Transcripts
1. Introduction: I've always loved how a still-life painting
can tell a story. The objects, lighting
and environment. It gives us a great
sense of time and place. The problem with learning to
paint is where do you begin? If you try to critique
before you might have found that they
dry too quickly, you couldn't quite get
the blending you're after or the color mixing
just didn't go right. But there is another way. I'm Will Kemp, a professional artist
and founder of the Will Kemp Art School with over 24 million
views on YouTube. I've created this
acrylic painting project because I'm passionate
about still lives. I want you to succeed too. It's been designed with the
absolute beginner in mind. You'll be guided
through the basics of working with acrylics. You'll be using simple brush
techniques and materials. Even if you're completely
new to acrylics, you'll get great results. I only use six colors, and that includes white throughout the entire
of our painting. I've taken an
impressionistic approach so you can't get too distracted by detail and lose momentum. The process will
help you loosen up to create expression
in your painting while the step-by-step instruction
will keep you on track. I've taken all the principles from a traditional
still-life composition but kept it simple
and contemporary. Using classical painting
principles that are the building blocks of all
great old master paintings. Every still-life tells a
story even the simple ones. Susanne once said that he wanted to astound Paris with an apple. We're going to
start with a pair. Welcome to my modern still-life
acrylic painting project.
2. Tools & Materials: [MUSIC] Different
acrylic brands will vary in paint consistency and pigment even if they've
got the same paint name. The two brands that
I use most are Golden and Winsor & Newton. All of the paints
are artist quality, so they've got a
higher pigment load in comparison to
student quality paints, so a little can go a long way. I'm keeping it very simple, but we'll still get
a good range of mixes even using this
minimal color palette. [MUSIC] Titanium white, cadmium yellow light, permanent
alizarin crimson, burnt umber, ultramarine blue, and a tiny touch of green gold. Throughout the painting,
I'll be using four brushes, a small synthetic
round for details and this particular brush
doesn't have a brand on it. Isabey Isacryl, this is Size 6, and it's a synthetic
filbert shape. Princeton aspen. This is a Size 4. This is another synthetic
but a round shape. A slightly larger
decorator's brush for applying the colored ground. This is about 50
millimeters wide. I tend to use either Wooster or Purdy
decorator's brushes. [MUSIC] Throughout
the process of choosing and mixing colors, I will be paying
close attention to the light and dark
range within the seed. Observing how dark or
how light a subject is, or judging its value or tone, will help to create realism
within our paintings. But it can be quite
tricky to correctly gauge this when you're just
looking at a colored image. I use a gray scale value strip, which are also called
a tonal strip, just to help me. It goes from black to white with each step having a number
just for easy reference. You can use these holes, that little hole punches that
I've made in this strip, and I can use those as
a viewfinder to look through to judge tonal values
in our reference image. I keep one in my
studio and I use it regularly as a reference against subjects
that I'm painting. I hold it up in front of the objects I'm trying
to paint and then flip my eyes between the
colors I'm trying to match and the gray tonal
values on the scale. When the color just
about disappears into one of the gray
values on my strip, I know that will be
the closest value to [MUSIC] check my
paint mix against. This is called a
tear-off palette, and you can see it's made up of many thin layers of a
specially coated disposable, smooth paper, which makes it excellent as a
mixing surface. It's small and light and you can hand hold it or have
it on the table. You mix on this top layer, and then when you finish
your painting session, just peel it off, throw it away, and you've got a
fresh, clean surface underneath ready to start again. They usually come in white, but this is a gray
palette called a gray pad from a
company called New Wave and it can be
really handy when you're getting started
for judging tones. This is a 10-ounce cotton duck medium triple primed canvas. This one's from Jackson's
Arts in the UK, but any primed canvas would
work absolutely fine. You could also work on a
canvas board if you prefer. The main difference is that this is canvas stretched
onto a rigid board, whereas the actual canvas is stretched over a frame
of stretcher bars. What that means is the
center of the canvas, you've got a bit more bounce. Also, this would tend to have more absorbency than when you're working onto
a canvas board. [MUSIC] For the
additional materials, I've got jam jar for water
to clean my brushes, a metal double dipper to
add water or mediums to, a palette knife,
and I use a number 45 by a company called RGM. I really like the fact that
it's got an angle to it, so when I scrape paint, I can get all of the paint
off the palette and it's a manageable size
for mixing colors. A Kuru Toga Roulette
mechanical pencil, this is an 0.5 mm
and an HB lead. An acrylic marker, this is a Montana 0.7 mm
acrylic marker in shock brown. This is one medium
that I use for blending towards the
end of the project and that's an acrylic
glazing liquid gloss from Golden Paints. It's perfect for
smoking paint edges and giving us a bit more
working time with the acrylics. A water spray that I
occasionally mist over the acrylic paints
on the palette just helps to keep them
working for longer. Kitchen roll or paper towel, and I use this all
throughout my paintings. Often you'll see me with
a bit of it scrunched up in my hand so I can adjust the actual amount of water on my brush by blotting it
into the kitchen roll. That's all we need
to get started.
3. Preparing the Canvas: The first thing I'm
going to do is choose their colored ground that's harmonious
with our painting and then prepare the canvas before we start
the actual piece. A colored or tonal ground is a solid opaque color applied to the canvas prior to
starting the painting. It's called a toned
ground or colored ground and it can be used in
drawing and painting. Choosing the
sympathetic tone for the colored ground from
the reference image or the subject that you
got in front of you and then covering the
whole canvas with that color will really help
to unify the whole painting and we'll give you a
tonal reference to work the rest of the
painting against. It will allow you to
judge the lightest light and the darkest dark in your
painting rather than just working onto the glare
of a white canvas. It can also make your
paintings feel more professional and harmonize
all the colors together. I get lots of emails
from beginners who say, why do you paint it
over the canvas, all one color only to paint
out 95 percent of it? What's the point of it? Why bother? The magic of a color ground is
in that final five percent, just leaving those little
dashes of color to bring in the whole piece together and subtly move the eye
around the piece. Before I started, I did a very
tiny little poster study. You can see how small this is. It just really gave me an
idea of how the groupings and the colors are
working together, and what I wanted to focus
on for the main painting. You can see here, I've given an indication of a shadow
tone inside the jug. That's what really
helped me to decide that this value would be perfect
for our ground cover. It will really help to bring
the whole painting together. A tonal ground is always best if it's close to a mid-tone, not too dark or too light. This bluey gray will
still allow us to work with a harmonious
muted palette on top. If I bring my value strip
and hold it against it, you can see here, when we look at the value seven, and that's definitely too light. Equally, if I go to the
value two, it's too dark. We're just trying to find a tonal value that
disappears when you look through the viewfinder and squint your
eyes a little bit. It's a bit lighter
than the five, it's a part of value four. Here I've got a burnt umber, and this is the
ultramarine blue. You can see that I've
put out slightly more blue than I have
the burnt umber. A bit more blue than the brown. Then to start with, I'm just going to mix
these two together. I'm going to put
that to the side here and then what I'm going to add
in is some titanium white. Titanium white is
an opaque white. You can see that on
this indication here where this is black stripes
onto the actual paint pot, and then a swatch of the white
has been painted over it. You can see the
amount of coverage that you're going to get. Here's where you often find that an artist-quality
paint will have a lot better coverage
than if you're using a hobby grade or a
student grade paint. The actual difference in price between them isn't
a massive jump. If you can, I'd always recommend just investing in some
artist-quality titanium white even if it's the only
artist-quality paint you use to start with because it will
really make a difference in the majority of the
paint mixes that you do. Then taking the
white to start with, and just add a small amount
of our mix a bit more. You can see how it's looking
against the value for there. Still, you can go a bit darker. By starting with the white, you can see how you
only need a little bit of the other color to tint it. Colors will always have more
intensity than the white. For lighter colors,
you start with a white and then add those
colors into it. Looking quite good. Let's have a look over
on the reference. You can see, that's blending
in quite nicely there. Might go a little bit darker. That's great. Here I've just got
some tap water that I'm going to dilute the
paint slightly with. To apply it, I've bought
a decorator's brush. This one I find really nice. You can get a nice
soft finish to it when you're laying
off the paint. I also like a brand
called Purdy, they make really nice
decorator's brushes as well. All I'm going to do
here is just dip the bristles into the water, and then with some kitchen
roll and paper towel, just take off most
of that water, and then just work
that into the paint. You're just trying to increase that flow and fluidity
of the paint. I can try a bit on here. You can see how that when I'm
pulling there it's dragging and you're getting this
texture of the canvas showing. I want it to have a bit
more flow than that. Add a bit more water getting
better and a bit more water. Then to start with, I'm just scrubbing
it into the surface, working in all
different directions. It's better with this ground application to have it
thinner rather than thicker because you still
want the next layer. If you use a pencil to draw out, you want that to be able
to grab onto the surface. You don't want to build up
the layers too thick now because you'll lose some of the textual tooth on the canvas. You're just trying to
get a stain onto it so it's thick enough to give
you a color that's solid, but not so thick
that it gives you too much texture
onto the canvas. You can see how I'm
pushing it around on the surface just to try
and get an even covering. Then once that's all
evenly applied on, what I do is what's called
laying off the surface. It means that you just have
your brush at an angle. This is the canvas surface, I'm just having a slight
angle to the actual surface. For example, if
that was a surface, this is the very slight angle, and then I just work
in the same direction and it would just even
out the brush marks just so we get a nice even
surface to work on top of. I noticed what happened there, is when I was using the brush, the bristles split a bit. You see, what happens there is you don't get as even a surface. I'm just moving the
bristles together, let's do it again. That's great. Now I can just leave this to dry and then we can start
to draw out the image and start the painting.
4. Drawing Out & Composition: When you see an object that you perceive as round, say like an apple or an orange. A beginner's tendency is to try and draw it initially with
lots of curved lines. The idea behind this is the more curved and round
lines that you draw, the Bohr three-dimensional, that the actual
object will look. But if you try to do most of the drawing with straight lines, it can make a much
stronger composition and help with the
accuracy of your drawing so that it will look
more realistic. Using straight lines in these early stages
of a drawing allows us to plot in key changes in
shadow direction and shape. Then as the drawing progresses, we can smoothen out and sweeten the curves just to
give it more realism. The other method
I demonstrate is called an envelope drawing. It's an approach that helps to draw something more accurately. Once we've drawn out this
first envelope shape, it will surprise you just how small this initial shape looks. You don't believe that the objects are going
to fit within it. It always surprise
me with drawing how when the objects are
all finished and drawn in, your eye perceives
them as often being larger than they initially were when you started the drawing. This is why working within
the envelope is so handy. Here's our ground cover. This is all completely dry now, so I can just draw
right on top of it. I'm going to be using
a pencil to draw out, and I'm going to be using
a mechanical pencil. This has got an HB lead in
it and it's a 0.5 mill lead. I can just click the
end and extend it. I can always have the
same width of line when I'm drawing
out the reference. I'm also going to be
using a putty eraser. This is from Faber-Castell. What's nice about
a putty eraser is that you can just remove
areas of graphite and it won't leave
little bits of residue from a normal plastic eraser. That's the standard
plastic eraser. You can see here, when I open up the putty eraser. Now, when you squeeze
a plastic eraser, of course nothing happens, but with the putty eraser, you can squeeze it into
any shape you like, and it's incredibly
handy for just taking out small areas
of your drawing. Before we start the
free hand drawing, I'm just going to put a
couple of guidelines in. The first is a horizontal line, and you'll be amazed that how many paintings
you start with, even though it's just got
a simple horizontal line. At the end of the painting, you've gone a skew. You've gone a bit wonky on it. Just by using a set
square or a ruler, just looks quite good. Just put her horizontal
line as a guide. The other thing to be aware of if you're ever going to
be framing your pieces, is if you look at
the back of a frame, you have a space in
here like a rebate where the frame or the
board sits within. When this goes on top here, just a couple of marks. You can see how
that's gone in quite a bit from where the actual
edge of the canvas is. If you've just got bear
that in mind when you're drawing out your subject
don't go so far to the edge, or you might lose a bit when you eventually get the piece framed. What I'm initially
looking for are the edges of the subject. If I could draw a line to the
edge of the far left pear. Here, the edge is right, they're nearly in line there, the edge of the jug
handle and the pear, and then the top part of the jug and the bottom part of the pear. Then I'm just working
within this area. I know then everything
is going to be sat within that one shape. You're just making your first best guess
to what that shape is. To start with, I'm just working
with straight lines, even though there are
curves in the pair. But work with straight
lines can often be easier if you just start to see
how the contours change. Then once the straight
lines are in, then we can tweak
them and sweeten the curve onto the shapes. Here, I can just judge
how the shape comes down, hits the edge of
the horizon line and then kicks back in again. Then just looking at the space, what's called a negative
space in-between the edge of the pear here
and the edge of the jug. I'm trying to judge
what that angle is and what that shape is. Now often what I'll do
is continue the lines even though I can't see
them behind the pair just so it gives me a sense of how the form is on the subject, and then you can just
use your putty eraser to take that line back after we've drawn in the rest
of the shape of the pair. Again, imagine how that handle will come around
to sit on the jug. Now I can just draw
in the cast shadows, these are the shadows
cast by the object. So you've got the shape
underneath here of the pair, and you can see this
shadow here at the back is being cast by the
handle of the jock. Now I'm just going to
look for any areas that I might just want to tweak or just make it a bit
easier for me to see what I'm looking at. I've got this cast shadow
here that's been carved onto this second pair
from the first one. You can also see this
very faint shadow there, it's from the stalk. You can now start to see that when you have fat
within a frame, you've got vast space around it so the composition is
still all working nicely Then sometimes what I use, if I'm working on a
smaller piece like this, and I want to get into
some of these dark details is I use an acrylic marker
rather than a brush just because it's easier to get
those fine lines in with it. This is a shock brown color, so it's very close
to a burnt umber. Then what you do is you
can just shake the marker, I'm going to be drawing
here on it vertically, but it's often easier
to work horizontally because the mark will
flow more easily. But I'm just looking
for the very, very darkest parts
that I can see that can just help to
ground the subjects. Simple as that for this
particular painting. Not much at all, but it can just help by having these stalks in, you can see how they bounce
your eye around the painting. You've got, again, these
dark shadows here, they can just again help
to ground your subjects so it feels like a
sat onto the surface.
5. Colour-mixing the Base Tones: All colors exist in
relationship to other colors. The same red will
look differently if you place it next to a green or if you place it
next to a yellow. This is why it can be
sometimes tricky to try and judge a color accurately. What you can do to
try and help with this is to isolate the color, take away everything around it and just focus on that
one single shade. Your brain could be
very persuasive to try and tell you what it
thinks a color should be rather than how it actually is. One method that can
help is to isolate a few key areas of the subject and then mix paint
colors in advance. If you mix them accurately, it will give you a great
starting point to work from, rather than being influenced
by the surrounding colors, which will alter
your perception. A quick note on color shift. If you mix your color and
then paint a little swatch on a white card and then
wait for it to dry, this will give you a
more accurate result when matching your
color than if you try and judge the paint
while it's wet. That's because acrylic
binders are often white when they're wet and
then they dry clear. There's a slight color
shift in the paint. The paint was slightly
darkened off. This is just plain tap water. This is acrylic
glazing liquid gloss. Here I've got titanium white, some cadmium yellow light, burnt umber, and
ultramarine blue. I'm going to see how
far we can get in the painting just with
these colors to start with. Because we've got our
ground color already down, which was about the Value 4. Here's the painting so far, when we have a look
on the value strip. It's a little bit
darker than that four, but definitely lighter
than the five. Around the Value 4
for our ground color, which was based on the
shadow inside the jug. Now what we're going to do is mix a couple of premixed colors just based on the background
and the foreground, just so that we've got a tonal
balance before we start. To start with, I'm just going to use
some of the blue again, mixing with the brown to
create a darker black. More blue than brown. Then just mix those together
with the palette knife. I'm just going to have a
look through the value strip at how light or how
dark the background is. On here, I'll just
turn it around so you can see it more clearly. You can see it's slightly
darker than the Value 8, but not as dark as the Value 9. Then right down
here in the shadow, that is about a Value 9. There's a very
dark area in here, but the main bulk of that is around a little bit
darker than the Value 8. I can have this as a reference. If I hold that against it, you can see it definitely
is go lighter. When I look at the color, I'm just initially going to add a little bit of white to it. Such a tiny amount of white to start to
shift that value up. Still can go lighter. That's a little bit
darker than the Value 8, which was looking
pretty good reference for this initial back color. Then when I'm looking at it, I've got just this
blue hue here, and when I hold it
over the reference, it's looking pretty close. It's just there's a
slight greenness to it. I'm just going to add a tiny
bit of the cadmium yellow, and that would just
start to introduce that turquoise green
hue to the color. That's looking
pretty good value. Can even go a little bit. Feels like I could
go not as blue, it feels too blue
this, amazingly. I'm just going to add
a bit more of the yellow and then a bit
more of the brown. The brown will warm it up and take away some
of that blueness. That's looking great. Then I'm also going to
take a bit of that color, a bit more blue and
a bit more brown, just to darken that down
for that darkest shadow. To be fair, that's looking quite nice for the backgrounds. What I'm going to do is I'm going to sneak a
bit of that into there. You'll find as you're
mixing your colors, you'll start to
get your eye more and more tuned into
a specific color, so that you can then just mix in between like this
color and this color, rather than these initial
stronger pigments. That's great. I can wipe it off of here because what I've done is I've
laminated this value strip, so that I can test
my values against it and then easily wipe them off. Then for this color down here, brown's of Value 3. As long as we're lighter
than our ground color. What I'm going to do is
start with the white, and then just add a bit
of this background color that we've mixed. This will just help you to
keep your colors harmonious and within the similar color
family for your painting. I could go a little bit darker, but that's looking
pretty close there. When I hold that
against the reference, yes, we could still
go a bit darker. It looks to me to
be a little bit warmer than the color
that I've mixed. Very slightly warmer. I'm just going to use a
scraping of the brown, and I'll just help
to warm it up. Very subtly. For this particular painting, you see how it's easier to judge the values using the gray pad, because the gray pad
is like a mid value and got a lighter value here
and a darker value here. You can, of course, use a white
palette for this as well. I'm just going to show
you with a white palette how the perception of
the values is different. You can see here that this gray looks a lot different
than this gray, even though you've just seem they're exactly the same color, but it's just because of the
surrounding colors around it. They look a lot more
extreme there than they do when you're judging them
on the gray palette.
6. Blocking-In the Shapes: Now we're going to
start to block in. You'll notice when you start
to really observe a scene, all the little extra
shapes and spaces, especially the spaces
in-between objects. These negative spaces
will actually help us to paint the objects
more realistically. The other thing to be
aware of at this stage is don't be too tempted to judge your painting when
you're first putting the first colors down
onto the canvas. You need to wait for the other colors to
be placed next to it, for it to read together. We'll also change the texture
within the piece to control the gaze as the more
textural and mark, the more it comes
forward to the viewer. Just by having texture in the foreground and then
applying the shadows with a flat application
would just help to either sense of
three-dimensionality. Finally, for this
stage of the painting, we're going to be painting
the spaces around the object to draw the
positive form of the object. Enduring this is called the
power of a shared edge. Here I'm using a mix
between a filbert brush. This is the Isabey Isacryl. This is a size 6. I've also got a round
Princeton size 4. And then I've just
got some water that I've put into
the deeper here and then some water off
screen and I can use to clean out my brushes. Then because it's such a flat composition that
we're looking at. It's very simple really
just to start to block this in and keeping an
eye on your drawing. You can just adjust
that at this stage. [NOISE] Of course, if you've got a bigger
brush than this, you can use that
for the background. I'm just using this to
illustrate what you can use or what you can achieve
just with a few brushes. I don't mind if it doesn't
completely cover over the background because I quite like having a bit
of texture there. So it's not completely
solid one here. [NOISE] Again, this is just being
diluted with water. I haven't added
any medium at all. I'm not going to start
to swap or out a bit of this darker color into
that initial base here. I'm looking at the areas where the pairs would be casting
a shadow on the background. So this area here is
going to be a bit darker. Might also have in-between the pairs that could
be a bit darker. And then inside the
handle of the jug, I can use the really darkest
color that we mixed. I'm just going to add in this bit of white
that I've got here, just to lighten up the
top right-hand side. Just to again, add
a subtle bit of texture into the
background so it isn't just a solid color. [NOISE] Still leaving some of those areas of the
ground coming through. Very subtle. That's nice and then just going to
solidify some of these areas. Great. Then if you're working
and it's quite a hot day, what you can do, because
we've had these acrylics out, they'll start to dry off
and it's time already. You can use a water mister just to add some moisture
back into the paints. Because acrylics
dry by evaporation, when you've got some more
moisture going into them, it will just keep them
workable for longer. The only issue to
bear in mind if you're working vertically, I have this vertically so it's easier to follow for the demo, but I often also have my
palettes horizontally. Because when you
spray vertically, you've got the risk if
you put too much on, the paint will run down
off of your palette. But by spraying that water on, you can then work it
into the mixture with your palette knife because it's just going off
onto a palette there. That's still now workable for
painting in the foreground. [NOISE] So just really clean out the
brushes just before painting this next stage, just so you don't get any of that darker hue coming into it. Then always tend to just
squeeze off the brushes into some paper towel because you
often find that's when a lot of the pigment still
comes out of your brush. Now, just before I
paint in this hue, I'm just looking at
the cast shadows that are being cast by the pears and I'm just going to take a bit of the
background color, and a little bit of
that whiter color. It's just going to be too thin. This is just to illustrate
also what happens when you spray water onto your palette, you can then get excess water
that puts out your mixes. So just with a bit of paper
towel, take that back. [NOISE] So I'm just looking for a
value really in between the two that I can then just
wash in a cast shadow. So I'm not going super thick because I still might paint on top of this and to
adjust the color. This is all just to get your
eye tuned into the scene. [NOISE] It's amazing once you've got
these little shadows in. There's one inside
the jug as well. [NOISE] I'm just using just water on the brush just to blend it in. You can start to see how
we're kind of seeing the shapes now of the
objects coming out, feeling three-dimensional and we haven't even painted them yet. We've just painted all of the objects and the shadows
around these subjects. So this can be so key, having that bit of a cast
shadow which has really helped to ground what you
were painting. So once I've got those in, I can maybe go a
little bit darker. When I start to look
at it more closely, I can see that it's cooler here, and then underneath where I'm
getting a reflected color from the pears, it goes warmer. Then for that, I can add
a bit of the burnt amber, a bit of the brown into it. Now, I'll just matching with that initial sharp brown from the acrylic marker
that we painted in. [MUSIC] [NOISE]
7. Painting the Cools: Now we could just block
in that cooler gray. Again, I don't mind if I leave some gaps to
show that colored ground. In fact, I want that to give
that difference in surface. It gets a bit darker
in the foreground so I can leave some
of the ground color as I get closer to the
bottom of the painting. But put it in thicker
just underneath the pairs so that can focuses
your eye more. Then painting this thicker
than the cast shadow, it's really handy to
give that difference. The shadows go into the distance and then this is more
in the foreground. Having these textural elements, this thickness of the
mark really helps to add an extra layer of interest
into your paintings. There are some little
dashes inside here. They can just help to break up. You see those little dashes
and they seem so small, but those three little
marks can really help just to jump your eye
along that horizon line. Now I'm looking at it. I can see if I'm
looking at my values and how they're working, I quite like this color
coming into the jug. I'm just going to use some of
the same color we've mixed. Just add that to
the top of the jug. Equally, I can use it
on this highlight. Light's hitting the handle. Then with the same color, I'm just diluting
it with water a bit and I actually might use
a bit of glazing liquid that I've got here
in this paper. I can just use that to wash over from parts of the chalk, because we're using
a thin application rather than the
thick application. You can see it's quite subtle, but you can see how it reads as a different color than this
thick application here. This reads to be warmer on
that bottom of the jug, which is quite nice
to separate it, keep it tonally quite close. Then on these areas, I can start to judge, well actually they
feel a bit yellower. They've got a bit
more warmth into them so I can use this
color as a base. Then tiny touch of yellow and also a bit of the brown because I don't want
it to be too intense. Lighten it slightly
where it hits into the lighter side of the jug. Again with a bit of
the glazing liquid, at a very subtle glaze of this color onto the
back of the ceramic. It's starting to differentiate the jug from the backgrounds, yet keep it in
harmonious with it. Now what we can do is use some of that pure
ultramarine blue, the glazing liquid
just to dilute it and just paint that
in as a new ground underneath these
stripes in a jug. There's not going to be the
correct color to start with, but that's okay, we're just setting ourselves up for the next layer to go on top. Then you can see from here, once I've got that base on, I can use some of
that darker color. It's actually quite a dark blue and onto the front of the jug. We can use that to indicate
that idea of the shadow. I will say on the bottom
part of this stripe. Just diluting the paint
again with a bit of water to try to get that flow right. Couple of these fine
marks that can really help to bring a bit more
realism into the jug. If your line goes a bit wonky, that's absolutely fine, it's like the signature of
your style within the jug, it will work well. We might work a bit
more on the jug, but I might just put in
a couple of highlights just so we can judge how our
bodies are working on that. So there's little one back here. I'm just on the front. Great. Now we can start to
block in the pairs and start to see how the
yellows are working well with the rest of
the composition.
8. Mixing Colour Strings with Acrylics: [MUSIC] Here I've put
out some fresh colors for the rest of the painting. Usually in my studio, I've got a bit more
working time and I'll be able to have used
the other colors. But in today in particular, it's quite hot in here, so 29.6 degrees and the
humidity is only 27 degrees. This means that
there isn't a lot of moisture in the atmosphere. Usually I'm on about 45, 50 percent humidity
and lower temperature, and that just gives
me more working time with the acrylics. Getting a little humidity
monitor can be really handy just to check how your studio is and it can make a big difference in the
working time of your paints. Here again, just to get
some base colors for the pears we can use
our value scale. This is about a mid value there. So this is about a mid
value for this yellow. I'm going to start
with just some yellow and then mute that down. Because it's a bit greeny, you might want to mute
it initially, I think, to go to the blue
to make a green. But I'm just going
to add a bit of the brown of the burnt
umber to start with. It can be quite surprising
when you use this. How you'll get a green hue to it in comparison to the rest of the colors
in the painting. Let's go a bit darker. Again, you can check it
to your value scale. Okay, not bad to the value five. You can see how this is quite a nice base color
here for the pears. We can see if this
pear here has got more greeny tones to it, feels a bit darker. This feels like
the lightest pear here and this is a bit
in between the two. I'm going to keep that and darken it down a bit more. [NOISE] That's looking nice. I can see some warmer
hues here when I hold it next to
the reference image. For this particular color, I'm going to add a tiny
bit of the crimson. Not much at all. But that would just give us that nice bit of warmth to it. From there I'm going
to add some more of the burnt umber to
darken it down again. This is what's called
a color string. It's a range of colors that
are in the same color family, but get progressively darker. You can see how this will be handy for these
shadow areas on the pears. That's great. That gives us three good base
colors to start with. Now we can just start
painting those in. [MUSIC]
9. Painting the Three-Dimensional Form : [MUSIC] Creating
three-dimensional form gives your objects are
real sense of depth. There are two main things
that help to do this. The first is when your
object is bathed in light, a cast shadow is created. The second is the form shadow. If you've got a light source, there's always going
to be a shadow, and that helps to reveal
the shape of the object. Also, the cast shadow gives us some indication of the surface of the object is sat upon, ground in it, so that rather than having it
floating in space, you feel like it's
sat onto the surface. The second is
creating the illusion of form on the actual object. Observing the form shadow
and also just bearing in mind that whenever there's a change in plane on the object, there will be a change in tonal value and
the change color. We'll look at the
power of glazing were a little goes a long way. The real trick is to have a transparent pigment that you can just blush over the surface. This is especially
handy and acrylics because the color won't
yellow over time, which will traditionally
happen with oil paints. You can afford to
go quite thin with your glazes and that color will still remain true [MUSIC]. I'm actually just going to use a very smooth brush to start with and take some
of this warmer mix, and a bit more crimson to it. I just wanted to get
something in for the stock. It's quite a watery
application just to give me a glow of that color. Can actually see there is a tiny amount underneath
the jug as well. Just a little bit
of white into it. Turning very, very faint. It can just help to get
that warm and cool balance. Again just jump into viewers eye softly
across the painting. [NOISE] So I'm just blocking
in this first sight and just diluting with a tiny bit
of the glazing liquid. [NOISE] Then when
they form shadow, so the paste also
go into the shadow, I can then jump to
the next color, which is a darker version
of that first mix. [NOISE] There's also a darker section
on this side, again as that turns
away from the light. [NOISE] There's an area that's darker still
right on this far edge. Then you can use
the filbert brush just to surface make
these together. [NOISE] Just jumping down to the next and
turn it with mixed. [NOISE] Try not to judge too much because
when I'm starting to look at the next pair, I can see a little bit warmer, but try not to jump
to the next color too soon until you've actually
got a first color blocked in, because it's amazing how even life is under
this blue under here, this will be influencing our perception of the
accuracy of that color. Just by having these base
colors blocked here, and I'll just make
the rest of it and so much easier to judge those
differences [NOISE] [MUSIC]. Again, just with a bit
of that glazing liquid to soften off those edges. [MUSIC]. I'm always trying to imagine
the form that I'm looking at even though
that we're working from a flat reference image. Even though that I'm painting
this in a very flat color, I'm just using that
as a base to then add form later with this range
of hues that we've mixed. Now let me just stepping back and having
a look at these values. Once I've got them blocked
in from this stage, and I can start to
see wherever I want to push a bit more, where I've noticed the
color has gone out of it. Also it's now easier to judge these initial cast shadows
that I've painted in. I can tweak those. Just with a thin application, just smoking that edge of the cast shadow
because it will always get more diffused, the further it gets
away from the object. Now I can start to see, okay, this pair in the center here, she might give it a
bit more intensity. Again on this top section
here with a light hitting. My shape it's gone out here, even in there
because it's really, really dark, so a bit
more burnt umber, touch to the blue. Just looking at how your contrasts and values
are working together. See how by having
that thing darker, this yellow next to it
now looks brighter. It's amazing how these
little dashes of dark can really help to even influence the form of
the objects you're painting. [MUSIC]. Now it's just a
case of putting in those highlights then we can start to judge
everything together. [MUSIC]
10. Highlights & Finishing Touches: Then for the highlights, when you look at the reference, you can see it's not that
much of a change in value from the actual color
that we've got here, which appears quite dark
in comparison to say, just putting a white
highlight onto it. If we mix up some
more of this color, I might use a bit of that and then I'm just going to
add a bit of white to it, so it's brighter but
not massively so. This was the stronger yellow just so I can give a few final
pushes of a stronger color. Let's try this highlight. We might got to
go a bit lighter. Let's have a look. Yes, I think we could. It has actually got more
of a cooler tone to it but we start to see it. We use the blue and
some brown too, that makes a black. It's really nicer. Then once hands-on
with the filbert brush again and a bit of
the glazing liquid. Just touch any part
that I might want to feel not as intense. It's quite a thin application. You just glaze it down and feels like it's
more part of the object rather than just a
highlight sitting on top. Then I feel like I could
have stronger yellow. Now again just with the glazing liquid, I'm going to mix an orange, a very muted one. This is where the glazing
liquid can be so critical because it's very
hard to do this if you just using water. Then I'm just looking
for tiny bits where I want to give a bit of a glow to the painting. Sounds a bit of warm
from that side. It gets little bit of warmth this set being reflected
down into the core shadow. Not very much at all and again, just judging your shapes, you can put thicker
paint on top. Here as you could notice this
is a bit cooler down there so I just put a white into that. Put a little bit of the blue just to make it a touch greener. Green touch in here. Now what I'm going to use is just a tiny bit of green gold. You don't need to use this, but I find it's a very
handy paint to just get a real translucency
onto your paintings. Again, it's just a real
small amount of it. Just make sure you really clean the brush that
you're using for it. Then a bit of glazing liquid. See, it has got this
really nice glow to it and I can just
go over the stalk. I've put out far too much really for what I'm going to use. Then I can give a bit
of that green glow. That's that I don't really
want to overdo that, it's so subtle. Then just having a look
around the painting to see on the jug, the parts that I
could darken down or just give a bit
more intensity to. Sometimes these little dashes
have a very strong color, can just help to bring all
those subtleties together. Okay, that's great. I really hope you've
enjoyed this course and feel proud of the
painting that you've created and really embrace that
concept of just doing. If you're faced with your
next creative block, try just having
one hour of focus painting time and don't
worry about the end result, just go through
the process of it. I look forward to seeing you on the next morning
painting course.
Will Kemp, ARTIST & ONLINE TEACHER
