Acrylic Painting - Inspired by Nature . .. Seascapes

1. Intro Inspired by nature Seascapes: Have you ever wanted to paint the sea but you just lack the confidence to have a go? In this class, I'm going to show you how to paint an impressionistic style seascape with a looseness about it. I'm Lynn Divine and I've been a professional artist for around 30 years in the design, illustration, and fine art fields. For the last six years I've been painting mainly see and landscapes which you can see behind me. I want to to show you step-by-step how to paint a credible seascape. I'm going to show you the different surfaces that you can use and how to prepare them. We're going to talk about paint and different colors that you'll need. I'm going to show you the brushes and the tools that you can use to create a more interesting painting. I hope by the end of this class, you'll be more confident in the future to approach this subject. Let's get started. I'll see you in class. 2. The Project: [MUSIC] By the end of this class, you will have completed a loose, impressionistic seascape. I will walk you through exactly what you need, the surfaces you can use, and how to best prepare them, the acrylic paint colors you'll need, the brushes that you'll need, and the other mark-making tools you can use. I'll talk about the composition techniques that will help you achieve a pleasing result. I believe when you take part and complete the project, it will give you the confidence and the knowledge you need to progress on your artistic journey. I'd love you to share your project in the gallery and also give any positive feedback to your fellow students. Let's get started. I'll see you in class. [MUSIC] 3. Materials: Hi, in this section, we're talking about materials. I'm going to go through the different types of surfaces you can use, the different size brushes, the different grades of paint, and all of the information you need to get started in this project. You'll need either canvas board. This is one I've got here and it's made by Winsor Newton. This is a 10 inch by eight inch, but you can get smaller and a lot larger. Or, you can use stretched canvas. This is a 20 centimeter by 20 centimeter stretched canvas. You'll see at the back it's got a wooden frame and then the canvas is stretched over it and fixed at the back. Now, the good thing about stretched canvas is that you can use it and hang it. If you really liked your painting, you can hang it on the wall just like that. Whereas canvas board, here's just a little things to think about in the beginning. Canvas board, you can't hang on the wall just like that. You'd have to get it framed. So that's just something to keep in mind. We're also going to need a white gesso primer. Now this one is Winsor Newton Galleria. You can get a lot smaller tubs than this, you don't have to get this size. Although those canvas, the stretched canvas and the canvas board, both say they are primed, I always like to add a coat of my own primer and sometimes I like to add texture in it as well. It just gives it a nicer surface to work on. Some of the cheaper canvas boards have a slight sheen to them and the paint sort of doesn't lie on them very well. So that's why I tend to put my own primer on which I'll show you in the other section. You'll also need some brushes. You don't need loads of brushes and you don't need expensive brushes that I'll show you what I'm going to be using. This is a two-inch brush. This is called a flat brush. So you'll need a two inch flat brush. A medium-size brush. This is about three quarters of an inch and that's a smaller brush but you don't need a really small brush. This is a size six, so you could use a size eight or something like that. A palette knife. That's great for just trying different techniques. Also not familiar item, a toothbrush. This is a very good tool when it comes to doing cityscapes. You'll also need a pallet to work on. Now this is hobby craft tear-off palette. All sorts of companies make tear-off pallets and they're very useful. Although I have now gone on to a glass palette, which is actually a kitchen surface protector, it's not actually sold. It wasn't actually sold as a paint palette. But sometimes there are a lot cheaper doing it that way. I wouldn't use glass out of a frame or anything because the edges should be made safe in some way and that's just not appropriate. A smooth chopping board or a surface protector are fine to use because they've already taken those safety measures into consideration. But anyway, you can either use a tear-off palette, a glass palette, or you can use paper plate or polystyrene plate, that would be fine. So just set that up on the side that you want it. You also need a jar of water and probably another big container, like one of the ones that you can mix household paint in, they're quite good though. A really large size, it can wash the majority of the paint off in one of those, and then you can use the jar just to clean your brushes further. Paint [LAUGHTER]. What paint you'll need. Well, I would say there's two different grades of paint. There's a student grade, and there's also a professional grade. But for this project, you'll just need a student grade. But I will explain the difference. The difference is, a professional grade paints, acrylic paints, have more pigment in them and they are a better quality paint. But you get a great result with the student grade paints. One of which is the system three. That's a good quality student grade paint. The other one, I think a lot of people use is Winsor and Newton Galleria acrylic. That's fine. I would veer away from very cheap paints because sometimes it's sort of oily and they just don't go down very well. A part of people before in my workshops use them and they just haven't been pleased with the result and it's being more to do with the paint than actually their talent. So the colors that you'll need for this class, a process black. That can be system three, just to show you that this is the professional grade acrylic. This is golden acrylics, which has a very good reputation. The other professional acrylic that I use is Winsor and Newton professional acrylic. So they're great paints as well. But we'll stick to the student grade for this class. So process black or a paint gray, process cyan and ultra marine. A process yellow and a cadmium yellow hue, a cadmium red hue, and a process magenta, and a titanium white. Now let's say that most of these are essential. You could probably get away with not buying the cadmium red, but this is maybe you want to do more paintings in the future and this is good little basic set of colors that gives you warm and cool blues, warm and cool yellows and warm or cool reds. I'll show you why that is an advantage in the color mixing class. So you also need a pencil. I think that's about it. So that's all you need for this class. I'll see you in the next section. 4. Surfaces: [MUSIC] In this section, we're talking about the surface and how to prime it. Although you'd come by canvases pre-primed, which is what I use, I still add another layer of gesso and sometimes I add more texture to it to give it more interest. Now we're going to prime our canvas. Now, as I said before, these are already primed, but I like to put on a final coat of primer. It also gives me the opportunity to add any texture that I want to, and it just gives it a nice surface to work on. If you take the two-inch brush or one and a half-inch brush, whatever you like or roller. I'm going to work down it like this first, just put it on really quickly. [NOISE] Just go over a few times and then I'm going to go across. I'll just go over it again and might be a little bit of overflow on the side, so I'll just go up outside there. But I don't generally prime the sides as they are already primed and I don't know, just tend to do the top surface. That's if you want a smooth surface. If you want it to be more textured, for instance, if you had a really wild way, if you could add the texture with the gesso underneath the paint, it saves you on paint if you want a lot of texture in it and also it's just a really nice effect to work on. Can also use other tools or implements to put different size textures and have a tape that I use sometimes that's actually like a grid. Some DIY tape. Sometimes press that into the texture. That also gives a really nice effect in my landscape paintings. Still I have fun with that. You can see that texture, hopefully in the light. I'll leave that to dry overnight generally. Before I go, with acrylic paints and also gesso, just remember to always wash or put your brush in water immediately. Don't ever leave your brushes out because they'll go as hard as rock, and I've ruined many brush, forgetting to put that in the water. Although some people might not agree with me, I can generally leave my brushes in the water while I'm working during that day. But I think it's probably better to rinse them out at night and not leave them in there for weeks, which some people have been known to do. Because then the metal part of the brushes for a start, begins to go rusty and you just wreck your brushes quicker. But obviously sometimes when you're in a rush, it's not really a priority. But yeah, generally just rinse your brushes out properly. If you get acrylic on your clothes, whatever you do, wash it out immediately because once acrylic dries, it's very difficult to get out of anything. [MUSIC] 5. Composition: [MUSIC] In this section, I want to talk about the horizon line and the focus. If you look at this painting behind me, I want you to focus to beyond the waves. There wasn't really much going on in the sky. You'll notice that I've put the horizon line about 2/3 of the way up the painting. Maybe you've got a scene that inspires you and the beauty is in the clouds, in the cloud formation or in the colors in the sky, and you want to emphasize that in your painting. Well bring your horizon line down 2/3 to make more of the sky than the sea. These are things just to consider before you actually start painting. Now to encourage you just to maybe spend a bit of time looking at the paintings and seeing how it works, where the horizon line is and what you prefer before you start your own painting. I've provided a couple of reference shots that you can use, one of which I've used for the project. But I'd also encourage you to go out and get your own reference, maybe you're near the coast and you can just pop out and get some great shots that you actually love. Or maybe you've got a favorite holiday spot and you've got photos of that. Just find something that really inspires you to paint, and I think you'll get a greater result. [MUSIC] 6. Colour Mixing: [MUSIC] Now in this section, I'm going to talk about color. I'm not going to get really over technical, but I just like you to spend a little bit of time looking online at what colors inspire you. Some seascapes a very dull colors, some are bright and vibrant, some are more leaning towards aqua colors and some towards blue. What inspires you because that's going to be better for you to use in your painting. There are different shades of blues and different shades of yellows and reds. These can make a big difference in your paintings. There tend to be warm blues like ultramarine, cool blues like cyan, or cerulean blue, warm yellows such as cadmium yellow hue, warm reds, cadmium red hue or pyrrole red and cool yellows such as process yellow or cadmium yellow primrose, and cool reds, process magenta and quinacridone magenta. Now you might think, well, why do I need all those colors? Well, it'll just make your life a lot easier when you're doing a painting. If you mix an ultramarine and a warm red together, you're going to get this murky looking purple color. Then if you add white, thinking that will make it brighter, it will just go a lighter murky [LAUGHTER] purple. Whereas if you mix together a cyan and magenta, you'll get this much richer purple and if you add white you'll get this lovely lilac color. As you can see, the type of blue and the type of yellow, and the type of red that you use will give you completely different results. I would just say have a go at practicing mixing the different colors. I'll give you an example. You can practice just adding white to colors like this cadmium yellow medium. I've just mixed white in with it to see what it looks like as it gets lighter [NOISE]. You can also do that with the blues and the reds, and then maybe add a little bit of yellow to the cyan and see what color you get. Then here I've added a little bit of magenta because I was trying to get that sky color, and I wanted to see the difference when I added magenta to the ultramarine and to the cyan. Obviously, that's useful to know because some skies do have quite a lilac tone just above the horizon. I'll just say practice mixing your colors together and it will give you more of an idea. I mean, a lot of my color mixing I do without even thinking so I've had to do this to really think about what I'm doing to show you because I've been painting for years and I just do it without even thinking. I'm not saying I always get it right, but I don't tend to follow a logical process if you like. But if you're more a logical process person, you'll find this exercise very useful. The other thing which is very useful to know, even though I'm not getting into the whole color wheel thing is say you have, probably you've seen people starting out painting and they do their grasp very vibrant, bright green and just doesn't look natural in the slightest. Well, a good thing to know is if you print out a color wheel from the Internet, this loud to them. If you're painting a green color for the grass, a handy tip to know is if you paint the opposite color, if you add a tiny touch of the opposite color into that green, it will dull it off and it'll look more natural. Also, black and yellow actually make a nice green. Obviously, you don't need a tiny, tiny bit of black, but that makes some nice greens as well. If you want to dull off an orange, you'd add a tiny bit of blue. I hope you've enjoyed this section on color, and I just really encourage you to spend a little bit of time color mixing, getting used to the paint, the consistency, but also what you need to up to what to get the desired result. When I was at college, our illustration lecturer, he's to make us all do this exercise where we get a photograph from a magazine, and alongside it, we'd have a piece of paper and we'd have to match every color on the edge of that magazine. That was such a good exercise to do, to get used to knowing what to add to what to make it the exact color, and also know about what the color shift was when the actual paint dried to see if it matched the magazine photograph. If we have time, I'd encourage you to do an exercise like that and become more proficient in your color mixing. [MUSIC] 7. Mark Making: [MUSIC] In this section, we're going to talk about mark making. There are so many things that you can use to make marks in a painting. From toothbrushes to points cards to sticks that you find in the garden, your imagination is your only limitation. Let's get started. Now, obviously, depending on how much water you add to your paint, you get different effects. Here, I've just mixed some cyan and some white, and I've just added a tiny bit of water and made it into a cream consistency like single cream. That just, with not too much water, it gives a nice consistency. Now, there are different types of thicknesses with acrylic paint. You get heavy body acrylics and you get just normal acrylics. The heavy body acrylics can be good if you're wanting to add a texture into a painting, or you can also add different types of mediums that you can buy for acrylic paints. Some of those are like pastes that will make your paint thicker or thinner or in such a way that they won't dry as fast and give you more working times, all sorts of different mediums. But for this class, I just wanted to keep it quite simple, so we're just going to be using water. Now, that's with a wet brush. What happens if I use a dry brush? Remember to put the paintbrush in water, which I nearly didn't do, and that would have been dried like a rock. Now I'm just going to use the paint without any water. Then you see that it gives a really nice texture. That's like a dry brush effect. I do actually use that effect a lot in my paintings. Also, once that first layer has dried, that's the great thing about acrylics, is the drying time as well because that will dry quite fast. Once it's dry, I can just do that texture on top of there, and that will give a lovely effect. You don't have to wait for hours and hours for your paints to dry. If you're very impatient, you can even use your hairdryer to dry even quicker. Let's try out some other textures. You can also use a roller. [NOISE] gives a nice texture and, obviously, different textures with different amounts of paint and different drynesses. Or if you press hard or lighter, we get a different effect. Also need to wash it off quite quickly. You can use things like corrugated cardboard, that will give a lovely texture. The thing is with acrylic paint is not to worry about it at all because the fact is you can go over it, and you haven't ruined it. That gives another type of effect. You can use these fan brushes. I don't really use these very much. Let's have a look what effect this gives. That would be good for sea spray. I think I've used it a couple of times for that. Can also use just things that you get out of the garden. This is an old stick and I just sharpened it at the end with a scalpel. You just get interesting lines. It's often better to use something like this and a very thin paintbrush if you're wanting a more impressionistic style because when things are too rigid and they look like a paintbrush mark, it's just not as natural looking. Now, I don't know what this is, but I'm sure that will make an interesting effect as well. You can use things like points cards, things like this, just plastic bachelor type thing. You could also go into it with a palette knife. Scrape it out. That just gives you an idea of different kinds of effects you can get. Also, nearly forgot my handy weapon. Unfortunately, this one has gone a little bit hard. So I shall have to purchase a new one. But this gives different splattering effects, toothbrush. Look at that. That's great for sea spray. That should give you a few ideas to work on. You can get many different textures. You can find things in your garden to make textures with; leaves, sticks, plants, anything like that. Objects around your house, DIY objects. Your imagination is what will determine how many marks you can make. I'll see you in the next section. [MUSIC] 8. Your Palette: [MUSIC] The colors that I would say are essential for this project, I know I've added a couple more colors as a general basic kit. But the ones you'll need for this project are process black or Payne's gray, ultramarine, process cyan [NOISE], process magenta, process yellow and titanium white and I can use quinacridone magenta if you wanted, that won't make a difference or cerulean blue instead of the cyan. Now I'm just going to lay out the colors on the palette. You just need a little bit of black, ultramarine, quite a bit ultramarine, cyan or cerulean blue, [NOISE] process magenta, a little bit of that, yellow [NOISE] and I'm just going to put quite a lot of white there. [MUSIC] 9. Blocking in Layer 1: We're just going to mix the sky color. If you look at the photograph, if you are following along with the reference, this guy does have a slight lilac key tone to it and it's dull as well. It's quite a dull sky and you don't have to do it exactly like that, but I'm just going to follow along with the reference at the moment. I'm going to get some cyan, a tiny bit of the magenta, and a tiny bit of the black coat paint gray, and I'm going to add quite a lot of white and see what we've got there. A little bit more magenta. Just using my palette knife to mix, it needs dulled off a bit more. Don't worry if you put too much black in, you can always just take half the mixture and then add some more white and maybe add a bit more color. Don't panic if we do something wrong. I'm going to add more white because remember when you are using the student Grade acrylics, they do dry a little bit darker, so just keep that in mind. This might take a little while. You don't have to get the exact color, but if you want to, it just takes a little while to color mix and come out a little bit of ultramarine as well. Just a little touch. Then, I'm going to use the rest of that white actually. Put this on sea. It's quite a decent consistency, so that will give good coverage. Also I'm going to put some water on my brush which will help loosen up. You might need to dip your brush in one more time, just so it flows on easier, and then I'm just going to paint my top brush, and see what it looks like. While it's still wet like that, I'm just going to paint down the sides. You can do this afterwards, but to be honest, when you've got your color mixed. It's a lot easier just to go along above point in time. Rinse your brush out and then I'm going to go for the mid-tones in the sea color, and an up that before this is completely dried. You also need a little bit of kitchen roll, just wire your palette knife on things. What I'm going to add to that is some ultramarine. Move up a bit so you can see that. Small cyan, a little bit of yellow, and some blob of Payne's gray, see what kind of color we get back. Just keep turning your palette knife over to mix the color in properly. Think about a bit more ultramarine. Good thing about mixing with the palette knife, I do use the brushes sometimes, but you are not really wasting as much paint because it's not getting stuck at the top of the brush. Still think a little bit magenta. Take more white. Tiny bit more black. Go over that edge because I want to self-blend that in a bit. Now, say with horizon lines, I generally soften them with my finger like that. Because I don't really like a harsh line. I'm just going to go up again. I think if you might horizon just a very stiff line, it looks very unnatural. Just go to the sides again like that. You might show the meet, the horizon on the front. You can either do that with your finger or, the sky is a little bit damp, so it's just smooth and better to be honest. You can do it very lightly, and if you put your brush and paint, brush most of it off. It's a dry brush and just very light. Go for that to soften the horizon. As I said before in the mark making section, the dry brush effect is very useful for many different aspects of a painting. I'm just going to dry that off again. Obviously, I've got my head dry well away from any water, and then I'll come back and we'll fill in the bottom section. For the sand color, I'm going to use yellow, a bit of a magenta. Now, you can see that's very bright. I don't think you'll see much sun as bright as that. I'm going to put in, let's just think about this. Let's look at our color wheel. To dull off the yellow, it's a bubbly color. Obviously, a little bit of magenta and a little bit of blue. Just a tiny amount. Then we're going to add quite a large bit of white and see what kind of color we've got. Now, the sand in that photograph is warmer, thought a little bit more magenta. That's becoming more like it. Just a tad more white. See what that looks like. I think it could still do a little bit more magenta, a little bit more. Just needs to be a bit richer still. As I say, when you've got the other colors on top with this, this [inaudible] tones going on top of that and also white. It will start to build up and you can adjust things as you go along. This is just to give you a basic idea of where you putting the colors. That's yellow, magenta, and a tiny bit of blue. There we've got the light to sky, the mid-sea tone, and then the sandy color, and then we're going to work on top of that in the next section. 10. Painting in the darker tones: In this section, we're going to talk about painting in the darker tones. We're still going to be using our large brushes. If you look at your image with half-closed eyes, you'll see more clearly where your darker and lighter tones are. I've just gotten back to my original [NOISE] palette and I'm going to mix up the mid to dark green there, so some yellow. Add a little bit of ultramarine and cyan, it doesn't match if we go over the blue that you mixed earlier because I will mix in as well. Then to do a lot of green off, I'm going to add a little bit, it's a magenta which is the opposite color to the green, red or magenta. Then I'm going to add a little bit more white and then a little bit of black. It needs more yellow, so you just keep on adding until you get the right color. A little bit more of blue, I think. I'm just going to get one of my flat brushes, one of those slightly smaller ones and I'm going to show you that's still a bit bright now. See even up to many years of color mixing you still have to adjust things as you go along. Then we're just going to put in pocking where the green shades are going to go. I'll just go to the sides. Now, when you're working on a smaller scale like this, is quite hard to be as free as when you working on a very large-scale seascape when it comes to all the mat making everything, so feel free if you want to do this on a much larger Canvas, it might be easier to try all the different mat making but I didn't want to overwhelm people, especially at the beginning is an acrylic, just to give you a smaller Canvas to start off with. So that we've got the greens in there. If you look towards where the sea foam is on the photograph, underneath is two rolls of sea foam. This is more olivy green. Actually now it's a cooler green, I would say. I'm going to add a little bit of black and a little bit of white. I'm just going to add some of that in. Just wash your brush out. [NOISE] I can just work on wet if you want to, with paints, that can be fine or you can wait for that layer to dry. I'm just going to go ahead and add some deeper Dilla green at the bottom of that wave. We look at the shape of it [NOISE] and just I can either use a palette knife or the brush. Then I'm going to make it even darker on the right-hand side. It goes up. It doesn't have to be exact because we will be going over that with some of the white paint. At the bottom of this section, we're going to make it darker and just fit on the bottom of that section as well. During the process of doing a painting, it will look really bad. So don't worry about that because it all comes together in the end and some slightly darker tones in there, that's very dark along here, just having a bit of black into the green. In the middle of that part, there is darker as well. [NOISE] So I'm just going to go and dry that off. [MUSIC] 11. Painting in lighter tones: [MUSIC] In this section, we're starting on the lighter tones and we're going to use a slightly smaller brush or you can start using your palette knife to dry my brush off a little bit. I might keep mixing a bit as it gets too bright. We can also use the palette knife if you'd like to at this point. You can tell off slide you the tiny bit of black. This is off. Slight a bit but not as light that's coming on the top of that top piece of the waves. I'm just going to put that in. I'm just going in very lightly with the brush at this point. [NOISE] I'm going to let that dry. Then I'm just going to put a bit more detail in the sea. I don't want the detailed stand out too much. I don't want that to be too much contrast in the sea behind the wave because the main emphasis really is on the waves. I'm just going to mix a few tones of the sea. Marine, cyan, a bit white, and a bit of black. [NOISE] Tiny bit of yellow. Let's just see what the palette knife looks like on that. Just run it along on its soft side. [NOISE] I think for me, I feel is going to be too much contrast, but you can do that and then you can blend in with your finger a little bit. I think for this, I'll draw the use. My brush actually. Just lightly go along. Since impressionistic, you just don't need to worry too much if every brush stroke is in the right place. [NOISE] Then some darker tones in there. I'm just going to make it darker. Hello, it's sine ultramarine and black. Brush really flapped not help. This is softer reach there. Then just behind the green part of the wave, there is a darker part. [NOISE] I'm going to go even darker. Just for a few little bits. Hardly touching the canvas with my brush. Just very, very lightly. I've got some smooth interface. I'm going to leave at the moment, may be come back to it. Now I'm going to go to the darkest tone of the sea foam, which is greeny gray, I would say. I'm not really bothered about having not blue on my palette knife. I'm going to add some more over here with what's left with the blue on my knife. Little bit of yellow and a bit of black, [NOISE] gray, green. Try it out I think. Maybe a little bit more yellow. I'm going to block in the sea foam areas. Just look at the shape of these pots, how the wave forms. You can take a bit of your brush if you've got too much paint on. Let's go very lightly in there. Remember the dry brush effect, you can do that in certain parts. [NOISE] Can go light to that where it breaks up a bit. Then on the top of that wave come down there. This bring that in a little bit since sections line up. I'm just going to go on top there, where it becomes a little bit lighter. Just do the general shape because we will be going over it with the white. Just try and leave some of the shading of the waves in there. You might want to use your palette knife. Or you can use your palette knife for the white, which would give a nice effect. [NOISE] These two lines silver of that white sea foam. Can make it tiny bit gray. [NOISE] In some of the paint off my brush and just lightly just stroke in the surface just to make some of that spray come up. Just very gently. There's hardly any paint on it, but it just gives up misty effect above the waves. Notice that is not bright white. Just bring little bit up here as well. Doesn't have to be exact, remember. That's a good basis for the waves. We'll support a little bit more. A little bit's coming down here, you can use the top of your brush as well. I'm going to dry that off and then we're going to go onto the white. [MUSIC] 12. Final Details: In this section, we're going to do the finer detail. Now I'd encourage you to just try and loosen up with this part and have fun. You can use your toothbrush to splash on little flux of water. You can scratch into the surface and use those other tools that you collected beforehand to make into a more interesting painting. Now I'm just going to go on with the white onto the sea foam. [NOISE] I'm just going to do it quite dry so I've got some other nice little parts and little bits coming in. [NOISE] Now, if you find this too hard to control with the palette knife, feel free to use a brush. I'm going to also use a brush. [NOISE] Also scratch into this to give it a little bit more interest in movement. Could the movement of the water coming down like that, and then some little bits coming off it. That one's around a shape. Maybe your brushes in different ways just give different effects. Make sure you try and leave some of the shadow coming through. You may want to go on a little bit thicker with a palette knife as well, give it more texture. As I say, this is probably a little bit easier on a larger canvas is not quite so easy with this size, which is to give you a taste of how to go about, this Skype. [NOISE] These little bits coming down that, but they're not quite as obvious, so you can just match them in a bit. I'll add a bit more yellowy green tone in there somewhere, just give it a bit of life. These are things that you'll see as you go along. [NOISE] Something that I'll give it a bit more of so to speak. I can add it in and it will feel those places elsewhere as well. You can scratch into that break up. I'm going to add blue at the foreground. I'm going to get a magenta, ultramarine, little bit cyan, some white and a touch of black. I'm just going to quickly run. Doesn't have to be exactly like graph. I'm just going to run those across where I want them. Then they may want to put some of that color in the sea. While I've got on my brush, might be too light, but we'll see you wrap it in. Memorial, blend into the sea color, I think it's a bit light, but I'm just going to use it very lightly on that to bring a bit more detail. Now as you can see that stand out too much. I'm just going to go over it with a damp brush and just blend in a bit more exclusive of the tissue. I'm going to add a little bit of white really to the sea foam in the foreground. [NOISE] I'm also going to make the sand slightly darker because I'm not totally happy with that color. That's the yellow and the magenta and a tiny bit of blue. [NOISE] Now, I'm just going to add a little bit more of green in the sea at the back of the wave because the more I look at it, the more I see it is a bit more greeny. I'm just going to lightly brush that green over like that [NOISE] and then just blend it in. [NOISE] Now, add just a slightly light tone of it in through there. [NOISE] Now, if you wanted to add a bit more of a dynamic color, you can add little bits of cyan mixed with white and things like that just to give it, you don't actually have to be in the photograph, but sometimes it just makes it a bit more vibrant if you add a few little bits of hints of color going through. You can make it look a little bit more contemporary looking as well [NOISE]. Now, we're going to use the fan brush and the toothbrush. [NOISE] We're just going to add a little bit more white to the pale green. Take some on my tissue. Just re-add those in. [NOISE] Now, this toothbrush has gone a little bit hard. My goodness, it's gone very hard, but I think I can still use it. You know why that is? Because I didn't wash it out [LAUGHTER]. I'm just going to flick some white bits on there, this gives it a little bit of energy, really. This bits that goes on that you don't want them on, [NOISE] quickly wipe that off and might go too high up. But just be careful you don't smudge them all. [NOISE] It is parts of it that you want to think need a bit extra, something like there is an olive green at the front of the sea foam and I think that needs an extra something. [NOISE] I'll say also, when you're doing a painting, just leave it overnight after you've finished it. Don't think that that's it, but come back to it the next day and often, you'll think it isn't actually quite finished when you thought you'd finished it, you come back and you think, now it needs a little bit more work and that's fine. It's best to have a break from it and then come back. I'm just going to add a little bit of blue into the bottom of those waves as well. I think the sea needs a few darker tones in it. I'm just mixing small blue and adding a bit of black to it. What I'm doing now is I'm going to wrap them in just to match them a little bit. I'm being very light with my brush at this stage. I'm just going to add a little bit more blue in the foreground and then I'm going to leave it, because you can also overdo paintings. Now we have an impressionistic seascape. Well, I hope you've enjoyed this project and I really look forward to seeing your work in a gallery. Also, just take a moment to encourage your fellow students. Thank you. [MUSIC] 13. Varnishing & Fixings: [MUSIC] In this section, I'm going to tell you everything that you need to know to varnish your painting, to protect it. Also, I'm going to show you how to put the D rings on the back of your canvas so you can hang it straightaway. In this section, I'm going to show you how to varnish a painting. Now, leave it to dry overnight at least, but it's better really for longer if you can. Now, the varnish I'm going to use today is Winsor and Newton Galeria matt varnish. You can also use gloss varnish or silk varnish if that's what you prefer. I'm just going to not shake it vigorously and get loads of air bubbles in, but just gently turn it a little bit. Then I'm going to put some of it in just a plastic clean container. I've got a wide brush, just a nylon brush. Just make sure you haven't got any dust in it or hairs that are going to come out with the brush into the varnish. [NOISE] Just make sure there's no bubbles in the varnish as much as you can. I'm going to go down the ways first. Because this is a small painting you can do this all in one go. Some of my largest escapes I'd have to do in sections so I tend to do the sky section first and work it down in sections that will be the least obvious. If for some reason you could see that it was done in sections, I do it in a way that is not obvious at all. [NOISE] I'll do the sides as well. [NOISE] Before it has a chance to dry at all, I'm going to quickly go across. Then you can hold up to the light and make sure there's no spots that are missing out. I discourage you from going over and over it again. It's better to leave it. If it's still very wet and you think you've missed a bit just quickly go over it. But I would say as much as you can don't go over it because it'll start going funny after a little while when it starts drying. Just look into the light, make sure it's all covered. If you have got any tiny hairs or anything like that, you can just very quickly remove them with either a pair of tweezers or a scalpel blade or something very thin. I'm going to leave that to dry overnight, preferably longer. You can add on a second coat if you'd like to once it's dry. Also, please remember with the varnish, like the paint or the gesso you must clean your brushes straight away, otherwise, it'll go hard. That's how you varnish your painting. I'm now just going to show you how to put the fixings on the back of a painting. You'll need a ruler, a bradawl, a screwdriver. These are called D rings. I'll put it on here you might be able to see it better. You should be able to get these from your local art shop or on Amazon or something. You might have to get a set of 10 or something. I'm not sure if you can buy them singly. First of all, I'm going to measure it down probably about six centimeters. Just put a little line there. I'm going to see where I want to position. I'm just going to position these just above the line. You'll see there's a little curve in there and the other side is flat so I'm putting the flat side against the wood. Then the little D ring just hangs over like that. I'm going to make a little hole where I want the screw to go. Just make it easier to be honest and on this side as well. Then you just want to screw in these. [NOISE] I'll mention this, it's very important. Make sure your screw isn't too long. You don't want it coming out the surface of the painting, that would be a disaster. [NOISE] Screw those in. [NOISE] You then want some picture code. Again, you'll be able to get it from your local art shop and hopefully buy the meter or something. I'm going to measure about double an extra. I'm just going to do it like this so you know how to do it on a heavier painting as well. Put those through there and then through here [NOISE] and through underneath and through the other one. Pull it tight. Do it first not keeping it tight. [NOISE] Then I'm going to go over and under. Pull it. Then from this side, over and under. I'll just do a few because it is a very light painting. But if you are doing very a heavy painting obviously you'd make this a bit a lot longer and do a lot more knots. That should be enough. Then to finish these ends off, I just tend to put a little bit of PVA glue on the ends and that just prevents them from fraying. You can also put a little bit of framing tape round here once that's dry. But at this stage, you won't need that. But just along the road, you might want to do that. Then you can just hang it up from a picture hook. That's a fixing. [MUSIC] 14. Final thoughts: Congratulations on completing this class. We've covered everything from materials to how to hang a painting. There's one thing I want you to take away from this class, is just enjoy painting. Acrylics are very forgiving, and if you make any mistakes, you can just paint over it and start again. Just give it a go. Please remember to upload your completed project to the gallery. I'd love to take a look. Also, if you can take the time to leave me a review, I'd really appreciate it. You can also follow my profile if you've enjoyed this class. Thank you once again, and see you next time.