guard hairs are the longer top layer of hairs on some animals coats. Using the very tip of my brush, perpendicular to my surface, I can make thinner fur like hairs on his face. For added realism, I'll lighten around his eye area so his eyes will stand out more. And I'll also tap in the shine to the right of the gray that we added earlier. I need a little more shine on his nose to make it appear wet. You do not need to continue the line all around the nostril. Just where the light picks up the edge of the nostril would be enough. I'm happy with my raccoon. Now if you are as well, feel free to upload it in the student gallery at this point. But for those of you that like a look with a little more detail, I'll continue to make some refinements so you can observe that process. Then in the next section, I'll demonstrate some other options for techniques and adding whiskers and other details. Okay, then we're finished with the light values. One more step to go see, so we're almost finished. 10. Details, Highlights and Options: In this last section, make sure your painting is completely dry and have a moist cloth or paper towel handy in case we need to make a change. I'll show you how to add whiskers to your raccoon using white or a very light gray and a number one liner brush. Add a little water to your paint to get it to flow better. To test the viscosity, which is the resistance of your paints flow, use a dark paper and practice long tapered strokes, adding more water to your paint. And repeating the practice strokes until you get the desired result, which is a long, tapered, whisker like stroke. After you've loaded your brush lightly touch it to your surface where you want the whisker to start. Then pull out and lift your brush off the surface to taper the end. Use your whole arm rather than just your hand and wrist. This will probably give you the best results, but it does take. Practice. Repeat this whiskers stroke as many times as you need to get the hang of it before moving to your painting. Practice the stroke going to the left and to the right. If you're right handed, you may need more practice on the left side. I usually reload my brush with paint for each individual whisker. I also try to curb them a little bit because that's how they look to me in the reference photo. Vary the length, the size, and the placement of the whiskers for a more natural look while you're at it. Add some whiskers and finer hairs to other areas on the face, like near his eyes, in front of his ears, and on his chin. Chin hairs are cute on raccoons. Also, to give his nose a little texture, you could add a few dots of paint on the very tip of his nose. Another detail to add as an option would be to add a little more texture to his fur. With the palette knife, I dip it in my darkest value and add it to everywhere I'd like a thicker, more Impasto. Look. This is a technique that takes practice, and if you do not like the results, make sure your painting is completely dry before giving it a go. If you need to, you can wipe it off and try again or omit it altogether. At this point, the project is complete. In the next lesson, I'll wrap the class up in the conclusion, see there. 11. Conclusion: Thanks so much for joining me in this class and good on you for watching till the very end. I hope you enjoyed it as much as I did in creating it for you. Please upload your project to the student gallery. I would love to see your take on this and revel in the comments with you. Make sure to get in touch with me in the discussions area if you have any questions, suggestions, or if you just want to say hi. Also, if you have a minute or two, let me know what you thought of this class or the acrylic painting series in general. By leaving the review, this would be very helpful if you enjoyed the class. Follow me here on Skillshare to be notified every time I publish a new one. I also have a few classes on Youtube and you can catch up with me on Facebook and Instagram as well. The links to those are on my profile page until we meet again, practice every day to grow your skills. I look forward to catching up with you again soon. Thanks again for being here.