Transcripts
1. Welcome: Do you like to paint without the pressure to
create a masterpiece? Or maybe you don't
have a lot of time or resources to invest
in a project, but you still want to explore new art and try a new technique. Then this class is for you. In this class we will paint a tiny textured landscape in about 20 min while
we explore light, color, and dimension
along the way. Hi, I'm Amy Murray, and I've been painting textured
art for over a decade. In this class, I'll teach
you a quick process from finding inspiration
to sketching, to mixing and
painting in acrylic. This class is beginner friendly, so it can be fun
for all artists. To paint your tiny
textured landscape. You'll need a few supplies. Acrylic paint, a
small palette knife, a paintbrush, or two, a canvas or other hard surface. And my favorite secret
ingredient, some modeling paste. By adding modeling paste
to your acrylic paint, you're able to transform
a flat medium into a thick paint that holds
its shape like oil paint. The most important
part of this class is to relax and
try something new. There is no pressure to
paint something perfect. But instead we will
use texture in a simple impressionist style
to paint a little landscape. I think you'll be surprised by the unexpected beauty of it. Though we will mostly be focused on enjoying a new process. You will still end
this class with a finished project
that you can display, share, or give as a gift. I'd love to see your project. It is truly my favorite
part of teaching. When I am able to see
what you have made, feel free to post a photo of your painting here in the
projects and resources section, or tag me on Instagram at a human memory so that I can
like and share your work. If you're ready to paint, Let's move on and
talk a little bit more about our class project.
2. Our Class Project : For our class project, we will create at least 15 by seven tiny textured painting. But you might find the process
a little bit addicting. So feel free to create as
many as you would like. You might even want
to create a series of similar pieces to
make a collection. I like to display these on a little easel or pop them
in a frame without glass. They even make a great option to give with a gift
instead of a card. You can even write a
nice note on the back. My biggest tip is to create without the pressure
of perfection. You might find you'll like
the results even more. Remember to upload a photo of your painting here
once it's finished. Next, we will talk about
some class resources that I have created that
might help you along the way.
3. Resources and Downloads : I've included a few resources that you might find helpful. Remember that you'll need to
view this class on a browser instead of the Skillshare app in order to access
the resources. First, you'll find a guide with a supply list and
written projects steps. I personally like to
see projects steps in writing as I
listened to a class. Second, you'll be able to access a video I created for beginners, which explains different
types of modeling paste and four basic texture
painting techniques. This is a great
starting place if you are new to painting
with modeling paste. Third, I've added a link
to a Pinterest board that is full of layered
landscape inspiration. If you have questions
throughout the class, feel free to post them in
the class discussion tab. I'm happy to answer any questions that you
might have along the way. Next, I'll talk about the supplies that you'll need
for your painting project.
4. Supplies : To paint your tiny
textured landscape, you'll need just a few supplies. First, you'll need a
surface to paint on. I'm using these five by
seven Canvas boards. They are economical. They can be ordered quickly online and are perfect
for this project. If you don't have access
to something like this, any rigid surface will do. Second, you'll need
acrylic paint. Any type of acrylic paint will work for this if you want to know what brands and
types work best for me, I talk about this in detail in the supply section of my
first-class, paint with texture. Next, you might want
a paintbrush or two. In a small to medium size. Something around a size
ten will work great forth, you'll need a palette knife. And palette knives come in
so many shapes and sizes, you are welcome to
pick your favorite. But for this project, I prefer to use a small
diamond shaped pallet knife. Of course, you will need
some modeling paste. I prefer to use a light or
flexible modeling paste, but you can use whatever
you have on hand. You'll also want a surface
for mixing your paint. I like these disposable
paper palettes, but even a recycled container or plastic plate
works just fine. I also recommend having water and a paper
towel for cleanup. Once you've gathered
all of your supplies, the next step is to choose a photo to use for
your inspiration.
5. Find Inspiration: Let's pick an inspiration photo. For this project. We're looking for a landscape
with lots of layers of color and some contrast
between dark and light areas. In the class resources, I've added a link to a Pinterest board full of
ideas that you can use. You can also search websites like Unsplash for inspiration. I'd also like to show
you a method I like to use to find a composition
that buyers me. Keep in mind, I am not a professional photographer and you do not have
to be one either. What I will often
do is look through my own photos and zoom in on just a small piece of one photo that I think will
make a beautiful composition. I'm always surprised
by what's hiding in just a small section
of a photo, e.g. here's a pretty simple photo I took of a field near my house. I think I liked the clouds and the light when I
snapped this quick picture. But when I zoom in, I see a lot of potential in this small section
near the horizon. And I think I can make this
really interesting when I add texture and
brighten up the color. So don't worry about having a professional photo or the perfect landscape
to work from. You can pull pretty easily
from your own sources. And you also have the
freedom to change it and make it your
own as you paint.
6. Quick Sketch: After you've picked your
favorite inspiration photo, it's time to get to work. We're going to start
with our sketch and then do a small layer
of underpainting. And as we start
working on our Canvas, the goal is to work quickly. And we're going to finish this beautiful painting
in under 20 min. Are you ready once
you have found an inspiration photo
that you like? And you've cropped it to a composition that will look
beautiful as a painting, you're ready to sketch this
onto your tiny Canvas. Now, when we sketch, I'm
just using a regular pencil. And all I'm gonna do is
follow some of the lines on these different sections to create layers on my canvas. So first all decide how high up do I want this
grassy field to go? I like where it is in the photo, so we'll keep it roughly
at about that same area. Next, I have my horizon line. And that one is gonna
be fairly straight. It is okay if it's not
perfectly straight, then I'm going to have a layer of these darker trees in there. And you know, maybe I want
to add a little more variety to this than we see
in the picture. Then I will have a layer of these beautiful mountains
off in the distance. Sketch those on there. Then a cloud layer. I'm not going to
sketch my cloud layer, but you are welcome to do so. I like those too, just happen as they happen while I'm painting super
simple sketch. Once you're done with that, we are going to add a base
layer of under paint.
7. Underpaint a Layer: Now it's time to do a
layer of a dirt paint. What that is is just
a base layer to cover your canvas and kind of set an undertone for your painting. I'm using this orange for my undertone of the
whole painting. And that might seem
weird since there are so many cool colors
in my composition. However, I think it's really beautiful when you
can see warm tones showing through a little bit in the background of a mostly
cool colored painting. So I'm adding water to my orange paint to make a
pretty light version of it. And I'm going to select
my lightest areas for this shade of orange. I might even just add a touch of white to make the
lightest shade of orange. Now what I'm gonna do is mark in the lightest areas
of my composition. One way that you
can really see what stands out as the
lightest area of your composition is
to take a look at it with your eyes almost closed. I can see it the
lightest brightest spots are some of these
areas in the sky. In addition to this
lower field area, I'm going to take
my lightest orange. I might even add just a
little bit more water. I'm just marking in this bottom area and
showing that it's going to be one of the
lightest spots on my Canvas. The other light bright areas are gonna be some
patches in the sky. Now I'm not worried about making it identical to my photo. I'm using that as a
reference just to kinda see what a sky looks like. Where are the lightest spots, where the medium spots
and just marking it in. So that's it for
my lightest color. Next, I'm going to take kind of a medium shade
of the same orange. And I'm gonna look at my
reference photo and think, okay, which areas are medium? I have some sky that's
gonna be a medium tone. And it's okay to mix water in. This doesn't need to
be this thick coat of paint that is making sure
everything's covered. It's just a coat
of underpinning. This layer of mountains in the background
is also going to be pretty medium and shade. Not the darkest,
not the lightest. And then my last area
that is medium to dark area is this sort of
back layer of the field. I'm going to add my medium
toned orange to that area. I can see that the darkest spots are these
trees in the background. And I also have some
pretty dark spots in the front on my field. So I'm gonna take my most
saturated orange mark in this dark layer where
the trees will go. And I'm going to add some
little bits to the front here. Again, nothing is perfect. It's just going to add a layer underneath so that
once we add our texture, we can see some of
this showing through. So that's it for
your underpainting. It's bright orange. It looks nothing like
your reference photo, but do not worry. The beautiful part is covering. The next thing we
will do together is decide which spots we
want to have flat paint, in which spots are going
to have high texture.
8. Paint the Flat Areas: Once this layer of
under paint has dried, I'm going to pick which spots
on my composition I want to be flat and which spots I
want to have heavy texture. The beauty of a painting
like this is often the contrast between
the super thick spots and the super flat spot. For this composition,
I really want this mountain off in the
distance to be flapped. I'm going to mix up a blue
that's about a medium shade. If you would like to use
my exact colors of paints, I will put those in
the class discussion. Otherwise, mixing
a darker blue with a little bit of white will
give you a nice medium shade. I'm just going to paint
this layer nice and flat. And I'm going to
let a little bit of that warm orange show through. And to do that, I'm just letting it go on
a little bit dry. So that just a touch
of that shows through. I'm not worried about it
being a perfectly flat blue. If we see there's some color
variety in those mountains. Okay. I'm happy with that. The next area that I do
want to stay pretty flat is this back layer of the
field that sort of this darker, Toby Brown. I have a burnt sienna here. I might tone it down just a
little bit with some blue. And I'm just going to paint the same way I did
with the mountains. A nice flat layer in
a medium brown here. Again, totally okay. If some of that orange
shows through it, we'll just give it
a little bit of warmth as an undertone. Alright, that's it
for that layer. The third area that
I do want to stay flat on my composition is
some of this sky area. I may even come through
this sky with a light blue and just keep
quiet a bit of it flat. That way if we put on some
beautiful textured clouds, they really stand out from the flat part
of the background. I'm just choosing some spots where I want it to stay
pretty flat back here. There's no right or wrong. Totally up to you. I'm definitely letting some
of that orange show through. I love that warmth on the
sky and that feels good. One other spot that
I'm going to add a little bit of brown
is to the front. That is just so once I put my textured layer over the top, we might want just little
bits of this to show through. Okay? That's it for painting
or flat spots. The next thing we will
do is the fun part. We're going to add
our modeling paste and create our textured layers.
9. Paint with Texture: Once my flat painted
layers have dried, it's now time to get out
our modelling paste. I'm using a light modeling
paste for this project. It has a little bit of
a foamy texture to it. I'm just scooping some out
onto my paint palette here. What I like to do is start building texture from areas with the lightest texture up to areas with the heaviest texture. One area where I do want
to add some light texture, which means I'm going
to use just a bit of modeling paste in a little bit of yellow and
a little bit of white. I'm going to mix that together. I'm just going to add a bit of flat texture to the back
of this field here. I'm letting some of that
orange shine through. Just applying a tiny bit. When you work with texture. My one piece of advice
is to not overwork it. You want some of these lines
and ridges and just sort of what naturally happened as you scraped it
across the painting. You want that to
shine through and not be completely flat or
completely mixed in. The next spot where I do
think I will just add a little bit of texture is on my darker brown field layer. There's took my burnt
sienna and I'm mixed in a tiny bit of yellow
and tiny bit of white. I'm just going to
add a little bit of texture on top of that layer. I like that. I'm even like scraping some
off after I put it on. Just enough to
have some variety, but not necessarily a
three-dimensional texture yet. Now it's time to move
to some spots where we really want that texture
to be thick and chunky. One spot that I definitely want some thick chunky
texture is the clouds. I am mixing modeling
paste with white. Even though the modeling
paste is white on its own, it will not dry a
nice opaque white. So you do need to mix
in white paint with it. I'm just going to pick where
I might want some really pretty light, white
cloudy areas. There is no wrong
way to do this. I just kinda put
it on, leave it. And you'll notice I start
a little bit thinner. I'm going to put it on
thicker in a minute. But just sort of choosing
some cloudy spots. I'm allowing that
orange to show through. I'm not covering the whole sky. Once you do something
everywhere, it doesn't look special anymore. And I will probably leave this
area cloudless right here. Now, on top of this layer, I am just going to add
some super thick spots. Moving the palette knife
around in some different ways, kinda up, down just to get some different shapes
going in these clouds. Another spot I know I want
to have a lot of texture is this grassy area in the
very front of the canvas. I would like this grassy texture to be a few different shades. I'm going to start with this
dark, darker, ocher, yellow. And I have my palette
knife vertical for this. I'm just sort of putting
it on and pulling up my palette knife so that it gets that grass textured feel to it. I'm not putting
this everywhere on the front part because
I do want some of those background
colors to show through. But I do want enough
so that it looks like some good chunky
texture on there. I think that is a good amount
of that darker yellow. And I've already
mixed my lighter yellow so it is ready to go. I'm going to add that to
the front area as well. Just in the same way, I've got my palette
knife vertical. And I'm just adding
some white spots in. But again, I'm not going to. Overdo it. I'm not gonna put it
all over this thing. Okay? I like that for
this front field area, I do sometimes I like to
take my palette knife and sort of run it through some of this
just in a couple of spots, blend a little bit together, just to give it some variety. So not every stroke
looks exactly the same. But overall, I think
that looks fun. I like it and I think
it gives the impression of a beautiful thick field. The last part that I
would like to have some super thick paint
is my tree line. This really as the darkest
spot on the painting. I am mixing green and I'm even adding in a little
bit of that dark blue. I'm going to paint
on this tree line. I'm being a little more careful
with this because this is my horizon line where the
Brownfield meets the tree line. So I do want a straight
ish line there. Just to contrast from some of the wildness going
on in this painting, it's nice and grounding to
have a straight horizon line. But the top of it
will be tree shapes. I'm just going to take my
palette knife and I will probably turn it
vertical for this. And just kinda blob
on some tree shapes. For this. I'm not doing, you know, big long paint strokes. It's almost just
like a little DOB, little circular DOB to show that these are trees back there. This is one of the thickest areas that
I'm going to paint. Just to have that contrast between the flat
mountains behind it and the really thick layer of trees right there on
that horizon line. If you want to add a
little extra interests, you can just grab a tiny bit of a lighter yellow and put tiny bit of that in
just some of these areas. If I'm just going off
my reference photo, this is where I would end. However, I like to spice it
up just a little bit more and add just some pops of color where I think it might
be beautiful to add them. For this. I think I want to add in some of that bright orange that I used when I was painting
my layer underneath. I want to bring that back a
little bit in this top part. And what I wanna
do is just add in a layer underneath
that horizon line that might just show like maybe there's some flowers
back there in this field. I may even add a little bit
of it to the field up here. Okay? So I'm just
going to add a bit. I'm again not adding
it everywhere. Just a few places to help it
feel special in some spots. Okay. I'm happy with this. I'm going to call it
done and let it dry. This painting should
be dry to the touch tomorrow and then fully dry all the way through
in a couple of days. And I think we did it. I think we finished our
tiny textured landscape in about 20 min. In fact, I think that it
might even take me longer to explain it than
it does to paint it. This is why I think
it's so fun to paint a bunch of
these at one time. Because they just come
together so quickly. As long as you have
your paints out, you might as well make
a whole collection. Next, I want to show
you some examples of these tiny textured paintings that I have made recently.
10. Bonus Examples: As I mentioned, this can be a little bit addicting
when I'm making these. I actually like to
make a bunch at once. And that is exactly
why I like to buy the bulk package of
these tiny canvases. I think it's really fun to see a pretty composition
come together quickly. And I usually want to
make a few at a time. So I have a few more
examples to show you and I will
speed up my camera. But hopefully this can give you a little more inspiration to create some of these
in the future. Hopefully this
inspires you to keep creating and make as many of
these as you would like to. The more you make, the more you'll be able
to pull some that are so beautiful and just
catch you by surprise.
11. Final Thoughts: Okay, You made it to
the end of the class. And I hope that you
were able to create your landscape in about 20 min. And my hope is that it is just something beautiful
that you would be happy to share or display or even
give as a gift to someone. Remember, I would love
to see your work. Feel free to post it here
in the class or reach out to me on social
media at Amy Lynn Marie. If you enjoyed this class, you might also like my
first Skillshare class. We use modeling paint to paint with texture in that class. And n with a beautiful
potted floral on Canvas. Please feel free to
reach out if you have any questions or ideas
for a future class. I had so much fun
painting with you today. I hope you enjoyed it too. Bye-bye.
Amie Murray, Painter + Art Educator
