Acrylic Painting: Lighthouse Seascape

1. Welcome!: Hasta head Light house is located in the USA in the town of Yohats, Oregon and has been in operation for 132 years. It is now a bed and breakfast where you can stay in the light keeper's house. One of these days, I may do that. But for today, I plan to do the next best thing, which is paint this iconic place with you. Hello, I'm Bridget Miller. I'm a decorative painter, and I've been in the trade for over 30 years now. Welcome to my acrylic painting series. In this series, I'll show you the ins and outs of painting with acrylics, one project at a time, so you can start your journey and hone your skills as a beginner painter with regular practice. Each class will be a painting study of one subject. The painting you create in class is your assignment or class project, and I'll ask you to submit it to the student gallery for evaluation or just for your own record of achievement. Each study in this series will go over my process, color mixing, techniques, painting theory, and all the tips and tricks that I've learned over the years. We'll complete a study in each class as a class project, so you'll learn hands on and build your skills as well as create a body of work. The more you paint, the more you grow and develop as an artist with a style and look all of your own. If you feel like you'd like to learn more of the basics before diving into this practice study series, I recommend taking my introduction to acrylics and the painting process class. You can click on that link under the About section, located in the tab below this video, or go to my profile page and find it there. In this class, I'm going to demonstrate step by step how to paint this seascape lighthouse. With acrylic paint and a reference photo. If I piqued your interest in painting with me, jump to the next lesson, and I'll go over the class project with you in more detail. I look forward to meeting you and helping you learn this fun, versatile medium. M 2. Class Project: The best way to learn how to paint is hands on. And each of my classes here on Scale share will have a class project, and I'll encourage you to paint each one, and you'll soon see progress, which will in turn spur you on to continue learning even more about painting. So for this class, follow along and paint alongside me virtually as I paint this study of Hasta Head Lighthouse step by step. When you're finished, take a photo and upload it to the project gallery found under the projects and resources tab below this video. Once your project is uploaded, everyone on SkillShare will be able to view it, and you'll be inspired and encouraged by the feedback you receive each and every time you take a class. If you have any questions for me, feel free to ask in that projects area or under the discussions tab below this video. I check my correspondence daily, and I'll get back to you right away. Each project you complete will help you build your skills as an acrylic painter, and uploading them to the gallery will also help you see your progress over time. I'm thrilled to have you here and I'm excited to get you started in painting with acrylics. Without further ado, meet me in the next lesson, or I'll go over the supplies you'll need for the class project. 3. Materials: In this section, I'll go over the supplies that I'll be using in this class. As usual, I've created a downloadable sketch and a supply checklist for your convenience, and you can find those under the Projects and Resources tab below this video. It's there that you'll find the full color reference photo, as well. In addition to those items, you'll need a surface to paint on. I'll be using a pre primed canvas board. You could also use 140 pound or greater heavyweight watercolor paper, canvas paper, or acrylic paper. Just know that when you're using paper, because acrylics are a water based medium, there will be some buckling as it dries. So make sure to minimize that by taping down your paper before starting. You'll also need some paint. I recommend heavy body acrylics. I'll be using the Grumbacher brand. However, I equally use golden brand, Liquitex, and Windsor Newton, as well. You could even use craft paints. They just won't cover the same, and the colors are not as vibrant. They're also not as durable. To get your paint onto the surface, you're going to need some brushes. I'm keeping this simple and will only be using three brushes, a three quarter inch flat brush, a quarter inch or number four Filbert brush, and a number three round brush. These are all synthetic brushes made for water medium. For a palette, I'll be using paper plates. Other supplies to have handy would be a water container with water. I use a two compartment water container. One side I use for cleaning the brush. That's my dirty water. And the other side, I keep the water clean. So if I need to thin my paint a little, I can dip it into that side. You'll also need paper towels or a washable cloth, a spray bottle to keep your paints moist. Some low tech masking tape, a palette knife. I use this metal one, a number two pencil or a red pencil and some old fashioned carbon paper for tracing the downloadable design. If you don't want to purchase an entire hundred sheets, you could make your own transfer paper with tracing vapor. So you may want to have that handy. If you're comfortable sketching the design, you won't need either the transfer papers or the sketch that I've provided as a download. I also use a hair dryer to speed up the paint's drying time. It's not absolutely necessary. But to me, it makes the process easier by making it less time consuming. I use mine all the time. I also use a regular ruler to steady my hand at times. If you choose to frame your work, I recommend purchasing an 11 by 14 ready made frame that includes a mat if you're using a nine by 12 canvas board. If you're using watercolor paper, make sure to purchase a frame with a nine by 12 rather than eight by ten mat opening. As in that case, the mat will go over the top of your artwork and you don't want to have to crop too much of your painting. For framing your art, you'll need a screwdriver, glass cleaner, and a cloth, and something to affix your art into the frame. Temporary use, you can use double sided tape or gallery putty. And for a more permanent solution, you could use E 6,000 glue or a hot glue gun. If you're concerned about it being archival, make sure you use a product that advertises that quality to ensure the longevity of your piece. Now, once you've gathered all your supplies, meet me in the next lesson to start the first step in your class project. See you soon. 4. Underpainting: In this first step, I paint my entire canvas board with a mid tone color. In this case, I'll be using orange. Using a color that's not too dark or too light, a mid tone will help me gauge my values, how light or dark a color is as I paint. I start with red and yellow and mix these together. You'll need a lot more yellow than you will red. And using a three quarter inch flat brush, I then paint the orange onto my canvas, covering all the white. I don't fuss about brushstrokes showing, but I do try to paint it thinner rather than heavy. That way, when I do paint the next layers, I won't have to paint on something that's highly textured. A textured surface makes it more difficult to make details. Another reason to paint my entire canvas at the start is to cover the white of the gesso on the blank canvas. This gets me off and running straight away, leaving no white that will show through at the finish. Having an underpainting lets this color peek through in areas that are not covered completely. In the end, this will give my painting more dimension and color harmony throughout the finished piece. Orange will balance the cool blues of the ocean and sky, as well as the green trees. Sometimes I let a lot of the underpainting color show through, and sometimes not so much. It depends on the mood I'm in and the look I want. If my subject is predominantly cool colors, I usually do choose a warm color for my underpainting or a complimentary color. Complimentary colors are opposite colors on the color wheel. Once you've completely covered the canvas, dry it thoroughly and meet me in the next section, where I'll demonstrate transferring the design. 5. Transferring Sketch: For this step, you'll need a sheet of carbon paper and the sketch that I provided in the resources section found below this video. You'll also need a pencil. I like using a red pencil and some low tech masking tape. I tape the copy of the design onto the canvas with the carbon black side facing the canvas and sandwiched in between. Then I trace the design, making sure I use ample pressure to transfer the image. You can use a regular pencil, but using red will enable me to see where I've traced. Periodically, I check to see if I'm using enough pressure. You only need the basic outline, not a lot of the fine details. It's just a guide for getting everything proportional. If you're comfortable with sketching, feel free to use your method. These are just for those that want to focus more on the painting rather than the sketching. If you'd like to learn more about sketching, there's many great classes here on skill share. Just type sketching in the search bar, and a lot of classes will come up. For an alternate way to transfer if perhaps you don't have carbon paper available to you, is to trace the photo with tracing paper and then use that tracing by covering the black with charcoal or graphite and then turning it back over and using that to transfer your design. Whatever method you choose, once you have your design on your canvas, meet me in the next lesson, where I'll demonstrate how to paint the sky and the water. See you soon. And 6. Skies and Water: For this step, you'll need to load your palette with your two blues, process can and Cerlean blue and white. Remember, you can use other blues if you'd like, cobalt blue, ultramarine, and Prussian blue. Those would also be very beautiful. Starting with a three quarter inch flat brush, mix cerrillon with white, and with broad strokes, brush that onto your board, working from the top down to the horizon line. The horizon line is where the sky meets the water. Now, if you want to make certain that you keep this line straight, you can add tape and then pull it off before it dries completely. As you get closer to the horizon line, you'll want to add more serelim and less white, so it will become a gradient, which is a blend from light to dark. When we do the water, we'll do the same thing. If you like it softly blended, keep working the paint while it's wet until it's blended fully. If you want a more painterly look, brush it on and leave it. I don't blend it fully because I like it to be painterly, but I also like a little bit of blending just to give it a very realistic look. Once you have it the way you like it, you can then pull the tape. After the tape is removed, dry it thoroughly with a hair dryer or allow it to dry for about half an hour. For the water, you can tape a line again if you'd like, or just paint up to the painted area. I'll leave that up to you. We'll paint another gradient light to dark, starting with the sky blue color. Now I have dipped into straight cerrillan and I'm continuing to move down the canvas in horizontal strokes, blending as I go. Now I'm switching to process blue, and I'm going to paint the remainder of the water. I'm still painting in horizontal strokes, and I'm avoiding the land masses. Once all the sky and water is painted, dry it completely, and meet me in the next lesson to paint the land and the trees. See you there. 7. Land and Trees: For the land masses, I've loaded the palette with raw umber burnt sienna, Grumbacher, red, and process yellow. And starting with raw umber, I loosely block in all the darkest areas I see in my reference photo using my quarter inch or number four fill rot brush. To help you see the darkest areas, sometimes making a black and white copy of the reference photo helps. Once I have the darks, I mix a little yellow with burnt sienna and a little red to create a warm brown. This becomes my first medium value. In each step, I'll get lighter in value. This will create dimension, making my rock formations look three D. I place this color everywhere I see medium brown in the reference photo. I dab it on in short, painterly strokes to emulate the rocky uneven surface. Here's where you can be more liberal with your paint, as the impasto technique will add more texture to your art piece. The Filbert brush allows me to dab paint onto the canvas to mimic the rough rocky surface. And then when I use the edge of it, I can get into those tighter spots like between the buildings. It's a very handy brush. Here I'm mixing another lighter brown mixture. By adding a little white and raw umber to the medium brown I already had in my brush. As you can see, I'm not following my reference photo exactly. I'm just using it to guide my color choices and the general placement of the colors. It isn't meant to be a photographic replica, although that's a formidable style of painting. It's just not what I'm going for in this piece. Here I'm mixing a medium brown again because it seems like there's some reddish dirt here. For the trees, I'll mix processed yellow with processed cyan, which makes a beautiful green. If the green seems a little too bright, just add a little tiny bit of red. For the first pass, I also want to make it pretty dark, so I'll add a little bit of the raw umber. At the top of this hill, I'm going to taper the stroke to mimic the top of the trees. I've now added a little yellow to lighten my green mixture, and I'll add this to give my tree dimension. I'll also add this same color to the cliff below the lighthouse and the buildings. Switching to my number three round brush, I'll add some more yellow to my green mixture and add that to the tree area as well. This brush will allow me to define more precisely the shape of the trees at the top of the hill. For the last step in this lesson, I'm going to use my palette knife to give me a very textured rough look to the rocks. All load it with a very light brown mixture, and then gently scrape off the paint onto the canvas. I tap my palette knife onto the color mixture on my palette and then rub over the area gently on the canvas where I'd like to add a little of that color onto the rocks. It gives me the textured look that from far away looks like barnacles and maybe even seagull droppings on the rocks. Okay, this concludes this lesson. Remember to clean your tools and dry your painting thoroughly and meet me in the next lesson to paint the focal point, the lighthouse, and the buildings. 8. Lighthouse and Buildings: For the lighthouse and the surrounding buildings, I'll use the number three round brush, and I'll start with red to paint the roofs. I refer to the reference photo, and I can still see my transferred sketch. So it's really like filling in the color on a coloring book. I then rinse out the red and going into some of the sky blue mixture, which is serlean mixed with white. This I'll dab onto the shadow side of all the structures. Then I'll add white to the opposite side where the light would be highlighting the buildings. With this smaller brush, I can now go in and add the details around the buildings like the foliage behind them and the cliff ledge. A Without even cleaning my brush, I'll also load with the dark green and add a little more of the greenery that's growing on the side of the cliff. To highlight this, I add yellow to the green to make a brighter green and add this for that three D effect. I'm being careful not to cover all the areas in the previous layers. I also add some of this color to the area near the buildings, as I believe there are deciduous trees that grow there. And they have brighter green foliage. Then I'll rinse that color and grab some very light brown and add a few more highlights to the rock formations on the left side. You may not need this. Just add it if you think that it needs to appear more pronounced. Then with straight white, I add another layer to the left side of the buildings to brighten them. I'll also add a little fence here at the clips edge using the very tip of my number three brush. Rinse your brush again and then load with process blue and add the detail at the top of the lighthouse where the glass is. After that, load the brush with raw umber and add all the buildings windows and other details that you can see using the reference photo. And Once again, rinse your brush and then add the light in the lighthouse with a little dot of white. Now this is the end of this lesson. Dry it thoroughly and meet me in the next lesson where I'll show you how to add waves in the water. 9. Waves: For the waves, you'll need your three quarter inch flat to start, and for the details, you'll need to switch to your number three round later. I use the same blue I used for the sky, which was serlean mixed with white, and I add this to the canvas using the edge of my three quarter inch brush. I make uneven horizontal lines starting in the front area of the seascape. And as I move up towards the horizon area, I make my lines straighter and shorter and closer together. This will give the appearance that they are farther away. For the waves that are hitting into the rocks and or breaking, I add straight white to make it appear like the water is splashing dramatically. I dab and tap this color on with the three quarter inch flat brush on its edge. Then I switch to my number three round and add more splashy details closer to where the waves would be breaking as they hit the rocks. Splashing upwards dramatically. After you're finished with the waves, dry it completely, and in the next lesson, I'll go over some details and options you can do. 10. Details and Options: The painting is complete as it is, but I'd like to give you some options to creatively make your painting unique to the way you like it. I thought the sky seemed lack luster. So I'm going to add a little sunshine trying to break through a cloudy sky, like I've seen so many times when visiting my coastline. If you'd like to do the same, load your palette with serlean and white and paint along with me. First, lighten the sky and add the sky's reflection in the ocean with the same color using your three quarter inch flat brush. I'm going to add a little more white in this area to make it look like the sun's trying to break through a cloudy sky. I'll also add some cloud formations, long, cirrus clouds in the distance, just to get the sky a little more interest. I'll also lighten up the ocean a little bit as it reflects the sky. Now I can leave it like this, or if you want a softer look, use a moist towel and just rub gently and it'll soften the strokes. Now that my sky is lighter and brighter, I'm going to make a little lighter green and add that to the hillside as if they're highlighted by the sky. You can get that green mix by just adding a little yellow to your sky blue. Then using my number three brush, I'll also add a little bit more of the darks. I lost a little of them as I put in some of that green. But also, as the sky gets lighter and brighter, the contrast will be greater. So I'm going to add a little more darks to reflect that. Another option to give your painting a little more punch is to add birds in the sky. When you do this, it adds to the action of the piece, the movement. Just like the waves add movement to the water. It'll help the viewer feel the wind and hear the sounds of the coast when they look at it. To make birds, use your number three round brush on the very tip. I will use raw umber, then a little, so it moves very easily off my brush and onto the canvas. You'll want to make a stroke that looks like the letter M that's been stretched out. Practice these on a paper plate or extra canvas, and when you're ready, add them to your painting. Make certain that your painting is completely dry and have a moist cloth handle. Just in case you're not satisfied, then you can wipe it off and give it another go until you're happy with your results. I usually add several in different sizes, so some appear closer and farther away. Here, I still feel like the sun needs to be brighter, so I'm going to add a little more white to make it appear more pronounced. Again, I'll repeat that reflection in the ocean. Okay, now I'm ready to call it done, and I'm ready to sign it. For signing your work, like the birds, use a paint that's thin so it'll glide easier off your brush and onto the surface. Choose a color that doesn't steal the show, but still stands out a bit. And using the number three perpendicular to the surface, write with your brush slowly, reloading your brush as needed. Again, like the birds, have a moist cloth handy and redo as many times as needed to get it like you desire. I like to use a ruler to steady my hand when trying to write with a brush. This gives me a smoother line as it stabilizes my hand as I paint. If painting with a brush doesn't suit you, they make acrylic paint markers that we great for signing. Okay, now we're finished. Or are we? Meet me in the next section, and I'll show you how to make changes if needed. 11. Making a Change: After I was finished, I compared my painting to the reference photo and realized that I got a bit carried away with the land near the lighthouse, and even the lighthouse itself doesn't look as accurate to the photo as I'd like. So I'm going to show you how to make a change. Acrylics are very forgiving in that when you want to erase, you can just paint over an area and then repaint over the top. It may take a couple coats, though. Here I'm erasing some of the trees with the sky color, and then I'll add a few more trees to make the hill more accurate. I'm using the round brush and just very lightly scumbling the paint onto the surface. I can always do more coats if it doesn't cover that well. This will help me blend it into the background better. Now I'm also erasing the lighthouse, and I'm going to make it a bit taller. I think that will make it more accurate to Hasta head. All right, now I'm satisfied. And I hope this will help you see how easy it is to make changes if you ever need to. In the next lesson, I'll show you a very affordable framing idea. See you there. 12. Framing Option: For framing, I like to use ready made frames by studio decor. They're affordable, fairly sturdy, come in a variety of wood tones and colors and they're easy to take apart and put back together. I use a flat head screw diver to bend up the metal ties gently and remove the backing, mat, and glass. I then clean the glass with Windex glass cleaner and a lint free cloth and set all that aside. Then I place double sided tape or gallery putty onto the mat and press my finished artwork onto it, centering it by eye. The tape and the putty are temporary, so I can change it later if I choose. If you want it to be more permanent, use adhesive E 6,000 or a hot glue gun. After the painting is firmly down on the mat. Then I put it all back together again, making sure that the comb for hanging is at the top. That's all there is to it. This will protect your art from dust and scratches while looking very polished and professional. Plus, it'll save you time and money not having to have it custom assembled by a professional art framer. This concludes all the lessons for this class. Now, I hope you are finished, too, and are planning to submit your project. I'd love to see it. In the next section, I'll wrap up a few things in the conclusion. See you there. 13. Wrap-Up!: Congratulations. You're finished. I hope you got a lot out of this class and enjoyed our time together. Feel free to leave a review and let me know what helps as I always try to improve the learning process for you and your feedback will help immensely. Also, if you'd like to see more of my classes and be notified every time I add another one, be sure to follow me here on Skill Share by clicking the Green follow next to my name below this video. I'd love to see your artwork. So if you're comfortable sharing, upload a photo to the photo gallery, and I'll be able to view it as will everyone on Skillshare. But don't let that intimidate you. You'll get encouragement and feedback that I'm sure will inspire you to press on in this amazing medium. I hope to see you and your art in more of my classes. Until we meet again, enjoy painting.