Acrylic Painting: Snowy Trees

1. Intro: Hi there. Welcome to my acrylic painting series where in this class I'll demonstrate how to paint a study of snowy trees from a reference photo step by step if we haven't met before. I'm Bridget Miller. I'm a decorative painter by trade at. I'm an instructor for those who would like to learn the ins and outs of painting with acrylics. Further own fulfillment or to become an artist for hire like me, over the years I've hone my skills with workshops, classes, old fashioned book learning, and mentorship with other artists. I've learned a lot over my 30 year career. And I'm bringing it to you in this series one project at a time. You'll learn by experience, just like I did. And with each study, you'll learn more and more painting theory, process methods and techniques with hands on application. Each class in this painting series gives you more and more practice. And you end up learning, with my guidance skills to build your own style as an artist. 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. This series is for beginners and really anyone that wants to know more about painting with the acrylic media. I recommend practicing regularly when you're first starting out. And these studies in my series will enable you to practice technique and learn theory simultaneously making for a more enjoyable experience in learning 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. You can click on that link under the about section or go to my profile page and find it there. If I've piqued your interest into learning this versatile medium with me, meet me in the next lesson and I'll give you more details on the class project. I'm excited to see where you'll go with this painting is much more fun together. So let's do this see in the next lesson. 2. Class Project: For the class project, I'd like you to paint these snowy trees by following along with me as I demonstrate step by step or watch through. And then paint on your own. I'll be demonstrating on a 912 canvas board. But you're welcome to paint your project on a stretched canvas or wooden plaque, or even paper. That's up to you, bear in mind that you'll need to prepare your surface. If it's not a pre primed canvas like I'm using for instance on wood, you'll need to seal it with primer made for wood to prevent oils from the wood from seeping through over time. If you choose to use watercolor paper, a couple coats of Esso or latex paint will make it less porous and more ready to accept acrylic paint. Any size you choose for your class project is fine. Just adjust your brush size to accommodate the size of your chosen substrate. Once you complete your painting, upload it to the student gallery for everyone including me to see and comment on. It's a wonderful way to encourage each other while learning the skill of painting. To upload your project, click on the Projects and Resources tab. Below this video to the right, you'll see a blue Submit Project box. Click on that and then press Upload Image, choosing your image to upload. Then you can move the slider to enlarge and click on the image to adjust the position. Then press the green Submit button. Once it's uploaded, you can title your project and write a description for your project, describing your process and whatever you'd like to say to others taking the course and me. You can also add more images if you'd like. If you just want to keep track of your projects and don't want to share, you can also check the box to keep it private. Once you're finished, press the green published box and voila, your project uploaded. Just like that, you'll receive a certificate of achievement and you'll be able to keep track of your progress on your profile page. I'm really looking forward to seeing your project and discussing it with you. This is a valuable part of the learning process, so I hope you take advantage of it. Plus, it's super fun to see what others in the class have done and read the comments on your artwork. Next, I'll go over the materials you'll need for the class project. See over there. 3. Materials: For your course project, you'll need to gather up some materials before getting started. To save time, I created a materials checklist for you and you can download it from the Projects and Resources tab under the video of this class. And then you're welcome to skip this section if you like. For the class project, you'll need a surface to paint on. I'll be using a nine by 12 inch canvas board. You can use a stretched canvas as well. And like I talked about in the previous lesson, acrylics adhere very nicely to paper and wood. Just make sure to prepare your surface for acrylic painting before starting the class. You'll also need some acrylic paint. Any acrylics you already have will probably be fine. I wouldn't purchase more just for this class. However, if you want the exact results that I'm achieving in my demo, I will be using the Liquitex professional brand heavy body acrylics paint set that comes with black, green, blue, red, yellow, and white. From this set, I'll be using the three primaries. Ultramarine blue, yellow, light Hansa, tall crimson and titanium white. I will not be using black or green for this course. I'll also be using Cirilian blue that I stole from my Windsor and Newton set. If you have a different set or need to mix and match, I do it all the time and I've never had any trouble with the medium not blending together well with other brands. For brushes, you'll need a 34 inch flat brush, a two inch Filbert brush, a number six round brush, and a number one liner brush. These are all synthetic brushes designed for acrylic paint. Stay clear of watercolor brushes which are too soft for acrylics. Some optional tools are a palette knife. I'll be showing you some techniques using this tool. I'll also show you how to make a perfect little circle with a 34 inch pound sponge and some spattering techniques with a toothbrush. These are optional, but it's fun to try these out. In addition, you'll need a palette. I'll be using paper plates. It'll also be a good idea to have several on hand, as I also use these to practice my techniques before painting on my project. Some additional supplies are a container for water for rinsing your brushes. I like using this nifty container with two sides. Because I wash my brushes out on one side and the other side, I keep the water clean. If I need to add water to my paint, I won't be using dirty water. I also use paper towels or a cloth to wipe messes, blot my brushes, et cetera. Chalk just regular sidewalk chalk for sketching a hair dryer to speed the drying time between steps. If you want to protect your art piece from dust, scratches and fading from the sun, you may want to coat it with a clear protectant. I use Dura clear by Deco art frequently, but they make others that are also very suitable. Once you have everything ready to go, meet me in the next lesson and I'll demonstrate the first step. See soon. 4. Underpainting: The first step in this painting is to paint the entire surface with a mid tone color. You don't want to paint with too dark or too light, because this mid tone color will be used to gauge your darks and lights as you paint. It's also the color that will peek through any areas that are missed, either purposefully or accidentally. Instead of the white canvas showing, you'll have a beautiful hue that complements your final design. I chose a warm orange hue to offset the cool blues from the snow in the sky. Orange complements blue very well. You can choose your underpainting colors by looking at the color wheel if your final design has a lot of reds and warm colors. If you look opposite the color wheel at the colors, complimentary color, that is usually a very good color to use as an underpainting orange is my go to color, but I do like to switch it up once in a while. If you want to know more about why I underpaint, you can go to my introduction to acrylic course. And in lesson seven, I go over it in more depth for this step. Mix red and yellow to make orange and cover the entire canvas. Don't fret about brush stroke showing or it being streaky, as most of this will not show in the final design. You can mix the colors together using your 34 inch flat brush. But it is better for your brushes to mix your colors. With a palette knife, you don't get paint stuck high up in the bristles of your brush and wear them out faster. If your paint doesn't move well on the canvas, add a little water onto your brush or split some directly on your palette with a spray bottle for a more finished looking end result. Paint the edges if you choose to frame your piece at some point, depending on how you choose to frame it, the edges may show and it looks better to have them painted after you've painted the entire canvas with paint dry completely, like blowing it dry with a hair dryer, or waiting for 20 to 30 minutes to air dry. In the next lesson, we'll paint the sky see over there. 5. The Sky: In this lesson, we'll paint the morning sky using yellow, serilian, blue and white. Mark off your canvas in thirds using the chalk. This will help guide you to keep all your trees on the same level later. Also, compositionally, breaking up your design into thirds is more pleasing to the eye. However, if you choose to make your painting more about the sky, bring your tree line down further on the canvas and make your sky two thirds of the painting instead. Let's start by mixing white and Cerilian together to make a light blue. Using your 34 inch flat brush. Make sweeping marks across your canvas at the top, leaving some of the underpainting showing. Next dip into serilian. And while your paint on the canvas is still wet, make some more streaks of color, more toward the top, still leaving a little orange to show. Then dry it completely. Next, using white, make some more streaks with a sweeping motion, again, more toward the top left side of the canvas. Then dry it again. The reason I dry it completely each time is because sometimes I don't want my colors to mix on my canvas. If I don't dry it ahead of time, they will. You may get colors you don't want. After you've rinsed your brush out, we'll add some yellow and a toward the upper left side of your canvas. Sweep this color just like we did the blue and white. I really like the painterly look that you achieve with the pellet knife here. I'm going to add a little bit more white, then I'll dry it again. Now I'll add Serilian to add more dimension to the top of my sky. I'm going to go ahead and scrape it on with my pellet knife again because the background is completely dry. Have a moist cloth handy just in case I'd like to remove some. I want to make sure I have control of. I make my marks. I like the idea that the palette knife marks that aren't as easy to control the marks, are so much different than a brush that I really like to add them for that painterly effect. But I also like to be in control of how much I want of this look. I'm going to wipe just a little off just to control it more. If you don't want this look, stick with your brush. And feel free to add as much color as you'd like. The more you work it with your brush, the more it blends. So it'll be a softer blend, but I like this painterly look, so I'm going to stay with the palette knife. Okay, now I'm happy with where it's at. I'm going to dry it completely, and then we'll move on to making the trees. So meet me in the next section and we'll start that. See there. 6. The Trees: Hello again. I like to work from dark to light when I paint. So in this lesson, I will show you how to paint the shadows in the trees. Before I paint the highlights, which will be the snow, let's start by adding ultramarine blue and natal crimson to the plate that we're using for a palette. When I mix these colors together, I get a beautiful, deep violet. If you want your color to be even darker. Oddly enough, adding a little bit of yellow will turn this mixture almost black. I call it colorful black because it uses all three of the primary colors, blue, red, and yellow. If you've never painted trees before, let me demonstrate one method that I use that I actually learned from Bob Ross when I was very young. I used to watch his shows instead of cartoons, I use my 34 inch flat brush. And after loading my brush with my violet color, I use the edge to make a guideline. Then I on either side with my loaded brush to add branches. The overall shape of trees in this painting are triangular. However, there is different types of trees in some forests. You can also change the angle of the brush for whatever type of tree that you want to make. When you feel confident in your brush technique, go to your project and add as many trees as you'd like. Refer to the reference photo as needed. I'm using the reference photo only as inspiration. I'm not trying to paint the exact scene that you see in the photo. For the main trees, I paint a guideline, then I add the branches. Overlapping is just fine. I'll delineate with different hues in each added layer. Again, working from dark to light values. Here I add a little serilian blue and a little white to my violet. And place some trees in between the main trees to look like they're in the distance. This change in values will create more distance or depth in the landscape. Here I'm adding lower branches on all the trees to bring them all down, even on my sketched in chocoline. Next, I add a little titanium white to my palette. With serilian blue and the violet mixture I've been using, I make a mixture and add the same types of branches with this color to the trees that are closer to the viewer. I also think about where the morning light would be shining on the branches. For the darkest shadow color in the foreground, I mix a little ultra reine blue with some of my violet mixture. And using my 34 inch flat brush, I make sweeping brush strokes diagonally towards the right to make it appear that the trees are blocking the sun, now that all my darkest hues are painted in. In the next lesson I'll demonstrate how to add the snow. See you there. 7. The Snow: In this lesson, we're adding snow. A lot of it. I'll start with my two inch filbert brush and mix some titanium white into my violet mixture that I was using in the previous lesson. This color is a very light violet blue. Not white like you'd think snow would be. I'm referring to my reference photo occasionally, so I can mimic how the snow settles on the evergreen tree branches. As you can see, with gentle tapping with my loaded brush, I can add this lighter hue to each branch that I made in the previous lesson. I'm being careful not to cover all the darks because I need those to show the recessed areas of the trees. I also tap in some serilian blue because I think it makes the landscape look more like the landscape in my reference photo, using the two blues together looks very cold and icy. Occasionally, I'll turn my brush when I need to paint a bit of a vertical brush stroke to add a little height to a tree. The Filbert brush, in my opinion, is the most versatile brush there is. And as you use it more and more, you may agree with me without wincing my brush. I'm adding some Cerilian blue and ultramarine blue to the snow color. And adding this to the foreground in between the shadow strokes from the previous lesson. Now switch to your 34 inch flat and with diagonal strokes, sweep the canvas to emulate drips of snow in the foreground. Now I'm adding more white to my brush. And using the wet on wet technique, I'll use the same brush stroke to cover the closest foreground area with these drifts of snow. Okay, I'm happy where it's at, so I'm going to give it a thorough dry with a hair dryer, or let it dry until it's dry to the touch, about 20 or 30 minutes, depending on the temperature where you're panting. In the next lesson, I'll demonstrate a couple ways to add the morning sun and the beautiful surrounding glow. Meet me over there to begin that lesson. 8. The Sun: Hello again. In this lesson we're going to add the sun. The easiest way to add the sun is to use the Filbert brush. And don't fret about making it perfectly round, Just dab it on the size that you would like. I'm using titanium white straight from the tube. That being said, if you want it to be nearly perfectly, you can use your very lightly and sketch it in first, then paint it in while I'm painting in the sun. I'd like to explain why I'm placing it in this spot. Painters and photographers use the rule of thirds grid to create the most pleasing composition for the viewer. The rule is to divide your composition into thirds vertically and horizontally. And then place the areas of focus or the focal point where the lines intersect. When you're painting studies, you needn't worry about this rule too much. However, when planning a more involved artwork, it's a good idea to consider this rule. Here's a portrait or vertical composition with the same rule applied. Another way to paint the sun is to stamp it with the round sponge stencil tool. Joanne, a student in my intro to acrylics course, used this method for the sun on her course project and shared this tip with me and I thought it was brilliant. She said she got this idea from Ian Harris on Youtube. Thanks for sharing that, Joanne. Another way to paint in the sun is to stencil it. The classic way, if you have a circle cut out the size that you need. One more way is to use a bottle lid. If you can find the size that you want, dip it in, paint and stamp it. Then paint it solid using your filbert or round rush. Now that you have your son, let's get it completely dry and then add the next step. For this next step, I'm going to use a dry brushing technique. I'm going to add a small amount of white to my Filbert brush and wipe almost all of it off on a cloth. I want very little pigment on my brush. I then add it to my dry surface in a circular brush stroke around the sun. This will give me the transparent look that I desire. Repeat this as many times as necessary to achieve the look you want. Another technique to achieve the transparent effect is to place the paint where you want it. Then using a slightly dampened cloth, wipe off some of the paint until it becomes more transparent. You must work fairly quickly with this technique as acrylics dry very quickly. Here I'm using the cloth with the paint residue to wipe on a little paint on the very outer area. Do what looks good to you. In the next steps, I'll demonstrate some final details to wrap this up. I'll see you in the next lesson. 9. Final Details : In this lesson, I'll demonstrate some final details that are optional. You may not need to do any of these if your painting is where you like it. I'm adding a little more seriliuan blue to my palette because I'm going to add a little more of this color to the trees and the foreground. I mixed it with a little white, so it's not as dark as my darkest value in the foreground, but it's also not as light as the lightest color. It's right in the middle, more of a mid tone. I'm putting a little more of this color in the trees as well. After this, I dry it completely, then I grab a little white still using my Filbert brush and just tap in a few highlights on the ends of the tree branches just to show where the sun might be glistening off the snow. Now I'm going into straight serrilian blue and I'm just going to tap in a little bit more of this color underneath the branches. I feel like I have a lot of darks in the trees and a lot of highlights, but I need a little bit of the medium value with the SerilianI'm. Going to add a little bit more. You may not need this at all on your painting. You'll have to assess it for yourself and see if you need it. And if you like that look, I'm going to add a little bit more of the Serilian in the foreground as well. Now, mixing my red and my ultramarine blue, I'm going to make that very dark purple once again and add that underneath my trees. I'll also add a little of this color here and there in the forest. If I need to add more contrast here again, you may not need to add more darks to yours where I lost some of my background trees. I'll go ahead and add them in with this color as well. Using the same color. I've switched to a number six round to add a little bit more detail. Omit this step if you like a looser look to your paintings. Now I'll add a little white to that mixture and add snow to the details I just put in. Now with titanium white, I'm going to lighten the foreground just a little bit more now. At this point it is finished, So feel free to upload your piece to the student gallery right now, or you're welcome to meet me in the next section if you'd like to see some other options for this snowy tree study. 10. Adding Other Elements: In this lesson, I wanted to give you some other options to make your study uniquely yours. First up, I will show you how to make some birds in the distance. These will add more life and movement to your piece. I will be using the liner brush and the darkest value on my palette and I'll demonstrate my bird technique on a paper plate before adding to my canvas. Brush stroke resembles the letter M with the sides of the letter pulled out on both ends. I add a little more water to my paint and use just the tip of my brush to get a very fine line. It gets easier the more you practice, trust me, once I load my brush, I wipe a little bit of it on the paper plate till I get the line that I want, and then I move to my canvas. You don't want too much paint on your brush or you won't get a fine line. I'm not happy with this one. I've got a little paper towel here and I've moistened it. And I'll just go ahead and remove it. Since my painting is dry except for the bird, I'll give that bird another go. It may help to brace your hand on the surface to prevent a wobbly stroke. Now, dry completely before adding the next element. If you'd like to make it look like it is snowing in your landscape. You can do this with a toothbrush and titanium white paint that has been thinned a little with water. Make sure your surface is completely dry and dip your toothbrush into the paint. Then pull back on the bristles, and let the paint spray onto the canvas and everywhere around it as well. This pattering technique for adding snow makes me want to belt out that song. Let it go from the Disney animated movie called Frozen, if there's an area that's more heavy or go have a moist cloth or paper towel at the ready so you can wipe it off before it dries. If you'd like heavier snow, turn your brush around and tap the wood handle end into the paint and perpendicular to your surface, dots, everywhere you'd like more snow. Once you have as much as you'd like, draw your surface completely. And I'll demonstrate one more option for you before we conclude this lesson, Sun rays. To make it appear as if the sun's rays are coming through the trees, I use chalk to draw guidelines. Use a ruler if you'd like to get them straight. Any chalk left over can be wiped off after your surface is dry. Then using the dry brush technique, like when we encircled the sun with transparent white in less than seven, we'll load a little white onto the Filbert brush and then remove most of it. Then follow your chalk line repeatedly until you see what looks good to you. If your paint looks too opaque, have a moist cloth ready and just swipe the line until it softens the stroke. Repeat this until you achieve the desired result. To achieve straighter lines, use your entire arm, and not just your wrist. Ah, that sun really warms up this piece nicely. Well, that's all I have for you this lesson and the class. So now it's your turn to shine. Upload your finished project into the student gallery. I can't wait to see your take on this. Meet me in the next lesson for the conclusion and other info. See you there. 11. Conclusion: Thank you for painting with me. I hope you learned a lot and had some fun too. Each class in this acrylic painting series will go over some of the same brush strokes and techniques and color mixes. And I'll introduce you to more as well. Follow me here on skill share to be the first to know when I publish a new class, expect at least one per month going forward. Let me know how you did by uploading your project to the project gallery. I'm looking forward to meeting you through your art. If you want more classes by me straight away, you can subscribe to my Youtube channel called Creatively Be. And you can also catch up with me on Instagram and Facebook. The links are on my Skillshare profile page. Before I let you go, if you have an extra minute or two, I'd love to hear what you thought of this class. You can leave a review under the review tab below this video. It's very helpful to know how I can help you learn more about this wonderful medium. Well, that's a rap. Thanks so much, and I hope you join me again soon for another study in acrylics.