Break all the Rules: A Wonky Still Life

1. Wonky Still Life Intro: Welcome to Break All the Rules A Wonky still life. Now, before you jump into this class, if you haven't already taken my designing still life, freedom, confidence, and choice class, I would do that first. It's the I'm learning class in the still life series. So where we loosen habits, practice making choices, and step away from trying to be correct. So you'll get more out of these painting classes that follow if you do that one first. In this wonky class, we're going to create a still life, but not in the traditional way, not what you might think of. It's going to be wonky and kind of wild. This is a design first rule breaking approach where realism is optional, and experimentation is the point. It's an intentionally freeing class. We focus on shape, color, and overall design, and we let go of the pressure to try to make things look real. And for many of us, that shift alone can feel incredibly liberating. It does for me. This is a great place to start in this series because it helps break any preciousness or rigid thinking that we might be and probably are, I still do it, bringing to our work. We're exercising those experimenting and exploring muscles, and learning what it takes to feel like to really trust ourselves instead of second guessing or fixing things. And really, it's about giving ourselves permission. The goal here is not a finished or polished painting, necessarily. Success in this class is feeling freer, less precious and more willing to try things and listen to that voice that wants to do. Try this little thing or that little thing, even if it feels a little uncomfortable. If you're new here, I'm Suzanne Allard, and I didn't start painting until my early 50s. I know I look young, right? And I learned almost everything I know through online classes like this. Today, I licensed my art. In fact, this is a licensed kimono, which is so fun to wear. And I love teaching because creativity lives in all of us. Sometimes we just need permission or new ideas or a new approach. So before you start painting, please check the class downloads. You'll find reference photos, a cheat sheet of tips specific to this class, and a supply list there. So make sure to get that all downloaded and ready to be handy while you work. Alright, let's get started. 2. Supplies: Still Life Unleashed Series: Okay, let's talk about supplies for this Still Life Unleashed series of classes. I in general, when it comes to supplies, I definitely have a problem. I am addicted to art supplies. So bear that in mind. You know, you do not need all of these supplies. I just am an art supply junkie, and I love experimenting with things. But I did try to keep it under control, 'cause, you know, limits are good. So let's start with here, let me flip us down to this camera, and let's start with what I painted on in the class. I used these three sketchbooks and a canvas board. But, of course, you can also use paper. So I'll just quickly go through them. And by the way, I painted this cover, so it doesn't come like this. This is the Stillman and Burn. And I have all of this in the supplies list. I work really hard on my supplies list to make sure they have everything I reference. So you can let me know if I leave anything out. But I have links to everything, and I just really love the paper in this, and I like an off white paper. Just a personal preference. And then this is the Moleskin Art Journal the Large. It's probably two thirds full. This is, let's see, one of the paintings that we're going to do in the class. Yeah, that's one. That's one I did outside of class. This is one of the class paintings. I love this sketchbook, as well, moleskin. And then the third one we use is the fabriano. This is called I think that's in the back of Ansia. Yeah, Vensia. And it's just a little bit larger. The paper is also a nice thickness, and it is, like, a more white color, but it, you know, takes pretty much everything I do to it. So I give you a sneak peek ala This was a class painting. That was a warm up to a class painting. Well, really, the I can't remember which one. I love doing those fruit ones. Okay. So those are the sketchbooks I used, and I would say they are three of my favorite brands. Down because they're so heavy. I also use the canvas panel in one of the classes, and I love these as well. I provided a link for them. They frame up just like paper wood, you know, in a frame, but they're already treated and they have, you know, some substance to them. And they're more expensive than paper, of course, but not. Ridiculous. And they're just easier to handle for me than a big canvas. If I'm on the easel, then I use a canvas, usually, or one of those panels. For paper, I would say a watercolor or mixed media paper, definitely something heavier, 140 pound or more. And the Europe, you guys call that 300 GSM. I would prime the paper, and I also prime my sketchbook pages, and I'll show you how I do that, or I'll show you what I use because the reason and I do have a YouTube on why I do this kind of in more depth, but the bottom line is that paper like this is, you know, especially watercolor paper is meant to absorb the paint, right? Makes sense. And if you're going to use watercolors on it, that's great. You get that bleed effect and so forth. Or even if you're going to use acrylic with a watery wash, then you're going to get that bleed effect. So it really depends on what you want. If you're using a more watery consistency in this class and you want to have um, that washy look, then don't prime the watercolor paper. But if you're going to work the way I did in the class, which is acrylic and kind of juicy paint, you want it to sit on top, not get absorbed in. Does that make sense? So we prime the surface with something, and you can use I use them interchangeably, depending on what I want. I use a fluid map medium if I just want to kind of have a more slick surface, and if I want that kind of crunchy, toothy feel, I use gesso, and you just brush it on and let it dry. And that's enough. That way, when you paint, your paint won't get sucked up by the paper. Before I learned to do this, I was trying to paint with acrylic, and, you know, you'd paint, and the kind of paint would disappear and then paint another layer and disappear. And you waste a lot of paint that. Again, if you're gonna do the wash heathing where you want the bleed and so forth, then you would not prime the paper. And the same thing applies to the sketchbooks. So I usually prime them with the MT medium or the gesso for the same reasons. Okay, so that's surfaces. For palette, I either use, you know, a piece of plexi. I think I have an old piece of Plexiglass here. I usually use palette paper. I just like to be able to use it easily quickly. And then sometimes you get some nice pieces to use for collage, or some people use them as inspiration for abstract paintings. But that's disposable palette. Basically, you tear off the sheet and throw it out. For brushes in this series of classes, I used my Suzanne Allard design juicy brushstroke series, and they are they just came out. Um and I think I only used I might have used one more smaller brush. So but any flat, if you wanted to get the same effects, a flat number six, and maybe for the occasional detail of flat number four, and maybe sometimes a Filbert, and that's what this shape is here and it's kind of rounded at the top. But I would say any good quality brush, what I would be careful of is just don't get anything that's too smushy, like, super, super soft. You're not going to have maybe the effect and control that you want. And on the other hand, don't get anything too stiff. Like for this. Anyway, or just understand that brushes will change the effect. So there's no wrong brush. But if you're trying to get certain effects, learning what they do, like, these Princeton catalysts are really, really stiff. And so you're gonna get a different effect. You're gonna more, like, push the paint, and it's kind of better for oils. So just understand if you're getting if you're not getting the result you want, might be the brushes. Of course, it might be the paint, too. Speaking of paint, I use in this Still Life Unleashed series, basically two types of paint. I use the Acro gouache, and my favorite brands are the Hbain. That's what these two are and the Turner. And I put them both in a palette the same way I do the acrylics, which I'll show you in a second. And then the acrylics I'm using are the Nova color. These are the paints that are available only via their website. They don't sell in stores and they're artist quality paints for a student grade price, but they really only a good deal in the US because the shipping is too much to make it worth getting out of the country is what people tell me. Anyway, I have a Suzanne Allard design bundle with them. You do not need to buy Nova Colors. You do not need to buy the Turner or the Hbin. You can use what you have. Just try to buy the best quality that you can afford. I would rather have you have fewer colors and a better quality. So if you'll see I use a limited palette of the acrylics, which is what's often called the split primary palette, which is really just two yellows, two reds and two blues. But within each of those, you have a warm yellow and a cool yellow, a warm red and a cool red, and a warm blue and a cool blue. So really that and maybe a few really fun colors like fluorescent magenda, which I'm obsessed with. And maybe, you know, you can make almost every color from that split primary palette. So I would rather see you get a good brand and just get those six colors plus white and then get some cheap brand and get a bunch of colors. You'll learn so much more about color and you'll like the result of your paintings better because the cheaper paints don't have much pigment in them. They have a lot of fillers, so you just you're not getting that, you know, kind of rich look that you probably want. Alright, so that's paint. For sketching, I sketch my compositions in usually three or so different ways, always very casually. And in the designing still life class, I talk about how you can use really anything. You can use a pencil. You can use a colored pencil. You can use sometimes I like to use this fun fluorescent pink solid marker by sakura. Or one of these pencils by Well, this I would use for actually something that's going to show because they're pricey, these luminant carinash luminants. And I've got all that in the supply list. But I often will just take a little bit of paint, water down on my brush and sketch with that. So I also love sketching with neoclor crayons. And, you know, these are the neocolor twos, so that means that they are water soluble. So if I sketch with one of these, I can it'll dissolve with the paint that goes on it. It doesn't really show, and I kind of like when some of it does show. So that's those are the different sketching tools that I use. All right. And let me show you the paint, and then I'll show you a couple of sort of paint related, I guess, things. So quickly, I put my for me, success in painting means I can just get my stuff out and start painting. I don't have to squeeze a lot and work a lot. It just helps me to be more on the go. So for the gouache and you could actually use these containers for either acrylic, there's no rhyme or reason to why I just I'm using them this way. But I put the acro gouache in these containers and then I can kind of see the split primary there a little bit. The warm yellow, cool yellow, warm red, cool red. And some blues. There's a couple of other things like an opera pink, which is another color that I buy because you can't make it. So these guys, I keep them with wrapped in a wet paper towel like you just saw me take off in the fridge, and they have lasted months, months, months, months. It's amazing. Sometimes the silicone rubbery cover is a little tricky to get back on, especially 'cause I probably have some paint in there, but that's it. That's how easy it is to get them out, start painting and put them back. And then I if I find that they're drying too fast, I will add sometimes a slow dry medium by liquitex. And so they're just it's so convenient. They're ready to go. And same with my novas. I have a small one and a big one of these. Is my wet paper towel. And, um, it took a while to find the right container to do what I wanted, but I did. And, yeah. So again, you know, now, if I notice, like, that one looks a little dry when I'm painting, I will use my I think it was originally a makeup like a face hydrating spray. But I use it this way. You know, I don't like them too, you know, over the watery, but if they need a spray, then I'll do that. But again, I bet you I've had this in the fridge for six months. And that incredible. So it's a great way to save save paint and make them convenient. And it's fun because you can mix some of the colors that you really like right in the little wells. Okay. Last thing I want to show you, I think some people ask, let me get my sketchbook. You know, how do you keep the pages from sticking if sometimes like this one, we paint in the class. I love how this turned out. But, well, the acrylic is not too bad, but sometimes they will stick. Let me see if I can get one to stick. Oh, you hear that? That was a sticky sound. And so I will use this fixative Um, if I want to use something non toxic in the house, like in the winter, this is the Dega spectra fix. It's completely natural. I can do it right now. No issues. If I want to use something, this one's a little pricey. So if I want to just do it outside in the garage, I use my Okay, I think we're okay. If I okay, using, you know, going out in the garage, I can use the crylon workable fixative, which does not smell good, but in the garage, it's fine. But I don't and it doesn't linger too much on the sketchbook pages, 'cause I don't want my sketchbooks to smell. Well, I don't mind if they smell good. But I don't want them to smell bad. Alright, I think I've covered everything, and we are gonna have so much fun in this class. I can't wait to get started with you. 3. Gathering Inspiration: Alright, let's gather some inspiration for our Wonky Still Life. Now, I have some Pinterest boards that you are welcome to look at, and I go through these in more detail in the kind of foundation class at the beginning of this series. But within still life art, I just wanted to make a whole separate board for Wonky Still Life because I just love the wonky, break all the rules kind of still life. So I've got three of mine in here, but let's look at some other folks. And it's always hard with Pinters. Some people put the artist's name on the pin. Like, here we have Brian Miller, but some people don't, you know, that's why I'm leaving it in Pinters because I don't want to take it out and take any attribution there might be a way. But anyway, we're just looking to see how people break the rules in still life. And so we have, let's see. Let's look at a few different ones. So you can see something like this. And the thing about Pinterest is, you know, I'm not gonna get into There's a name down here, but I don't know if that's the artist or not. In fact, I can see it's not. That's just the person who pinned it. There's a signature down here, maybe AH. I think I might know. That might be Ann. Anyway, we will just look at the artwork. So this is just so fun. Everything is like, well, almost everything is kind of crooked or lopsided. The textures yummy. You've got sort of some things that you can tell what they are, and some things you're not quite sure like this shape here, these shapes back here, we can see that that's cornflakes because it says it, but look how big the mug is here. So there's just a lot there that's fun. Yeah, that's what I'm wondering if the AH was this artist. I think it is Aunt. So now we can give her credit, Anna Hymes because there's another AH here. Same thing here, the way she's using her lines and very loose and just organic, not overly finished or polished. Um, I know who this is because I love her work. Emily Powell. Also someone who just does these very look at the forms here. There's, you know, they're not shaded and not made to look straight or correct or anything like that. So definitely goes in the Wonky category. This one's kind of fun. I don't know who this artist is, but there's some writing up here and then just some bits here. I mean, isn't it amazing the variety of still life, um you know, interpretations there are. I love this artist, Megan Grant. She's Australian. And look at these fun colors. She has a thing in almost all her paintings that they slant kind of to the right. And so you can see that that's still life. Let's see if I find another one of hers. There's shapes in here, but nothing is really formed or any relationships between different shapes, you know, are just kind of unconventional, a lot of fun. Let's take a look at a couple more. I mean, look at this as fun because you have this flatness here, and then the vase is this way. It looks like a collage, but it's very wonky. Let's find one more that kind of gives This is just a good one for showing how something can be crooked, off center, and simplified and kind of hold its own. So, you know, you can take your time looking at things like this to inspire you. Look how wonky, this is just a vase, so maybe it's not quite still life, but this artist is another Hope Olson, another wonderful kind of wonky artist. And then I put my three paintings here that I'm going to show you closer up here. So what we're doing here is we look at these artists to get ideas and to get sort of in the mood to create, but we're not copying anyone. You know, we're not taking any one painting and saying, Oh, we're going to do that. Now, of course, you can do that on your own, in your sketchbook or wherever you want. That's a great way to learn. But what I'm showing you how to do here is get sort of guidance and ideas from these things and then going to our references and creating original artwork. So let's jump to the photos that I've included in this class. I created these paintings with these photos and just a couple more for some vessel shapes. But let's look at why I chose these. These are all photos that I've either taken in travel, except for this one. This one here is a Pinterest photo. But you'll see notice this checkered vase that appears in one of the paintings that I did. So this is something I took traveling, and I really encourage you to do this now. You're going to turn into. Like me, I go into these shops. This was in Paris, and I just thought, Oh, my gosh, look at these shapes. Look at that vace. Look at this lamp, even this little glass thing, the candlestick. I went crazy in this shop. I think I took, I don't know, a bunch of pictures. And then there was a farmers market in this was in the south of France. And this was a wonderful potter. And so I loved these shapes and colors, so I took that. And then this was in another shop actually here in Charlottesville. But look at that yummy shape. And these things are everywhere. So you can, of course, get on Pinterest, but it's really fun to capture your own shapes. Then these are some just fun sort of still life setups I was playing with in my in my basement light box area. I was arranging things, and then I just took some pictures, and I thought, you know, we might use a pattern in there, and I got silly and thought, Oh, maybe these bananas will stand up and I can prop a flower against them. Who knows? It was just fun. And then this was from I did the same thing, sort of a makeshift light box at my parents' house with their little frog prints there. You'll see this pot shows up in one of these paintings. So yeah, and then the Pintres photo. So I did three different wonkies to kind of show you what I'm talking about, and then we'll use these pictures to put together one. So my first wonky was, I would call mild wonky, and because the shapes are a little off kilter and kind of there's movement, but they're still kind of all in a line, and then there's a clear pattern in the back. So it's wonkyish, but I called it wonky mild. And then I took, do you remember this beautiful bowl here with the grapes? Okay, you'll see how that shows up here. There it is and reimagined with the grapes. And then these, I was looking across the room at my snake plant, and I threw those in. Then I grabbed this jar from that still life that I did at my parents, the clay jar. And then I love pears, so I threw a pear in here's a lemon. And I just I wanted shapes to just go off kilter, and I just played with different mistakes. And then I said, Well, let's get even wilder. Let's get even more wonky. And I took shapes in the background and in the foreground, and I really enjoyed working this way. So I think this is the way that I will design the class to paint with you along in this way and show you this. So I'm just giving you some ideas. And so now let's move to the table, and we can look at these paintings in, you know, better than a picture. We'll look at them in the sketchbook and talk about a couple more ideas, and then we'll get painting. Woohoo. 4. More Inspiration!: Okay, so let's take a look at these paintings that I just showed you in picture format. So this was my Wonky mild. It's still a little too well behaved. Then, I did the next Wonky and it's definitely more wonky. Things don't make sense. You know, you've got different things happening, some things going sideways, some shapes, some different size bits, not making sense with others. And, um, then I did this one. I didn't even mean to do the same colors, but I must be into these colors because I did the very similar colors. And this one ended up being more abstract and just more, I guess shape oriented, which was a lot of fun. So I'm going to work in the sketchbook that does not mean you need to. I didn't for this first one. So grab whatever surface paper. This is just a I think a piece of watercolor paper or acrylic paper. I would use something with some body to it. And if you use a sketchbook page, make sure that it is a sketchbook that paper is designed for media. Wet media. See how this is a bit thicker. This sketchbook is the moleskin Large. Let's see. I don't think it's or might be called extra large. And I do pre prime these pages with either, you know, just some color or gesso, sometimes both, often both. Or you can use matte medium, something to keep the paint from sinking down into the paper too much. I've already prepared this. You can hear that texture of the gesso on there. Gesso is just a primer. You can use white and mix a color with it. Or you can use a matte medium, which will give you kind of a smoother surface. Sometimes I mix the two. I just like playing and experimenting. And I often will take one or the other and put the paint the color right on there and do a background. And this one we'll paint the background together. So I'm going to start with a clean sheet like this. I'm going to get some paints out on my palette, and I'm just going to get a a split primary palate, which means two yellows, two reds and two blues, but they're going to be warm and cool of each. Just a quick lesson on that is a cool yellow, a warm yellow. And a cool red and a warmer red. So these are all part of the Nova Suzanne Allard bundle that I have through Nova Color paint, which is wonderful, artist quality paint at kind of a student quality price. And, boy, I've gotten paint all over these. So these are all colors that are in that bundle. And then warm and cool Blues, Cerlemblues the warm. Ultramarine, I think is cool. Some people disagree about that. And then just in case it wasn't clear, this is the cooler red. You get to where you can just kind of tell by looking at them. But in general, on the color wheel, these are the warm colors, and these are the cool colors. But within each color, there's a warmer and a cooler version. Really easy to see with the yellow. Because it just looks warmer, right? This one looks warmer. So anyway, I can't go too deep into color in the class. I do have a color mixing class that is available. You can just email me for the link to that it's a free class that I give away. So that's paint. I'm gonna get the paints out. I will start with brush wise. Probably just gonna use one of these brushes from a newer brush set. That I made for juicy brushstrokes. Just sketch it out, I will probably use. Sometimes I just use the bigger one, the size six. But we'll play with those, decide then. And the only other thing I wanted to show you is this book that has so much good inspiration. You can see, I'm not gonna show you all these pages. It would take too long, but Frances Palmer Life in the studio. So I love pots, and I love flowers. And it was actually a student who recommended this book to me, and I was like, Oh, my gosh, here's, you know, like, worlds colliding of things that I love. And so she's a beautiful potter, and what I love about her vessels is some of them are wonky. I want to find some in particular that are actually sort of tilting. Or just unusual in some way. There, look at that. How fun are these? No, maybe maybe those are fails. I don't know. I don't know if she thinks those are fails or not. But these are pretty wonky. And that's fun. Yeah, see these kind of very creative vessels. And then, of course, there are flowers. Oh, that's a recipe I thought looked good. She has a couple of recipes in here, too. But you can use a book like this just to get inspiration, I mean, to get inspiration for so many paintings because of the floors and the pots. So I just wanted to show it to you. Um, here, look at these. That one's kind of going. It's definitely uneven. This one's a little bit crooked. I just love that. So maybe I will keep this page out and include it in class resources just in case we want to. And look at these handles on this. See these squigglies. And I love putting squigglies in my work. I'll show you I know I did some in this last painting. Yeah, here's some squigglies. There's some kind of that kind of mark. So that's just something I enjoy. Um, so yeah, I'll include this picture, and you have the other pictures. So let's get our photos out, and let's I'm going to get my paints out, and then we'll get started designing this. Probably gonna design it. You know, I either start with a crayon, like a neo color crayon to draw things out or a paint brush or both. We'll see. 5. Designing & Sketching: Okay. I think I want to sketch this one out with a crayon or you could use pencil, pen. You could just use paint because it doesn't matter because we're going to cover it up. But sometimes I just start painting, but I think I want to do a little designing on this. So we're going to play with remember, we're breaking all the rules, and we're just going wild and wonky. So first, I'm going to just turn this and do one of these shapes this way. I love these pots. So let's see here. Here comes the handle, something like that. And we're not trying to get anything correct clearly. So make sure this is done quickly. Do that shape there. Oh, that's a pretty shape right there. I just want to make sure you can see it. Come on. Hmm. Not letting me well, probably user error. Well, anyway, it's over. I'm gonna put that like coming off intentionally. Let's make it coming off. I'll just put that there as kind of a reminder to me that I liked how that went. And I'll pick a different colored cream just because why not? I say that a lot, don't I? Why not? Let's Oh, let's look at one of these. These are so fun. Let's do this funny thing. I'm gonna It has all these fun beady things here. It has some kind of stripes here that might just remind me if I want to keep those. Oh, that is fun, isn't it? And this thing with the squiggles, I try not to do anything just in this exactly in the center 'cause of composition. So let's try making this really big here, and then maybe making some exaggerated. I think Francis would like what we're doing with her pots. Okay, let's look at another picture. Maybe some fruit. Let's see. I'm just switching colors for fun. We could put lemon over here. Maybe a couple. And I do love this. I'm starting to overthink. So I'm gonna go look at another picture. That's pretty that shape there. Oh, I know the picture. I want to look at the one in Paris. The candlestick. Yes. So what if I want to make it coming down this way? Maybe you can draw upside down, but I need to turn the thing around. This is This has spiral, something like that. See how freeing this is? Um, this shape is really fun, too. So this one here. So I'm just gonna kind of goes like this. And you can see that it literally does not matter what, you know, shape I put there. So there's no point in trying to get it right. We're definitely gonna use this pattern, this thing Somewhere. Maybe we'll just put some in right now. Just to make a note of it. And the red dot can be over here. And I want some more red somewhere. I turn it back around. Not that it has a right side or a wrong side. Okay. Well, we got a lot of stuff in here, don't we? Let's see. The only other place I want something here is here, maybe, and maybe some leafy something. These are the watercolor No Color 2 grays. So they're just gonna dissolve in the paint, which you have to keep in mind, if you use, like, this dark color and I end up painting a something light, I might not want that, so I'm gonna switch to a gray. Trying to think what I want here. I don't know. Maybe just something that comes like this. And Maybe it's coming out of that pot. Maybe it isn't. Alright, well, that's enough. Definitely wonky, breaking the rules. And then we have to keep remembering as we're painting to not try to. Like, even this, look, I made this pretty even. So I'm gonna try to remind myself. And let me let me wonkify that. Is that a word? I can just use water to remove this. So that it's a little more wonky. Alright, so and even this one was a little too even. I'm trying to exaggerate these things so that and look, I made this perfectly straight. See. I want it to go this way. So I'll just come in there and do a little racing. As long as I have enough of a mark to know where I'm going, that's all I need. We're going this way. That's what the water's doing on the page where maybe there wasn't some gesso. And let's see if there's anything else I want to intentionally mess up. We can we still have time to mess up a lot when we paint. Alright. Sketch is done. 6. Let's get Painting!: All right. So I do have my Nova colors in here. There's a lot more colors here than I showed you. We're not gonna use them all. But since I have this put together, I thought I would use it. I'm standing up 'cause this is a larger sketchbook, so I want to make sure you can see everything. And Let's get pening. I've been using, like I showed you in the sketchbook, these sort of dark orangy colors. So I want to make this one lighter and brighter and just a little bit different color palette. I haven't really selected a color palette, but I like these colors and these colors. Let's see if we can maybe have that in mind. First, I'm just going to paint some shapes. Some of these are just background shapes, and some of this may disappear. I definitely will. First, I'm going to come in with the bigger background shapes. It can help too, by the way, to take a picture of your sketch because that way when you start painting over parts of it, if you want to refer back to, oh, yeah, I wanted to put those squigglies there. It's just a nice to have. All right. Well, that thing that happens sometimes when we teach happened where my camera stopped filming. But I really like where this is going, so I want to just tell you what I just did. After I painted this shape, I looked for where else I could put this color. And then I started, want to keep these colors light and bright. I started with a pink and I used my fluorescent magenta, which I'm obsessed with. I wanted to say also, these are the Nova color paints, but you can use any good quality acrylic or gouache or acrylic wash, or oil for that matter, the layering would be trickier. Just try to stick with a good student grade or an artist grade. I think the liquitex basis is a pretty good student grade. I came through and I am looking for balance. So when I put in a color and I said, You know what? We're breaking all the rules, let's make pink lemons. See, I was telling you all this wonderful stuff. Then I came through and made some green. And in my six colors, there is no green. I just used some ultramarine blue and some warm yellow and came up with this nice warm green that you see here. I haven't put that anywhere else yet. But then I got excited about turquoise, and I showed you how to make turquoise with these colors, which is the lemon yellow, Hansa yellow is the name of this one, and a serlem blue, and you get these beautiful turquoises. Just you can change it to warmer or cooler. And then I came through and did these turquoise bits. Then I've been really interested in orange lately. I usually like to have some bit of orange in my painting. I took the warm red, which is the napthal crimson, and this Indian yellow, my warm yellow, and I made an orange and I put it here and here, then I warmed it up here. No rhyme or reason to that. I just like to have the same colors appearing throughout, but also change them slightly. You'll notice this orange, these are darker than this one. This turquoise is a bit lighter than this, and then I wanted to do light turquoise in here. And did the Wonky candlestick that no one will know is a candlestick and it doesn't really matter. That's why this way of working is so fun and free. And where I am now, then I came in and made this one of my favorite colors, which is just ultramarine blue, still wet and white. And it just makes this sort of French blue, and I intentionally made these brush strokes. I just didn't mix the paint real well on my palette so that you get this kind of texture. Then I said, wouldn't it be breaking the rules to put spots marks on this vessel, which can't even tell it's a vessel and then have them go off of it, breaking a rule, right? Because it doesn't make sense. This is wonky. It's kind of tilting. I mean, when we're done with this, no one is gonna know what we did on here and where we got our inspiration. And, of course, we aren't copying anything. So I think at this point, I want to paint this candlestick. We'll still call it that. Even though it's just not going to be that in the painting, is it? I'm trying to think about what color. I think, you know, I'll go back to pink with the florescent magenta, but then maybe take it in a bit warmer direction and add some of the Indian yellow. So that it doesn't match that too much because I often, redo colors. So being very I'm being very imprecise on purpose. I'm wondering about these red shapes. Do I want them red like they were in the inspiration photo? Or do I just want let's see what happens if I just grab my cad red and mix it with what I just had and get basically I don't know. I'm not usually a fire engine red person, but I am trying to do some things to change it up. So let's do it. Who knows? We can always repaint. Cover them. I might not like the whole thing at all in terms of how they are here, but I have a feeling it's going to add some fun. We do need some neutrals in this thing because it's. It's a lot of fun. But when you have a lot of bright colors, it's almost like having too many stars in a show. So I will be doing we might tone those down in a different way once they dry. I think this soft yellow we made would be good for this little bit here. And that was just a yellow opre which was not in my six and white. I do love yellow ochre. In fact, feeling like I want to come over here and do that. Just maybe on the one side. Now, for a while now we've departed from references and just making choices about color, shape, what we enjoy, what's pleasing. Which is a personal thing. What's funny is I'm noticing this was a negative shape right here, remember? Because this was a shape we drew, this was a shape we drew, but doesn't this look like its own vessel. That's fun. Shape the negative space vessel. What color? Now I'm thinking about do I want a color in here and then something in there? Do I want them the same or different? Either way, they're going to be more tone down, they're going to be more neutral. They're not going to be another super bright color. They're going to be a mix of some of these. I think I want something maybe warm here. Maybe the green. We haven't done much of that green. So let's I've already got this ochre on my brush. I can grab a little of the ultramarine and see what we end up with. It's gonna be too. No, it's not kind of green I was thinking of, so let's do cerulean and the warm yellow and see what that gives us. No, that's too intense. I had a little pink to tone it down. A little more white. We're getting closer. I just wanted this similar to this, a little warmer. Let's see how that is. I don't think it's too bright. I want to tones down a little bit. Some white, maybe a little pink pink or red really tones down green. Can go even lighter because remember that acrylics dry darker. So you have to lighten up anything that you want to be lighter. This is we found to cut around this thing. It's going to end up looking like a flower, probably. Is this a kind of thing I like to do? That was the original color IMX, leave it. We're going for imprecision here. Character. Sort of like an old house, that's not perfect. The floors are slanted. I mean, as long as they're not so slanted that you lose your balance, that's part of the character of an old house among other things. I think I might want that even lighter in places a little more white. Just touch it, doesn't have to be all filled in and I'm feeling like I don't know. All of a sudden this feels too in my face torque wise. So ton some of that down. Maybe bring a bit of this color here because why not? I actually like how this off white color looks. So I'm going to clean out my brush because I need a bit cleaner to make an off white. Not completely clean because that'll help me make the off white. Off white is white with the other primaries. I usually just start somewhere. I already have some orange in my my white, so there you go. It's already partly there. I added a little bit of yellow ochre. It's a little pinky. So let's go maybe grab a little green. Seeing if that's maybe take a tiny bit of blue direction. It's more of a super light gray. Let's see how that works. One of the things I love, do you see how I painted over that line there? I love that. I'm definitely leaving that. I do not want to correct correct that. Same thing here. I'm just discovering that I really enjoy that cran mark coming through. And I'm still finding myself leaving some of those cray outlines, so that's fun. Oh, we haven't done this. It's fun to squiggle in the wet paint, but I missed most of them. Here we go. There's a good one. You can see the yellow through there. I just wanted a bit of this. I like taking a bit of color and putting it elsewhere. Alright, we are a good place to let this dry. 7. Adding Elements: Okay, so this is a good place to do, like, a check on our chee che and what we're trying to achieve here, and I had to laugh when I saw begin with a layout that feels uncomfortable. And I do love the colors, but I'm in that, what is this and uncomfortable place. And we've done a lot of this, you know, objects obviously are tilting, floating, definitely breaking the rules on this. Wrong scale, wrong tilt, broken perspective. So I just included this because I think it's great to read at the beginning of the class and then check it, especially if you start feeling like, awkward, unresolved, and unstable are all valid outcomes. Then this is important. Success in this class is not a good painting. It's feeling looser, less precious and more willing to experiment. When we're doing a class like this, we're really trying to break molds in our heads about what we should and shouldn't do. And, you know, then we can, in other classes, put some things back together, but it's sort of like, maybe undoing and unlearning some things, and we want to avoid overworking or too much fixing. So I just wanted to review some of that. Resist the urge to explain or justify the painting. Hmm. Maybe I just did that. So I wanted to do that, and then I wanted to think about where I want to go next. And I do want, you know, some still life shapes so that it's recognizable as a still life, even though it's a very abstracted wonky, but I want a wonky vase in there, even an outline. And this was done as a background, so we can decide what to keep or take away. Obviously, we can do anything we want. So that I was also thinking about some pattern here and there, maybe. And just in the composition, not really a fan of this, but I do like this. So I was thinking of maybe some maybe an outline of a vase with some flowers that kind of just go over that. We'll see. We'll just experiment. Knowing that our objective here is to let ourselves play It's hard, isn't it? To feel like. I do love the colors. So let me think about let's find a shape that we like in our pictures for maybe kind of right here. And then I can have some flowers cascading over. I like that round one. Of course, we can make up any shape we want. This is fun. This's shape. Let's do that one. So sometimes it really helps me to just sketch it with a crayon first so that, um, I'm thinking I don't want it to cover up too much of my red squiggly. Well, let's see who let's see what happens. I'm gonna make it wonky and come down here and come up here like this. Something like that, maybe. And do we want handles on it? We could put those squiggly handles back in. Then maybe I have some flowers coming out. They don't have to come out, right? They can just be here. Flower shapes. Alright, let's get that outline in so we can see where we are. And I want to do a very off whitey type outline. Just using white with some yellow ochre. And Oh, yeah, let's take it in a pink direction. Grab a little bit of my quinacridone red. Makes it really nice pink. Maybe a little bit more. There's something so satisfying about doing that. I can tell I'm gonna want that to be more bold. So it would have to be either lighter or darker, but we'll and it's mixing in with the crayon. So we'll let that dry can always do another coat. Well, that's fun. I'm just using the filbert. I thought the round at the end would help with these squigglies. I love flat brushes, but they can make squigglies a bit challenging. I love this color. I'm gonna darken it a little bit. Okay. And some flower stuff here. I'm feeling. Let me see. I'm gonna do a paper towel, wipe my brush. Maybe like a lavender flower. So I've got the pink already. I'll throw in some Altamarneblue. I'd say, maybe a tad of the florescent magenta to give it a little pop a little more white. Some squishy, juicy, brush druggy flowers. Lighten it a little bit more. I just vary the color a little bit so that you can distinguish one from the other. Remembering always that the acrylic is gonna dry darker. Then let's add little more blue and do, like, some little bits of flowers. Maybe they're just a little cascading something. So noticing, you know, that the flowers are not coming out of the vase, getting another paper towel and leaving that, not fixing it, seeing where we go with it. I love these pink lemons. It's probably my favorite part right there. In fact, I was thinking last night that if I were to name this, I would call it pink lemonade. Um Okay, not that we want to get attached to anything. Here, listen to me. I'm talking about naming a painting that is supposed to be just experimentation. So forget that, Suzanne. All that does is create pressure. I kind of like that the way it was. That's what's fun about acrylic once it's dried. These are baby wipes, but you could use a paper towel. You can just wipe right on it. Alright. Um, do I want to do? Oh, yeah. I was talking about pattern. Okay. Let's grab a little more. Well, that's too much of the fluorescent magenta. I want to keep this pattern subtle. So it's still too bright. And do, like, do some sort of shape which we aren't gonna worry about being correct or anything. Just sort of a suggestion of it up there. 8. More Experimenting: Looking around. This funny thing is too straight. I'll just I'm fixing it in the sense that I'm um, changing it, but I'm not fixing it, like, trying to make it look like something. I just didn't like how straight it was. And I I like that shade. It might soften some of this red a little bit. So when I say in the chichi, not fixing, I mean, don't try to make things look too much like a vase. Oh, you know, it's fun? This is starting to look like some fruit. So maybe we add a little more. Like, um, a pear. I love pears. Okay. I think a bright green pear would be nice there. Well, let's make a green. Use the lemon. I've still got pink on my brush, which is gonna tone it down a lot, so it might take some of that pink off. Getting the hands of yellow. And I want some more little tiny bit ultramarine to make more green. Maybe a little bit of white, but I want it really lime looking. So let's go with more hands of yellow. And let's put it right here. Well, that's fun. Do I fill it in or leave it? I think I leave it. I'm just gonna take my crayon and make a stem. Probably need a little, let's make it blue. I could paint it, but it's just so easy to stick the stem in there with the crayon. I like those kind of little details. Ooh. And then we're gonna take this lime color, maybe even make it more limey and come in here. I want a little more yellow to it. And do these do some flower centers. This is fun. Just getting another coat on there. I want it to really at least part of it to really pop. You know what else we could do. We could break up that shape with a slightly tone down limey color. So I added just some of the red I had to knock it back, and maybe we'll water it a little to make it smooth and come in here and do these. Lines. All right. Do I want pattern anywhere else? Yeah, I think I do. I think I want some I could do it with a crayon, too. I want some more off white. And I'm thinking about in here. I'm wondering if I want to do a tribe. Let's look at our photos, see if there's any inspiration there. Mm. Maybe we'll just do Well, I've already got spots there. I was gonna say spots, but, you know, I like the grapes that are here. But I don't want to put them over there. What would happen if we did, like, a little check mark? We don't normally do that, so let's experiment with it. Of course, we're not trying to make these lines follow exactly, but I'm not sure I've ever down at Check Mark, so that is a good experiment. Gosh, pin is drying fast. That's 'cause it's wintertime and the heat's running. That's kind of fun. I brighten that up. Maybe do it here too. I want some brightness over here. Let me put something underneath here. So I don't paint on my other pages. It's the back of the cheat sheet, which it's appropriate that it would have paint on it. Yeah, I like that. Oh, and now I want to do maybe a little bit of pattern here with that same color. Or not mate powder, some stripes. When you let the paint dry a little bit you can get that scumbly effect. Hmm. It's definitely wacky. I'm just looking at it going, Maybe we're done. I like to come in with oil pasto or crayon afterwards, so you never know, but we might be done with the paint part. Well I think I want to cut in on some of this pattern here. So I made the same color just so it doesn't look so perfect. I want it to look a little more Um to with the edges not so matchy. So cutting in allows you to get some really nice shapes. Same with these little flowery things. I just like the shapes you get left with with cutting in. So I try to find a place to do it in, um, you know, a lot of my work. Alright, well, you know, as you get further along in a painting, you spend more time looking at it. Um, but the goal wasn't to finish painting, even though I can't help myself. So I'm gonna walk away and look at a little bit, see if there's anything else I want to experiment with on this. Oh 9. Final Details: Okay, now, the key is here to not overwork this to stop when it feels alive. And so that's what I'm thinking about as I go back in here. See how much darker this that practically looked white dried. And so I'm looking at design, color, composition, those kind of things. I'm not looking at does this shape look like a vase? In fact, this was just a fun thing that this shape emerged that looked like a vessel to me. And it kind of comes like that. So I love that. I love this cute little thing here. I still love my pink lemons. And so, yeah, I'm just going to come in maybe with some crayon and oil or oil pasta. And make some of the things pop that I could come in with paint. You don't need It's just it's a handy way to, that's not light enough. To add marks without paint. If you have the right color, if you don't you have to use paint. I'm looking for something lighter to kind of bring these out a little bit more. We might have to use paint. I don't have anything light enough. 'cause I want to kind of bring this out a little more. I really like it. Let's see here. Let's try doing this. Just to kind of bring it forward a little bit. That helps. Okay, so let's play a little bit more. Let's see. Sometimes I just like to take that doesn't show much, but for texture, let me show you an example. Um, what do I want? I like to take basically a similar color. So let's see. Sometimes it doesn't show up, but if you find the right similar color, This is gonna show up too much, I think. No, maybe not. I like to just make texture marks. With a similar color. Let's see. Is this the same? It's a little darker. Outlining, sometimes bits and pieces. And, you know, your outlines don't have to be red on the thing. It can look kind of cool to not have it that way. Maybe coming through making that color a little stronger. Get time to sign. Let's try this. So the thing about these crayons is these are water soluble. So if I made a mark and didn't like it, I could just wet a paper towel and get rid of it. But the oil pastels, that's a commitment. So sometimes what I'll do, but they're richer. So sometimes what I'll do is try a mark with the crayon and decide if I like it, and then go in with the oil pastel or not, you know, but just giving you a little tip there. A paint pen like a pasca or an acrylic marker, those you can also kind of experiment with, but then you have to be ready to wipe them off quickly before they dry. I'm just playing here with some design elements and color. You're like that. There's really not a lot more that I want to do. So you see how you think of yourself as a designer with the color and objects and shapes, not even objects. These aren't really objects. I mean, you could say these are objects, you know, but mostly we have shapes. All right, well, we can just add a little bit of spice, even though this is very colorful with my fluorescent. Scil let's see. This is acrylic, but you can a little goes a long way. So I kind of just maybe highlight. It's just a little something some Might be fun to deepen this lavender. Yeah. See, they're just so creamy, the pastels. And if you do, let's say you make some pastlemrks that you don't like, you can rub them and soften them. You can, um, you can actually take underd acrylic. You could take, like, some sort of oil, like, even hand lotion and get some removed, too. So it's not like they're not removable, but it's just a little more tricky. Alright, one more thing I'm feeling like I want to do, which is probably better done to paint because I don't really have the color. I got these peaches, but oh, here's one. That's that's what we did then I just want to come down here and maybe make it a little more pronounced. Varying the color of these guys. Yeah, I like that. Maybe putting some of this peachy in here. Well, that's pretty. Alright, let's stop before we overdo it. That was fun. That was really fun. I'm glad I suffered through the awkward stage and didn't throw on the towel. I thought about it. 10. Wonky Class Wrap Up: Well, I hope you enjoyed and painting this wonky still life and giving yourself permission to work in a freer, more experimental way. I love doing that. In this class, we focused on letting go realism and correctness, releasing the need to make things look right, or even make sense, and instead paying attention to shape, color, and overall design. We intentionally broke rules about proportion, perspective, accuracy, and we practiced responding to what felt interesting that was showing up in our painting rather than what felt safe. I love about this approach is how freeing it can be. It helps break any preciousness we might bring into our work and reminds us that painting doesn't have to prove anything, and it translates to other work that you do, too, other types of subject matter. It's about experimenting, exploring, and learning to trust yourself, even when things feel awkward or unresolved, especially then. This kind of freedom is such an important foundation because once you experience it, it becomes much easier to carry it into other painting approaches, too, like I was saying. You start to notice that when you're fixing something out of a habit and you have more choice about whether to do that or not. I also want to remind you to check the class downloads if you haven't already, especially for the cheat sheet of tips so that you can continue to kind of play with these ideas. And these are great resources to come back to the reference photos, you know, if you want to repeat this exercise or push it even further. I also have some additional resources for you. I have a Facebook only student group, and the link to join should be in your welcome email, or you can always email me at heart with suzanne.com, and I'm happy to send it to you. You can also find me on YouTube, Instagram and Facebook for more Learning and Inspiration. And I send out a monthly sometimes every two months newsletter called Your Creative Adventure, where I share creative insights, studio happenings, and just kind of what's happening, what I'm learning on the creative journey. Most of all, I'm just so glad you painted along with me. I love working this way, letting go, and praising the wonkiness and allowing the painting to be what it wanted to be. And I hope you did, too. I'll see you in the next class.