Acrylic Painting: Geraniums in Clay Pot ~ A Step by Step Approach

1. Introduction to Course ~ Painting Geraniums in Clay Pot: I'm going to walk you through the process to paint one of my very favorite things, geraniums and a clay pot. We'll talk about composition and let's face it, some arrangements are just better than others. We'll talk about the importance of shadows. Shadows can give lots of information about direction of light in the object itself. Strong shadows will give you a more dramatic painting. I'll show you how to mix just the right colors for the Terracotta pot of light, shadows, flowers and leaves. Then we'll look at how important it is to get the outline right. If the outline is clear, your viewer doesn't need a lot of detail. You'll get to see every face of this painting from that initial block in. I'll show you how I do my shadows and how important they are to your composition. We'll talk about leaves and how to paint leaves going in different directions to make them look more believable. You'll see that leaf for the big X. I'm also going to show you mistakes that I made. Then we're going to talk about the outline of the geraniums and getting that outline shape right so that the flower is read correctly. Then you'll see me put in the subtle details, the highlights, the darks on the leaves and the flowers sitting in the stems and O those terracotta pots. I'll show you my special method of using multiple layers of color to get that beautiful glow. I'll also provide you with my photograph that you can download and you can paint along with me and end up hopefully with a beautiful geranium painting of your very own. 2. Composition ~ Great Lights and Shadows are Key: I had had my eye on this big pot of geraniums on my front porch in thinking about doing my next painting. But as I looked at the overall surrounding composition, I was not excited about big hole that was behind that POC or that plane green shrub. And about that time the sun kicked out and it eliminated that chip and dale rail and I thought, oh my goodness, wouldn't that make a wonderful background for this? So I moved it. The only problem was that light was not eating on the pot are the steps, there were no interesting highlights or shadows. So I had to wait quite a while for the sun to me. But finally I was able to catch it. This beautiful photograph, outlaw council hop is illuminated. Look at that great shadow pattern that's coming down the front of the steps. And I thought this would make a great painting. 3. Blocking in the Darks: The first thing I like to do is put in the darks, the darks to me feel like the framework, the basement, the support system of the painting, and then let the lights come and hang on top of that, I'm going to be using burnt umber, sap, green, ultramarine. I'm just going to be mixing these together, putting in a variety of kind of dark greens with a little bit of brown mixed in. When I get over into this part of the painting, That's actually the signing of the house. So I'm gonna make a dark gray there, again using burnt umber, ultramarine and white, and that should give us some good color harmony. I'm going to use a fairly limited palette on this painting. And I have found that limiting the number of colors really, really helps to keep the painting looking cohesive. Someone put some of this burnt umber, sap green. I'm just going to mix it together. I'm mixing a touch of blue That's just going to give it some super dark. I might even put it, I've got little bit of a cad yellow here. I might have a little Paul, just a little too much in there. Easy to take care of, just to have some lighter greens mixed in here and there. So there's no science to this. I'm just going to dip my brush into different piles and I'm going to fill in these darker areas. I'm going to be careful to try to get, get things super dark next to this post. Because that's where we want to get good contrast. When we get down in here, we could do things a little bit lighter. So we don't want it to look polka dotty, but we want there to be some variation here and there. Turn your brush, get some different strokes. You'll notice I'm not fussing with these brush strokes. I'm not dabbing. I'm trying to put in some I've got a lot of paint on my brush a fair amount. I'm trying to put in some long single strokes. I'm using a big enough brush where it would be hard for me to fuss with this. So you look right here and I've got a bump right there. I can take care of that later with the white or I can just leave it. I'm trying to have this look a little looser, so I'm not concerned if something isn't perfectly straight, in fact, I think that might be, might be better. I'm just working around some of these flower heads that I've sketched in. And now I've been here, I need to drop back into that dark gray so you can use black and white to make gray. But I think it's a lot more interesting to use the burnt umber, ultramarine and Hawaii. And you can get some beautiful warm grays. You can make it a cooler gray by adding more blue, a warmer gray by adding more brown. See if we get this a little bit darker. We've also got the step, which is slight, which is a much lighter gray. So I've got several values of gray from very light to very dark. So put that stuff in. So let me put this shadow pattern in first. And back around the back of the pot. It's super dark. This shadow pattern. It just doesn't have to be exactly like the photograph. But I think it's important that when you get to the edge, you've got this straight line and then it goes straight down. That's what really gives you the feel that there is a step there, there is an edge there, and that shadow is coming all the way down. Actually followed the wrong shadow there. But that's okay. If you don't like the way the shatter shadow pattern is reading, you can always go back and fix it lighter, super dark back in here. Shadows are always darkest, closest to the item. So if this shed, it came out this way, it would give a little lighter as it moved out. And it's very dark back in here, which is going to be beautiful when we put that clay pot in. It's really going to help that pot to pop. So don't be afraid of getting something too dark. I'd rather see you get something too dark, then not dark enough. If you're painting looks a little flat, it might be because your values are too close together. You don't have enough dark, darks and white lights. 4. Blocking in the Clay Pot: Next we're going to fill in the clay pots. So I need a super light place and then I need a darker place. My, my photograph, actually that part, the third, that is geranium serene on my front porch is a huge part and it's one of the plastic ones made to look like terracotta so I can pick it up. I might show you some pictures of some other terracotta paintings that I've done where I use darker, richer colors, which is what I wanna do on this. I've been kind of experimenting on a paper plate, trying some different things. I think they're a little brighter than what I want. So I have some burnt sienna cad yellow, medium cad orange. And this is a Liquitex. Let me see what that is. That is called Rose Pink. Since the flowers are going to have some of the pink in it. I like to pull that same pink into the pot sometime. So I'm just going to mix, mix a very dark value in a very light value and we'll put a little bit of the pink and that mixture. And if we don't want it, we can do something else. It's looking a little too orange and put that in there. And we'll just pull some out of that same pile. I'm going to add some white to it. It's just good to practice with color and see what you come up with. This looks, This looks a little muddy, but I think on the painting it's gonna be good. The main thing is whatever. If you go more with the pink terracotta or an orange or brown, just make sure between these two values that you've got a great distance. You don't want these colors being close together. One needs to be very dark and the other needs to be very light. So I'm gonna just put these on the painting and let's see how they look. I'm going to use this rosemary and company classic long flat. This is a size five. I really liked these brushes, so I'm gonna, I'm gonna put plenty of paint on the brush. I'm gonna do some long expressive strokes. I'm not going to dab, I'm just going to try to do this and as few strokes as possible. I'm really just, I see this as doing the blocking of this painting. I'm going to go back in and add a little variation and all these. I don't want big blocks of solid color. So I'm just trying to really establish my values right now and get the first layer put in and get a feel for where we're going. There is also the same white color, bright around this room. And right up in here, and actually right here along this top edge, if you'll notice, it gets even lighter. So I'm going to just add a little white to that. And I'm going to drop that in right here. It gets a little like down in here as well. I'm not going to try to put in these grooves that are in that plastic pot and all these different lines I drew that in. But the more I look at that, and I'm actually going to go even wider right there. The more I look at, I think it's just confusing. So I'm not going to try to put that detail land. I really liked just plain, smooth clay pots. It's just hard to beat that. So let's try this darker color and see what happens. Again, I decided I'm not going to put that extra groove in there. So I'm just, I'm just painting over that big loose strokes. This may feel like too large of a brush for you, but depending on the size painting you're doing, I encourage you to get the size brush that you think you want to use and then go up at least one size. Because we tend to pick up brushes that are way too small and that's where you get a real fussy looking painting. Over on this side. It is slightly darker. I'm going to add just a little more of the burnt sienna to this, just to darken that up slightly. And that top edge actually has a shadow of some leaves. So then all that's going to be covered by leaf. So again, we're just trying to get in that first layer. We're gonna go back over all this, but just making sure that things read, write that the values read correctly. 5. Blocking in the Rails and Steps: I'm gonna go ahead and get this light value in of the slate tile here on this porch. I'm going to get that established. Then I might even put in this railing. I just want to make sure that it's reading correctly and sort of leave this like the cherry on top. So I'm going back in. We had our dark gray. I'm just going to make sure I've got a real super light gray. And I'm going to drop that right in. Again, big strokes. Confident strokes because we are very confident. We're not scared of this painting. All right? We are brave painters were willing to take chances and just get it in as quickly as you can. Don't fuss with it. There's actually a little bit wider edge right here where the light's catching the edge of that step. We'll go back to her. This gray is actually slightly darker, but not a lot. You know, there are places in your painting where you need to see a significant value difference like here and here. But there are other places where that value difference is going to be very subtle, like from here to here. These are both in the light, but this is going down. This is, This is receiving the light coming directly and this is going to be slightly more in shadow. When we get to the post, there's gonna be a white and a slightly darker, like a light gray for the shadow. And that's gonna be a place where the difference is going to be more subtle and the values. But sometimes that subtlety can be very impactful. Sometimes you need a big difference, sometimes you need a subtle shift. If we decide later that we don't like the shadow patterns and what's happening. We can always go back and change those again, we're just trying to get things kinda blocked in. I'm using a big brush that's kinda rough. That is not allowing me to do real precise things. If you pick up a brush that has a super straight edge, if you use this type of brush to put that in, you will get a razor sharp one, which is what you may want to do. That's how I used to paint. Everything was very precise. Everything was razor-sharp. But now I work with these soft brushes that are kind of ruffled on the end. They won't let me get that precise look. And the paintings end up being a lot looser and more impressionistic looking. And I'm so much happier with the finished product and i'm, I'm enjoying the painting process so much more with a looser look and I'm not fussing with it and I'm having more fun with it. So I'm just trying to encourage you and that you don't have to paint that way. You may, he may rather have real sharp edge brushes, but I think the final product, if you can hang with me on this and just give it a try. So I'm going to take the slightest gray Powell and I'm going to put a ton of Hawaii in it. So it's gonna be a little less than pure white, but it's still going to be pretty pretty bright. Got some pine needles going on, right. They're going to just put that in. Then the walk the walk is actually brick right there, but I don't want to put in brick. I want the focus to be right here and I think that's gonna be real distracting. So I'm just going to kind of block that in, in the brown for now. And then we'll figure out what in the world we're gonna do with that little, little corner. I'm just looking up in here seeing if there's anything. This house, the signing of the house goes this way. And then there's a line going back this way and that's really not showing here. So that's something that I'm going to need to correct. I feel like the house is reading a little too dark. And I want this line that's the bottom of the siding, that shadow line, I feel like it needs to be much darker. I might even get like a black and brown together. And I feel like that line needs to be a little more severe. And I might lighten up this siding just a little bit. Just say you get a little difference. I don't want the house and the post in the shadows and the step all to look like one color because they're not. So I'm gonna give that some thought, but we can tweak that when we go back in with our second coat. So let me go and I'm gonna go ahead and put in the rest of the chip and dale rail. Most of it is in shadow. So most of it's going to be this color. I'm going to have some places where there's a little dabbled light hitting it. And I'm probably going to exaggerate that more than what you're seeing in the photograph just because there's so little light there. I don't want this to just get so dark back in here. I think having a little more dappling of white here and there would be more interesting. We can always paint over it if it's too much. So let me paint this in and we'll see what we have gone down a size and brush just to see if I can get that in a little better. If you can try to do this and as long as strokes as possible, you'll thank me. And I know I had been first thing about using this kind of brush, but I think I'm going to use this just to get a dark enough line. I'm just going put it right in that ultramarine and see if I can claim that. So I'm going to look at my reference photo and then I'm going to turn and see what kind of angle it's not as much of an angle as I thought. So at least that'll kinda give me some placement. Okay. Let's carry that right there. See that line is not at the same angle as that line. So this one looks more realistic. I'm want to just take this one off. Not a big deal. I don't really worry too much about if these lines are exactly like the photo. My concern is in looking at the painting, do they read correctly? So I want to get this and this at the same angle. Right angle that just a little bit more. And again, we can go back over that and fix that. But at least I've got the framework for it. I've made an executive decision here. Even the photograph, the value of this post in this step are about the same. The post and the chip and dale rail are white, while this is a gray slate. I'm going to lighten all of this up to me. It just doesn't look like quite would anymore. It's just kinda requires that so gray. So I'm going to lighten all of this up, but I'm still going to keep these bright whites. And I'm still going to keep these deeper shadows. But I think in some of the rest of these, I'm going to just generally lighten that up. Still have some wider dapple places and we'll see how that reads. 6. Tips for Painting Leaves: All right, We're getting ready to learn how to do these leaves. I'm using just three colors. I have ultramarine blue, cad yellow light, and titanium white. All three of these are Liquitex colors and they are heavy body paint. There is a time to use less expensive Liquitex paints that are just the basics. But I would suggest for this particular application we want to have good coverage. So I would go with the heavy body. I'm going to mix a variety of greens. And I'm putting the white and just to help it be more opaque. So we're just going to do, and I'm going to do some fairly big pile. So I've been experimenting with this and I found it was taking a lot of paint, so ultramarine and cad yellow light and make a beautiful green. So there's a medium tone green. Let's do a much lighter value. You can pull some of that out as your starter. Let's see where we get with that. That's reading far too yellow. Really. You can use blue greens, yellow greens, whatever greens you want to use for yours. I'm looking at my my photograph and I'm wanting it to read similarly to that, but it doesn't have to look exactly like it. Put a little bit more blue when they're when you put white in, it can make something look chalky. Let me show you what I mean. It cools it down a lot. But there are places on our leaves where it's almost white, where the, it looks so washed out. Alright, the other thing that I wanna do with our paint Paul's is to add a slow dry medium. They're different companies make something that's called a, this one is by Golden. It's called Open slow drying acrylic medium in a gloss. Liquitex makes when different companies make them that are maybe less expensive than this. The reason I like the Golden is it has this twist cap where you can put just a drop into your paint. And it's easy to put too much of this and ruin the consistency of the paint. So I like the ease of that application. And what that's going to do is give us a longer time before that paint dries. It's the one problem with acrylic paint is it tends to draw so quickly that sometimes you can end up with hard edges. And when you're blending colors like these leaves, they're going to, some of these leaves will have all three of these colors. It's going to look a lot softer and more painterly if those paints are sort of blending nicely together. And I thought before we go right onto our painting, let's experiment with some of these leaves. And I wanted to actually pulled one of the leaves off my plant. And I wanted you to just see this is not like a cardboard circle that you cut out. It has a lot of movement to it. It has a lot of ups and downs to it. So as you're painting it, you're not painting a flat circle. You're painting something with a lot of waves to it. And when you're painting geraniums and geranium leaves, I want you to be very, very mindful of the outside edge. Because if the outside edge looks right to the, to the person who's looking at your painting. It will look very believable. So I'm going to draw several geranium leaves in different positions. And let you see what I mean. I am using a number to Rosemary and company ivory long flat brush. So I'm going to wet my brush, dab it off omega1 to this lighter green. And just to give you an example, one of the things that we, the geranium leaf always has that makes it so distinctive is this split. Sometimes the split overlaps and you don't really see it. Sometimes the split will be very far apart and it's very distinctive for our purposes since we want people to know that this is a geranium leaf, since we're not trying to put in tons of detail, I'm probably going to exaggerate that split just so it'll be obvious that that's what we're painting. So I'm going to paint one leaf that's facing us. So I'm going to. I'm going to have a pretty big split. So make sure you get that distinctive be the geranium is wider at the top. You could think of this like wavy elephant ears. And then it's wavy but smaller at the bottom. And it will read like a geranium leaf. Don't worry if it's not precise. Even black right there where there's a little sketchiness there. That doesn't bother me because we're going to try to do this loose, impressionistic. Alright, now let's, let's see if we can draw a leaf. So that's sort of looking at the leaf head on. Let's see what it would look like if the leaf was more up at an angle like this. So I'm gonna, again, I'm gonna get that real distinctive split. What you can do that I have found helpful is to get, I get my split and then I get what's in the front of the leaf so that the front of the leaf comes up in front of that split. Now that looks kinda funny. Let's see. Remember this has a little bit of wave to it. Uh, probably fill this in a little more carefully. I'm going to exaggerate that just so people will know that's the back. Yes, the back of the leaf. And you see right here I can actually see the bottom of the leaf which is wider and it's lighter. So I might even put that little stem in. To make that read a little better. We can all say put some, some shadow. We have been going down into this. We can just drop some ultramarine and do that. Alright, I don't like the way this one is looking. So we're just going to take that one out. One of the things that I like to do with my videos, instead of editing out my mistake. So it looks like I'm a perfect painter and I know what I'm doing 100% of the time. I'm really want to show you the process that I go through. And I often, before I put something on a canvas, I'll experiment with different brushes. I'll try different things and if I have something that doesn't work, it doesn't work. So I wanted you to see. I thought that would work. I'm sure if I spent a little more time on it, I could get it to look right, but I'm trying to do these leaves pretty quickly and easily. So I'm just going to scratch that one and say that's a bust. So let's do a leaf fits going a little more at the side, a little, little more, turn to the side. So the V, again, I, I kinda start with the V. There. You've got one turn other direction. It's really important with your painting that you do not have ten leaves all facing exactly the same direction. It's just not going to read correctly, but if you'll turn them, so notice when you turn it, this leaf is not gonna be as full. It's going to look a little flatter on that side. Let's do another leaf where it looks like it is very flat. So let's me see if I can find one in our picture to go by. There's just that doesn't look like much, but it's got the split. That tells people where the head of that leaf is. It's fairly flat. They know that there's a stem right down in here and that leaf is going out that way. Before we drop this into the painting, let me show you what I'm also planning to do as far as shadow there so many leaves and shadow because this paint is still wet. Because of that slow down medium. I can just go in and this is pure ultramarine. And I can just drop that in. And didn't that beautiful. See that you get this nice soft transition. You don't get this hard. Screech elan where this to me looks more like oil paint. It's just beautiful. They're going to be places where you're going to have dabbled light. Going across the leaf. Where there's a shadow from the leaf above. Or there's just a dappling somewhere. And we'll just go in with ultramarine right on top of that. And then there are other places where we've got this super light edge where it's catching the light. And we'll use our lightest color there. And we're just going to drop that in. Let that sit on top of that leaf. I think that's going to look great. You can always smooth it out if you don't want that much of a contrast, but I think that's reading very nicely. So let's take this and we're gonna go onto our canvas. Now. I've got a leaf right here. I'm keeping a little bit of wiggle to it. I'm making sure I've got that split. Because it's the split that's going to tell you it's a geranium leaf. If it's not perfect, don't worry about it. That leaf is almost completely in shadow, so while it's wet, I'm just going to go in and drop this ultramarine. I like that. This is very painterly looking. It's very loose. It's not doesn't look precise. You're seeing the brush marks in it. I'm going to zoom in on this a little bit, see if that'll help you to see these. Alright, the leaf sits right above it. It's very, it's in a lot of light. Say I think this contrast, these leaves so close together. It's got a real definite split that one's behind this one. That one's not looking quite as believable. Just keep messing with it. You can always go back over to a T, but I really encourage you with these. Try to put down some loose strokes and leave them and don't fuss with them. Trust this process. Let's just go through and put the leaves in, put the geraniums. And I'm planning on going back over a lot of this with a second coat. And I'm going to show you some really pretty things to do with this clay pot. But let's just kinda trust this process and see if we can't get these leaves and where they're very organic and very loose and painterly expressive. Again, I'm going to kind of exaggerate that split. This is a little bit of a bigger leaf. So remember it's going to be water in that first section, and then it's going to be smaller. So remember your elephant ears. Another thing that's gonna be real important for this. So I just went over that I didn't really mean to it's important to have your leaves overlapping. You don't want everything having it same space. You need to have a lot of overlap. So in this whole section, we have, we have some flowers up in here, but really in this whole section, we've got leaves. Doesn't mean we have to paint in a 100 leaves, but we're going to put in some leaves that are very distinctive where you really see the outline. And then we're gonna put in some darker things just to fill in to let the reader or the viewer know that there are other leaves back there, but we're not painting them all in. Let's see what happens there. We'll just we might need to get some sap green to go with the ultramarine. Me, try that to put in that background. Because we want that just to read like it's just so dark that you're not seeing anything back there. So let me just try just some pure Sap green. 7. Tips for Painting Flowers: The next thing I'm gonna do is mix up several values for the flowers. And you could really do those and read, or coral or paintings. Any of those three colorways would be believable. But I've decided for the lighter pink, I'm using this Liquitex, rose pink, amazing Liquitex, heavy body, Alizarin crimson. And then I'm using titanium white. And I'm just going to make several strings of a, a dark, a couple of mediums and a light. So the slightest one, I've just taken white and a touch of that light pink. I would refrain from using pure white because I just don't think it's going to read correctly, but the pale pink will read like it's completely in sunlight. And there are different ways that you can do this. We could try to paint in individual petals and show the variation within the pedal. My preference is to take big brush strokes and just block in a good outside edge. If you, if you get a variation as little square it off places where it really varies, your viewer will read that as a geranium. So that's, that's my plan. I'm going to show you another painting of some geraniums that I did with that same method, rather than trying to do individual petals, I just focused on the outside edge. I use several strong values and I just left that interpretation to the viewer as to the petals. And it was just a looser, more impressionistic look that I was happy with. So that's what we're gonna do on this one. You'll notice in our photograph that some of the flowers have larger rounder heads. Some are at an angle, some are just starting to open. They're at different degree. So we don't wanna do round balls and we don't want to do them all the same size. So I'm gonna go in first and put my deepest color in them, get plenty of paint on my brush. I'm gonna go into this deeper. E. Notice I'm doing nice big strokes. I'm turning my brush. I'm not worrying about this being precise. I'm not trying to do individual petals. I'm turning my brush. I'm mindful that outside edge. I want to keep that outside edge. Really distinctive. Keep in mind that there is a place of greenery of the stems underneath, so it's not a full ball. You've got to lay place for those stems. I'm just putting in these darkest values where I see them dropping some in here and there. Now I'm gonna go to my next value, which isn't that far from this darkness when these are not huge differences but there enough that I think, I think it will read right. So again, isn't that nice, that lighter one next to that darker one? Again, I've got plenty of paint on that brush. I'm putting down a confidence stroke and I'm leaving it. I actually have a little blob of paint here and there. I think that's really pretty. I'm going to leave that in here. If you'll notice these are going very quickly. I'm not I'm not fastened. I'm not going back in. I'm not trying to massage those strokes. Just be mindful of the shape of the petals in that outside edge. You can get that outside edge to read correctly. You've got half the battle. This is one that actually wasn't in the photograph. I just drew that in. Oops. So let me again. Confident strokes, confident strokes. Now I'm gonna go down to the next slightest, which is just lists. Instead of going that one that's so close, I'm gonna go up just ended this light pink that was right out of the tube. The only problem with that is it may not have the coverage. These others have a little bit of the titanium white, which is an opaque paint. So if this is too transparent, then we'll have two will have to switch over. Let's see what happens there. Okay, I think that's nice. Seem to be getting good coverage. I don't wanna get too many blooms on here. And I can always go back. Said, That's nice Where I accidentally picked up a little white and I had some white and some pink on the same mark. And that's what's happened right there. And I think that's really nice. So let's I feel like Bob Ross that, that was a happy accident. So let's continue with this light pink with this other mixture. So I've got both on the brush. I think that's nice. When we get way out here. I'm just gonna go to this lightest one that's just white with a touch of the pink. Remember to turn your brush very those strokes. You want the widest ones out here near the edge, this one, which is in full sunlight. I'm going to even put more wide that I just pulled from this pile. So that's just got a very light touch of that pink. So that's really going to give you that feel. For this next stroke. I'm a very, it just a little bit. It's underneath that one. This is a place where just a subtle variation in color can make a lot of difference. It doesn't look like much difference on this, but it can, can really make a difference in your painting. I'm going back to my white there. So I'm trying to decide. I think the geranium blends really our way up and above the foliage. And I'm going to put leaves in here and not try to get those blooms down in here. I don't think they're gonna read correctly. So I'm gonna go back in and start filling in the foliage. Now there's one bloom right in here, that's just the buds. I might see if I can just put that in. So to do that, instead of putting a full stroke, I'm just going to use this corner. I'm going to dip the corner. So I've got plenty of paint just on that edge. And I'm just going to Might even go a little lighter. Because they are, they are lighter. We also have these little buds on these other plants. I think I might, rather than trying to put all those buds and I might go ahead and finish the leaves, put the stems, and then last we'll go back and put those little buds. So one of the advantages of using a little stay wet palette is I just took the lid off and there my leaf colors again. So I'm gonna go up in here. I'm going to take this medium value since we're kind of up here. Season big strokes, we're not trying to we're just trying to get that illusion of leaves. I've picked up a little bit of pink on my brush there. Didn't mean to, but it's okay. I think that adds to that painterly look, if that bothers you, you can wipe your brush off in between each stroke. It's important to have some leaves that are going behind flowers. Most of these flowers are sticking out beyond the leaves. The leaves for the most part, need to read like they are going behind the flowers. In some plants you'll have leaves going in front of the flowers. But for this one, I think it's important that they go behind. When you get to the top. The flowers are going to stick up above the lease, so we don't want to put the leaves all the way up to the very top. I think this is as far as we need to go. And then we can go back in and fill in some of these background places. Actually in the photograph there was a flower way up there. I guess I'll put that in. It's right in the middle of the painting, which you want to try to avoid that. So I might bump that flower over a little bit, so it's over there. But let me, let me finish my greens real quick. I'm gonna go up to my lightest green. Kinda make a statement with this big one. Give that one a lot of shape. Put it out there in that full light. Again, that's just helping build that illusion that there's a lot of light coming in right here. That one's going to require a second coat, but that's okay. Let's do another one backup of this petal. Feel like we need one more here. Just to help outline that flower. Just kinda making these up. You can go back and look at your reference photo. There was also a very light one that was where this pot is is light. There was one that was catching. And then it got very dark again as it went back up underneath that leaf. Again, we're going back, we're gonna go back over these leaves and do a second coat. The, I don't know what that law is. So that was just a glob of paint that had dried and I just scraped it off with my fingernail. You may choose to leave something like that. I felt like it was really kind of jumping out. So let's get back and pick that one last flower up in there. Get back to my pink palate. Sure, your brush is real plane. That one is still in a fair amount of shade. I'm going to turn it a little bit. We'll leave a big gap right there. I've gotten back from this and I can't encourage you enough to get back from your painting pretty often because it can read very differently at a distance. And I feel like these flowers can be a little bit bigger. So I'm going to just go back in and enlarge a few of these. Not going do anything really crazy, but I'm just going to build these out just a little bit. Again, being very, very mindful of that outside edge. This is a really important edge because it's going against such a dark and it is in the center of something very purposeful. To get a good, clean, interesting edge there. Lighten up again, some edges here and there. Okay, So I think the next step now is to go and we've got our flowers established. I don't want to get carried away with the flowers. Were the leaves. I think we have enough foliage. I think the flowers are large enough. So I'm gonna go back in and just fill in the spaces that are behind. One thing in looking at this, and I felt this way from the beginning, even though this value of gray is reading correctly to the photograph, it looks to gray to me, I want this to be very obvious that it is a white rail behind it and I feel like it's just looks too dark. I'm gonna go ahead and carry this white all up into this rail and I'm going to re-establish some white back in here. And then I'm going to keep some of my real darks and put in some white or white. So you're going to see me, I'm going to speed this up, but I'm want to rework that rail and then we'll go in and fill in some more foliage here, more background. 8. Beautiful & Important Details: I'm turning my brush. I've got some of the sap green on there. But on the same stroke also have this original darker value. So that when I lay that stroke and I'm going to get a little bit of both. I'm turning my brush. I'm using the full stroke, I'm using the corner, I'm using the edge. Just trying to, to get some variation in there. We're not trying to paint in all these leaves. We're just trying to give the illusion that in that background, we've got some other things going on. So I think that's softening this up a lot too, where it was. You know, don't don't be afraid to use a bigger mark. This is an area where we actually see some stems coming down. Like this little brush. I'm using a Monte Bello. I have no idea where this brush came from, but it's a flat and it's got a fairly tight his old age. So I've got a kind of a little sharp edge to it there. It's easy to put in these little lines. So I'm kinda why can help the stems are looking ahead and really plan to do that yet. But let's, Let's drop in a stem here and there. I think that looks too wide. That paint underneath is probably still wet and what's not okay. So I'm gonna see if I can just mark that off. No harm done, right? I'm licking it with my tongue. Probably not the most hygienic thing, but I've just taken care of that. What I need to do is really go back in and finish these leaves before I start painting to me stems on top, but I love how that's looking. So let's see if there's anything else we wanna do. Just in that background. Just to break up that dark a little bit. That just looks so much better. Again, we're just going after that. A lesion of something happening in the background. Okay. So before I put my stems and I'm gonna get back over these leaves one more time. I'm looking at my photograph. There are some extreme lights and darks through here where shadows are hitting. Now that I've lived with this, I'm not really liking the color harmony of these all that much. I don't think this is the one that's bothering me a little bit. I like these blue or green and then this role light one. So I'm just going to kind of lay this back in one more time. And we'll do some really light, really loose strokes. Might even. We've got some really light defined places on these leaves separated by some little dark marks. So there's no real science to it. We're just trying to kind of mimic. We can go back into the slight one and drop a little shadow. And that shadow, and at the back of this one. I'm going to go back in. I'm going to take that out when I do the clay pot. I don't like that at all and I like seeing more of the rim of the pot and the dirt. So I'm going to redo that. Here's one where it gets too straight right through here. And to me that looks like an AVI leaf. So I'm going to go back out and then I'm gonna get back out again. Go back up into this dark 11 more time. Oops. I could wipe that off for I'm just going over it again. I'm just getting a little darker up underneath the flower where it would be in shadow. I'm just not I'm just trying to get rid of that green. I'm not crazy about it. I dislike this bluer. Look. It's nice having a light leaf next to a dark. Dropping in a little more. I'm just using some ultramarine right there and just dropping in a little bit of a darker edge. I don't really like that solid navy line, but This hit that highlight one more time, just make a little more of a statement there. I decided I need a little more drama and contrast. So I'm going back in to my Alizarin crimson and just picking up some of that solid red. And I'm just dropping that in just a couple of places. I don't want to overdo it, but where things are really in shadow, I want to just get that extra kick in the extra drama. Just very little. I think that's gonna be, gonna be it. But I'm just taking just different little dollops of this and that, dropping it in here and they're just trying to get some different shadows and marks. Just trying to get a variety of colors here, variety of marks. And again, we're going to take care of that. Okay, So I think we are ready to go in and start putting in some stems and start putting in the little. I need to figure out what you call those, the little buds that are beneath the geranium head. I know they must have a name. I will find that, put that on here. So I'm want to go back and use this same little flat brush that has a real chiseled in unlocking that very much. I'm going to go into this medium green. Make sure that your stems are not all just going up and down. They need to be coming to the side. They may make Thanks to have some curve to them to make them more interesting. If he, if you mess it up, you can go back and think about where are you going to start it, but think about where it's going to end. Don't just start drawing it and end up in the middle of your pot. You need to think about like this one. Is it going to go, I think it's just going to go behind that leaf. This one is going to go into there. So that didn't really show up very well. So I'm gonna, I'm gonna darken it just a little bit. Try to do this in one long stroke. It's good to let the stems cross and you can let it disappear and then reappear where a leaf is in front of it or behind it. Just try to get a variety. Here's a pretty one because it's going to be so long. And I like the fact that it's really going off at an angle. You could even have it going across that other flower. Just play with it. See what makes your heart jump. If something happens and you're not crazy about that's okay. Just go back in and fix it. This one really isn't showing up very well. I don't know that I want to get that much darker. So it may just be that that one's not going to show terribly well. Little white will need to get back in, in any place where you've got white showing through the canvas, we need to get those taken care of. So the next thing I wanna do, get our little bulbs hanging down and we're going to do, I'm going to use a little liner brush to make those little marks. This is a rosemary and company ivory rigor. It's a size 0. It's designed to be used wet so you get some water on your brush. You need to be able to whip that thing around. If it's not whipping, it's too dry. So put a little more water in it so that you can get a nice loose little stroke with that. You can add some more water to it. Let's just give that a try. I'm not putting much pressure on this because I don't want a wide line. I want a very narrow line. And these little flowers are not all exactly the same distance. And some of them even go up at an angle. So be sure when you do this to vary this so it looks organic and natural. That's not showing up at all. Let's go up in here. And some of your strokes can go right in front of that stem and then we can put a little flower right from the stem. They don't all have to go out to the side. They're really nice where you got it in front of something super dark. That's another advantage of putting a real dark background in. This one doesn't really have a stem, so I'm going to put a little more pressure on it, see if I can get that little water. And then we'll put those down. Darken this one just, oops, picked up some yellow. Are also girl a lot when I make a mistake. I think that helps to make a girl sound. Again, it's one of the things I just love about acrylics there. It's just say forgiving. If you mess up, you can just wipe it off. Go back over it. No harm done. It, maybe a little frustration, but okay, so now we need to get back in and put those tiny little flower. So let's see what kind of brush we might want to use for that. We might want to use a little round brush or we might want to use a very small flat. So there's one way to find out, I'm going to try this as a rosemary and company. No, it's not. It. This is a royal sable. Size eight. Looks awfully small for a size eight. I'm going to wet my brush. I'm going to dip in this pink and white together. And I'm going to try just putting a little bit of a blobby look to that. Okay. I'm not wildly excited about it. Let's not trying to make any big statement here. We're just trying to see I like that a little better because it looks a little unnatural and I liked it. There's some white and pink combined. I think that looks better. And then just the so don't overthink it. Just a little quick stroke. It's okay for one of those to go in front of another flower, to go in front of a stem. You don't have to put it on every flower. Not everyone will necessarily have that. This one I'm going to do a little darker because it's in shadow, but I'm going to have a variety. Again. Sharon, turn your brush and I may just leave that at that. I don't want to I'd rather have too few then too many. I think that's good. 9. How to Paint the Clay Pot: Alright, I'm ready to work on this clay pot again. And I ended up introduce some other colors here. I'm going to use raw sienna. These are all Liquitex and they're heavy body, so they're gonna give us a lot more coverage. So I've got raw sienna, which is this camel color. I've got burnt sienna, which is this beautiful color of mud. And then I've got a little yellow Oxide to lighten it in areas rather than using white. And I'm also probably going to use some of our light pink in there as well. So I'm just going to play with this as I showed you with some other clay pots. I like to just mix a variety of colors. You can see if you're getting this. You can lighten it with the yellow ocher. You can add some of the pink to it. And let's just put some different likenesses in here. I'm going to use some big strokes. I like that little pink mixed in. The main thing is we want to keep our values correct. So in this area where it's lightest, where the sun's hitting it. We want to make sure that reads correctly. This drawing is off a little bit. I'm going to need to pull that pot down a little bit. And that may take a couple of coats to get that right. And I have a hair. So in the photograph we were catching some light up here and I've covered it too much with the leaves. So I'm gonna go back in and try to cover that. Again. I might have to add a little titanium white to my mixture. To get, to get the coverage, I need to go over that leaf. And then we can go back over it with the right color. So that's going to take me a couple of coats to get that leaf covered up, but that's okay. I'm like Get a little of the burnt sienna mixture with the raw sienna. I think that's just a beautiful color. And I'm going to just see how that looks for our shadow. I think that's just beautiful. It just looks like a Terracotta pot. You can see where the, I'm eventually going to go in and put a very dark line right under that ridge, so it looks like a shadow. But I'm very pleased with this. Now you can also take this a darker brown if you want to get a really dark shadow in and just drop that in. On the far side. I like using a variety of colors in my pots. I particularly liked the parts that I have in real life that are old and got some personality to them rather than something that looks like you just bought it today. We don't want that. Sum using the Sheila oxide again with some ease in these three just in varying degrees of lightness. I'm not mixing it thoroughly and I'm leaving it. I love having a little bit of a yellow something mixed in because that does make it look like the sun's hitting it a little bit. But basically I just play with it. I don't like so you see how the rim of the pot comes out and it cuts in. We don't have that over here. So I need to pull this rim out a little bit. And that's probably going to take some multiple coats. So to get there, I might just go over that was white. And that white is going to give me better coverage. And I'll let that dry and then I'll go back over it. I'm going to draw up to some of the pink on top of this list. Let's see what that does. I think that's pretty, I'm just getting a mixture of colors going sort of loss. This outline here. In the photograph It's pretty sharp. Doesn't necessarily have to be. You could just blend it out into a little medium value. And then let it get really dark over here. A little bit browner. It's okay having these other colors peeking through, I think that makes it more interesting. Another illusion to help this look more realistic is when you have a leaf coming up over a pot, is to put a shadow line underneath that. So I'm going to take some of my, maybe my brown and my burnt sienna. And I'm just going to I'm not going to overthink it. I'm just going to follow that line. And let that just be a shadow. Let's see if this has dried any. I'm going to put a little more white over that just because it's not covering. I'm going to put a lot of white there and let that dry. And then I'll go back over it with our terracotta. Same thing right here. I think I'm trying to cover up that dark could be a challenge, so I'm just going to put in some white correct my drawing. I'll let that dry and then I'll come back. I might do the same thing right here. I've gone over this with several coats and it's just not covering wide is it's kind of counter-intuitive that white would cover up, but it sure does. We'll let this dry for a few minutes and then I'll come back to it. So I've gotten back from this, which I really encourage you to do frequently and I wanted to talk with you about things that I really like that I think are working well. Some things I'd like to change, something that I just love is going in and putting in that darkest red, even though it's not really that way in the photograph. When you get back from it, that is just making it pop. And I'm going to go in and maybe add a little bit in the center of these. Even, I love that. I'm glad I got that more yellow, green leaf out of this. I like the color harmony of the leaves. I think they're reading really well. What I do not like is how these are in this perfect little circle. I don't like the shape of them particularly, but I don't like that there. So even this has better when they come down. Because in real life they're not even in they are splayed out. So I'm going to probably rework those a little bit, but overall, I'm very pleased with this. I think this is still a little wet. As soon as this gets dry, we'll go over the pot again. I do want to go over the steps again. I want to vary this a little bit. I want to put a variation of grays in here rather than looking quite so solid. I might lighten this just a little bit more. Lighten this up just a little bit more. I'm just trying to tweak it, push it so it reads better as a painting. When I get back from it, I love this piece of white that's popping right here. So I might add a little more white here and there. I might make that wider and make that a little darker. Maybe make this shadow a little more interesting, even though that's sort of how it is in the photograph. Maybe put some individual kind of leaf shapes here. So that just reads a little more interesting. So I'm probably going to speed all of that up, but I just wanted to share what I'm doing and what my thoughts are. And basically I'm very pleased with it. It just needs some tweaking. I think this part's already looking much better. I'm going to put that dark line in and you'll see me continuing just to add some little layers, have some pinks. I'm probably going to lighten up this highlight area in places a little bit more and probably darken this up a little bit more. Again, just to get a little more contrast. 10. Class Project: For your class project, I'd like to encourage you to try one or more of the elements in this painting. Perhaps much uranium flowers with leaves or clay pot. Or why not download the Phaedo and try the whole painting. I would love for you to post your project. Reviews are so important for classes on Skillshare, would you take a moment and leave a Ruby? I appreciate your time and hope you get to paint together again soon.