Acrylic painting for beginners: Join me in making this lovely fish.

1. Introduction: Welcome to make his master class. Today, we'll be making this fun fish for the materials needed for this class, I put down a list. We'll start by making a nice first layer as an underground. When our first layer dries together step-by-step. But I will show you how easy it can be to make a good sketch. And after we mix our colors, which is one of my favorite things to do, I will show you in a short technique video or the brushstrokes we will use. Then it's time for the fun painting. I'll show you again step-by-step how to paint a bit loose and not to be afraid to use a different brush strokes. This class is great for beginners, though. If you are a more advanced artist, you will still love this class. And my tips and tricks will help you brush up your skills. I invite you to do this class with me and show me or fish. I would love to see it. Welcome to make this masterclass. 2. Materials: Going shopping for materials is like going into a candy store, beautiful and lots of fun, but it can also be a little bit overwhelming. So my advice is stick to what you need. You can always get more. As for paper, I suggest two different kinds, one for sketching and one for painting. I like my sketching paper to be a little bit big, around 12 to 16 inches. Quality doesn't have to be great for painting. I advise a good quality paper like mixed media or watercolor paper. It's always nice to prime your paper. And for paper, are you schizo? I will show you in a separate video how to do this. You will need some tape to tape your paper to a board. And this board can be anything, can be cardboard, wood, as long as it is form. I use a canvas panel board like this one size 16 to 20 inches. For a palette, I loved this disposable one. It's incredibly easy to use and no mess in cleaning up. If you like to be a little bit more conscious about disposing, you could get a glass palette. It's easy to clean with a glass scraper. I will show you how to do this in a separate video. As for p, and there are many possibilities. And with paint usually the more expensive, the better the quality. But for beginners, as studio quality will do fine and just get the basic colors. Yellow, red, blue, white, and black. I do suggest an extra blue, a lighter one, or a turquoise, as this is a little bit hard to mix. I love mixing colors and I'm going to teach you all about it. You could get a color wheel. It might help you understand mixing a little bit better. For mixing the paint. You will need a palette knife, and I like mine to be long and flat. And when you're a bit messy like me, you need one of these panes scrapers to get the knife clean of dried up. And the brushes. I suggest a big spotter brush for priming and making a background. Then a medium-size brush and two of its smaller siblings with the round tip. In Holland, we call this a cat tongue. It's synthetic hair and I suggest a number 201814, and then about the same size as number 14, but the top is straight and the brush is a little bit more flat. And then a small, round pointy one. This one is a number ten, and I keep it next to my fingers so you can kinda see the size. And for sketching, I use either charcoal or chalk. I never use a pencil. It just doesn't work is nice. And last a nice paper towel or a piece of cloth for cleaning and drying your brushes. 3. 1st class: The fish/ Preparing: Let's start preparing with an underground color for our fish. And I peeked the red color for my Underground because I think that is the most suitable color. Not going to prime my paper today. I'm just going to use this underground color as my primer. Taken off paint. Because it's a bit annoying if you've run out when you are making this underground color. If you don't have a sputter brush like this, I've got a bit of a bigger brush. Of course, you can use any other brush, but it's quite a small brush. You just might want to use a cloth. I will show you. This just works really, really well. I make my paint a bit watery because I don't think that my underground color has to be really neat. I don't want it to be completely opaque. I love the white shining through a little bit. I just like to like it to be a little transparent. Let me show you what it looks like when I do it with my cloth. I need to wet it a little bit. Don't do too much goes then the whole thing will start running. And take some paint and just smear it on there. And this is so quick, it dries also really fast if you do it this way. I really love this. Now it's nicely covered. We're just going to have to wait a little bit until it's dry and then we can start sketching. So I will see you in the next video. 4. Techniques : We just made a background color. And I will tell you why I usually make a background color during this class. In this short video, I will show you all the techniques that we'll be using in my class. I will show you how to use your brushes in different ways so it can help you create more depth in your colors. First one, keep painting until all the paint is gone from your brush. This can create different shades in one color. Your pain might get a little bit drying the end. You can just add some water and it will make your paint even more transparent. Number 2, using different brush strokes. And of course your finger to smooth your patient. Number 3, create different lines with your brush. Take some paint and maybe some water depending on how thick your paint is, you want your paint to flow smoothly. When I hold my brush straight and push, the line will be solid. Then when I hold my brush straight and push and pull, the line will be wobbly. Number for holding your brush in a different way so you can vary your stroke. This time. Take up your brush very loosely, and hold it quite flat. Now when we are painting, do not push your brush just loosely. Let it do the work. Number five, I will show you what you can do to steady your hand. If you need to. Just take up your brush a bit shorter and rest your pinky at the end or by the knuckle on the paper. When you do this, this will steady your hand. Now that I talked to you through all the techniques, we can go and start painting. And I'll see you in the next video. 5. Sketching: Sketching with charcoal is my favorite, but as charcoal pigment as well, it can color your paying a little bit blackish, mostly European and will absorb it. But I do want to tell you that it can happen. My second favorite is Chuck. The Chuck will not color your paint. And it's also a little bit more easy to take off if you need to. I usually use chalk when I don't want my sketching lines to be visible. Or if I use really light colors. Most of my projects, I will start with drawing across, over the whole paper. This because it really helps in making a good sketch. When I start sketching, first, I go looking for the simple forbes. And here that would be the circle of the head. It's a little bit an egg form actually. But I'm just going to call it the circle because I find that a little bit easier. And the circle will cross r, cross at four points. And I'm going to put those points first. I actually will sleep guess the distances. And it's usually more easy to look for smaller parts on the line. And I think the distance we are looking for is about 1 third. And really, let me tell you, your brain knows how to do this. So trust yourself a little bit. Our first is about here. Our second is about 1 fourth, 2 to right about here. For the third one, I will put the middle First. It is actually quite close to the middle. And so it will make it a little bit more easy for me to find that point. For the fourth and last point. I also put the middle first. And now I can see that my last point is close to the middle of the middle. If this is all very new to you, don't worry too much about your points. If you do these more often, you will get better at it. And it's really okay to be a bit off. Now we have our four points and we control the head. And do this loosely. You do not have to create this head in one time. Just kinda make sure it's round and go from point to point. You can do it a few times. Just be sketching. Then we move to the body of the fish. And for that I put down this point. And to find this point, I will find the point on my horizontal line to relate to. Again, I'm gonna put them it'll first, and then as we can see, it's very close to that middle point. Now the tail is a little bit above, and I am going to guess that point, like here. And now I can create my light. And again, I do this loosely. To get the end of the tail pointy. My line will have to go back this way. And I'm going to go and look for the crossing on my horizontal line. First. Here, I will go look for the crossing of my horizontal line first. And you see here on the drawing that this part is really small. So it is quite easy for me to put a mark on the line here. Now again, this line is pretty much straight and I'll just put it down loosely. Going down, you can see that the line Bennis here a little bit. To search for it is bending point. I first we'll find a relating point on my horizontal line. To make it easier for myself. I look for the closest line to relate to. And here I have the circle of the head. And I see that this distance is really easy for me to understand. And I can guess it. By the way, if you have major charcoal, thick toothpick, which can easily happen when you're just sketching. It is really quite easy to take off a little bit with your finger or a cloth, or even with a brush, a dry brush that no addressed says is to connect this point to the head of the fish. Then we go to the upper fin. This fin is like a triangle. It bends a little bit. And the other part, reduced attached to it just kind of bubbles down. The tail of my fish is also two triangles. Do pay attention. That detail is not straight. It's more in the form of a circle. So I'm going to put that half a circle line first. And it will help me later to create the tail. Something to consider here is the height of the tail fin. And to find the height, I'm first going to find another point to relate to. And that is the faint on its back. I look up the end of the tail fin and I look at the end of the back fin and I can see they're kind of the same height. And now I can draw the tail. It actually looks a little bit like a pointy banana. Next will make the two fins on its belly. Both Triangle forms. I go from this bend here and put two lines on either side. Make sure it doesn't go straight down to the tip of the triangle. It needs to have this bending look. The little Phoenix to it crosses the vertical line here. And as phi1 is, I think just a bit smaller than the other one, but kinda has the same form. Honest head here, we still need to create the gill, which is this line right here. I see a little triangle here. Riches most easy for me to relate to and easy for me to guess. So I kind of make these Gail round and move towards where the head of the fish starts. Attached to that is Gail is another Finn. And this one is quite easy to guess. I see these two dots. And the thing just barely crosses the circle of the head. Blast RID mouth and the eye. For the mouth, we create two extra lines, kinda like half a square. And to create the right line, I find again the distance on my middle horizontal line about here. And from there, I just go down. For my left line. I do the same, but here I put the dot on my vertical line. Like here. Their mouth has a formal for heart. And I'm just gonna put it in. And I see here that only the down part, the under lip passes the line to Circle Line. And that is a good point for me to relate to. And now I made dumb mouth. I can connect its head a little bit better to its mouth. And now I can connect its head a little bit better to its mouth. The inside of the mouth, again is a heart. The eye, as we can see here, doesn't pass the line of the mouth. And it also kinda sits in the middle here. And you can see that the eye is not completely round here. The left part of the eye is a bit more straight. Next step, mixing the colors. So what you learn today, The creating across finding, relating lines and forums makes sketching more easy. Well done. And I'll see you in the next video. 6. Painting bleu's and green: For painting, we will need a few brushes. One like this, and a small one like this to make the I. You could also put a third brush next to it to use for softening the pain to be too when we are working. I usually do this with my fingers, but if you don't like them to get a little bit dirty, use this extra brush. We're going to start with this one. Our first color to start with is the most darkest blue that we mixed. I'm not gonna put any water. If your paint is a little bit thick. Of course, you can use some water with my paint. It's not necessary. Don't put the paint everywhere. If you look at your fish, you can see that our red color is still visible and this is what we want to. More layers we create, the more interesting the war will be. So we take it easy and go. One layer at the time. Put the color loosely, make different brushstrokes and it doesn't have to be too neat. So I just put this dark blue in different places. And also on the fins and on the wobbly parts going down the tail fin. And don't forget, still to let the red color shines through a little bit. And at the end, when we are done, we are going to put a new background layer and this will go all around the fish. So if you want to make changes in the form of your fish or make it more neat, will do this at the end. Now just give yourself some freedom in painting. And you will really enjoy it much more. Also, this picture is just an inspiration. And if you want to change any color, feel free to do so. The inside of the mouth we make blue as well. And also as you can see, there's a blue behind the middle fin. So I'll put some here. I smooth to paint a little bit with my finger. Or of course you can use the extra brush. If your paint is dry here. Use some water. If you thin your paint with water, it will become more transparent. And this transparency will give an extra depth to your blue as the color underneath it will shine through. I really love creating these layers just by using one color. This is also the reason why I make an underground color. It can really help your work become more interesting and give it more depth. As I said, I will explain a little bit more about an underground color. When you create this underground color, the white of the paper will shine through a little bit, and this creates a very clean and bright color. These brightness only appears because of the white underneath it. So if you have painted all over your background color and you want it back, you can only do this by putting white tickin first. That is exactly the reason why I want you to go slow. Because once your underground color is gone, it is just a hassle to get it back. Next, we move to green. Looking at the fish, you can see the green has been poked in different places. Degree may also vary a bit in color depending on how thick you use your paint. And usually in the beginning you have quite a lot of paint in your brush. And I just keep painting until that paint is completely gone. This way, my green color will vary in thickness and vary in color. And this of course, as I said before, because of my red underground color, I might use a bit of water in the end as the pain can get to dry. Don't be afraid to really use your brush. You're seeing your brushstrokes really can help give your work more depth. All the fins get a bit of green as well. These wobbly line that goes from the fin up to the tail fin. I'm going to show you how to do that. I take some paint and if I keep my brush straight and push it up it it will make a solid line. But if I keep my brush a bit loose and do a push and pull, movement, aid will create a world of the play. So there we go. Let's do that again. Push and pull both parts here. And let's put some green on the lips. Creating depth can actually also be very easily done with your cloth. Just take some paint off like this. Also a bit on the down lip. I put some green and then the last part on the cheek by its Gill. And if you want to make the colors a bit more opaque, just put an extra layer. Next is are lighter blue. And we're going to put our lighter blue on our darker blue. But now completely don't cover it all. Do with careful. And I also want to still see some green. Again, I use different brush strokes. And I'm just creating this light blue layer. And again, I would like to show you how in different ways you can use your brush to get different effects. And if you keep your brush straight and you push it a little bit, your stroke will be solid. I showed you before. But now if I flattened my brush and hold it really loosely on my fingers and not pushing it. The stroke will be completely different. The brush we'll skip parts a little bit. And I really like this technique. I just kinda let the brush do the work. Also a bit of blue towards the eye and a nice blue eyebrow on the cheek as well, some blue. And I put some glue on the fins and on the lip, Also some blue. One last on the middle, thin. Next color will be pink. Clean your brush. Well, we don't want our ping now and are yellow later to be bluish. Maybe it's even good to clean your water. It might have gotten a little bit dirty after using the blue and the green. 7. Painting pink and yellow: You see there is some pink on the lips and we're going to start there. Also on the middle fins, some ping. And around this middle thin as well. Just a few other places where I'm gonna put some pink different brush strokes. And this can also vary. You don't have to do exactly what I do. Just kind of go along with your own flow. And if the pink isn't opaque and off you can just put an extra layer and then it will cover better. Let's go to yellow. Let me put some yellow here. I would like to show you how transparent yellow can be. Some colors are more transparent from nature then other colors and yellow has the tendency to be more transparent. And to make your yellow a bit more opaque, you can put some white. It will lighten your yellow a little bit, but it will definitely cover the red much better. And I'm just going to vary the brushstrokes, smooth a bit with my finger. Make a bit of variation. You see also holding my brush quite loosely. And just a little bit on the tail fin and on the two Belly fins and the upper fin as well. And this globally part, remember push and pull. And I'm here as well. Then I continue on its head. And I also do this quite carefully. Dan, I vary my brush strokes and I really pay attention to the thickness of my paintings. So I want it to be a little bit more thin on one spot and maybe a little bit more OP EEG on the other. I put my pinky for the lips. Remember, it steadies my hand, take my brush up a bit shorter and it will be a bit easier. Just make my mouth a little bit more neat. Feeling every open part with the yellow, keep it open to heat. Some places I just want my yellow a bit more opaque so I put an extra layer. Then it's time to pick up our small brush and we're gonna make the eye. 8. Painting the eye : Let me draw this. I once again for you. First, I put a circle. But the Eye of her fish is more flat on one side and a bit more round on the other side. So that's what we're looking for. Well, let's pick up our brush and take some yellow. As you can see, there is a little yellow line around the i on the left side. And that's what we're gonna do first. Again, I put my pinky on the work and put some yellow here on this left side of the eye. Then I rinse my brush and take the darkest blue color and makes it a little bit with black. On the side where I just put the yellow, I keep it straight. And on the other side, it's nice and round. Before I put the little lights, but I rinse my brush to get the dark color out. I'm gonna give you a closeup so I can show you how I put the dot and smear it a little bit with my finger. For the final touch, put a dot of white in the I don't mix your white with water, just take it like that. And that will just give the AI that extra little glow. And I will put some white on my officious. Well, just in a few places. Also on the findall bit. And that's it. What risks is now is to make a big grow color and make the background nice and neat. 9. Background layer/ Finishing touch: Mixing for my orangey color, I'm gonna take yellow and red. I do mix enough because it's quite a bit of paper I want to cover. And I also wanted to be a little bit opaque. So I'm just gonna put some white. And you see with my Becker and color, I can just fix my lines. I can make it a bit more neat. Mmm, maybe make things a bit more point t if I need to. And for me is I put all the examples on this paper, I will need a second layer to cover them up. Maybe you do need a second layer as well. You will see maybe there was some charcoal still left on your paper. If there is still some charcoal in your fish, just take it away with some paper towel or a piece of cloth. Pretty cool. We're done. I enjoyed it and I really hope that you did to I'd love to see your fish. Also. Make sure you sign up for my next class, as it's going to be a really fun class. We're going to paint some fruit. And as for today, thanks for joining my class and I hope to see you next time.