Hare Portrait Impressionist Painting in Acrylics!

1. Hare Portrait Impressionist Painting in Acrylics Introduction: Hello, and welcome back to my studio with me, John Silver. In this lesson, I'm going to show you how to paint a hair portrait in acrylics on a 12 by 12 inch canvas panel. I'll be incorporating abstract methods, impressionistic and little bits of detail here and there. So let's get painting. 2. Preparing the canvas and first stage!: Now, I've already drawn out the hair onto the canvas and the first thing to do is to give the entire canvas a coat of acrylic gel medium. This I use to seal the pores of the canvas. Then while it's wet, I'll add a little bit of raw umber into that and spread over the entire canvas there just to create an imprimatur or a colored ground to paint onto. Instead of painting onto a white canvas, it's much nicer to paint onto a stained or colored ground. Then I'll dry that off quickly with a hair dryer. Like so. Then I can start to put in some of those lines that I've drawn that are painted over. I can start to qualify them a little bit more so that I don't lose them when I start painting over the top because I will be painting drastically over the top of this. The colors I'm going to use are titanium white, pains gray, burnt sienna, yellow ochre, raw umber, transparent orange, cadmium orange, and thalo blue. So those are my normal colors, anyway. That's what I tend to use a lot of most of the time. I'll just finish off putting these basic outlines in. I'm just using a bristle pointed brush here. Actually, these are median brushes and for oil paints, really, but I really quite like them for acrylics. They have a nice feel to them. They're fairly soft. They have a bit of give to them. Putting in those outlines very, very simply, very loosely. I'm not really being too careful about this because this painting is going to be mainly impressionist style. Lots of loose thick brushwork. But I'm also going to be incorporating a little bit of abstract painting and a couple of details here and there. So the abstract side is going to be very, very loose indeed. Once I've done this drawing, got the outlines done, then I will start on what's called the first layer because I'm doing this in stages, in layers, and this is the first layer. Well, first of all, I'm just going to put in these highlights. This is what you can do when you do a colored ground or prematura, I could then put these lights on and they'll show up. If I was doing this on a white canvas, obviously, they wouldn't show up. That is one advantage of painting onto a toned and stained canvas. Just using pure white here to do this. There's a couple of little highlights I want on the edges of the ears like that where the lights just picking them up and also a little bit on the inside of that ear because that's going to have the nice glow of the light coming through it later on. Then I'm going to have quite a large light area down here. I should really be doing this with a larger brush now. But I've got this in my hand and I tend to use whatever is to hand. I'll just finish off doing this, putting those lights in like that. Bit on its back here, back of the neck. 3. The messy colour stage 1st Layer!: Okay. Now I'm going to give it a little spray of water, a mist spray of water. This is the second stage or the first layer rather, I should say, of color. With my large brush, I'm just putting in some burnt sienna. Quite loose, quite thin, really. Just to give me a basic idea of the coloring. I'll be adding lots of different colors into that later on as we go along. I'll just put those ears in as well quickly and loosely. Now I can start to use Pains gray to get some really nice darks in here. Because I've sprayed that canvas with a miss spray of water, not so it's running down, but just so it's damp, it allows the paint to move around an awful lot easier than if I was just doing it onto a dry canvas. I want this background to be really quite abstract. I'll show you how to do that in a moment. Well, first of all, I've got to put in the colors of the first layer. I want it dark to really make that stand out and I want it to blend in here into this dark area in the corner. I can add a little bit of yellow ochre into that pains gray a little bit of tiny bit of white in there as well. I'll give me a nice subtle and warm green color. Add a little bit more white into that and yellow ochre to make it a little bit brighter. You can see how quickly I'm painting with this and how loose I'm painting and I'm holding the brush halfway down. I'm not holding it really close to the brush head. I want it to be nice and loose. I've got a bit cooler now with a little bit more pains gray and white. Just to add some variety into that background. A little bit more yellow ochre and greenish tone there, a little bit lighter. Not bothering about cleaning the brush at the moment, it doesn't matter that there's other colors on the brush at the moment. You'll see why in a moment. I need to get this a little bit more green down this area and bright. Add some of those greens into this area as well in the bottom right. And just making those darks a little bit darker. Another spray of water now that is to make the paint pliable, still workable. Then with this silicon tool, I can start to move that paint around. Because I had started to dry, that little spray of water just almost reactivates it a little bit and makes it easier to move this paint around and make it very abstract and messy. Because this is of prime importance. The way I paint is to paint this first stage very messy. I'm just going to darken that area once again now because I want to sign my name in that area in a moment while the paint is wet. I want to get the density and color and tone that I want in that area. But while those paints wet, I'm just going to mess it up. I can even drag bits of paint off with this tool. It's a great little tool. The silicon paint applicator or scraper. 4. Finishing the 1st Layer!: Now, that's the messy stage done. Now with a smaller bristle brush, I'm just going to put in some of these darker tones of the hair. This is where you can start to actually model a little bit, start to model the hair. Were those dark areas are? Where are the light areas? Where are the most colorful? Where's the sunlight hitting it? All these things you have to consider as you're painting it. But I'm painting in little short little brush strokes. You see, that paint is still a little bit wet because of that missed spray of water, I sprayed onto it. A lot of people struggle with acrylics because they find that they dry too quickly. But if you use this mist sprayer technique throughout the painting, you won't have that problem at all. If you can keep the paint damp, I don't mean wet, I mean damp with a mist spray. I will stay workable for ages. I'll just sign my name in that bottom right hand corner while the paint is still a little bit wet like that. There. Now back to this bristle brush. I want this dark area on the back end of the hair to be blending into that dark part of the foliage there in the bottom right. It's got a couple of pores sticking out that are just going to be visible through all the foliage. You can see how abstract that background is. That will change. But you must start off with this messy abstract layer. Then with a bit of yellow ochre and a bit of pains gray, I can create this bluey green tone and start to put in some random bits of foliage just here and there, where I want some dark shadows to be. So I can even add a bit of pains gray into that. Because the paint's wet, it will blend on the canvas. Like that. Now, add a little bit of white into that pains gray, perhaps a bit of raw umber into that as well to give me a neutral gray for these areas of the white fur the muzzle above its top lip there. And I can add different tints into that as well. Also the other areas of white fur that are white markings that are on the hair like around the eye. There's a few of these in the ears as well, little bits of fur in the ears that just catch the light as this neutral gray color. Again, because I'm painting rather quickly, I can blend the paint. I don't want to blend it too much because that's not what impressionism is all about. Impressionism is painting really quite loose and not bothering about doing fine detail or fine blending. That's not at all what this is about. I'll just going to put in a little bit of a mouth area and the nostril is very important on a hair, the shape of it, and the shape of the eye. So it's beginning to take shape. That layer is done, so I now want to dry it off completely with the hair dryer. That's the first stage or the first layer done. 5. Painting the 2nd Layer!: Now when it's cooled down, a little miss spray of water once again and then I'll do that background again with the similar colors. Not exactly. Some are going to change. But what I'm doing now is I'm painting on top of an existing painted layer. When I start to move the paint around again with the silicon tool, it will reveal some of those background areas, you'll still see some of those painted layers, subtly, just here and there. And that's what creates the interest when you're painting layers. I'll just put in some of these green tons once again in similar colors, not exactly. Let's get a nice bluey gray mix there with the pans gray and white and just add one or two of those into there. I like to add them elsewhere in the painting as well to create color harmony. I'm going to put in a few light areas now. You see how I'm putting them elsewhere, not just in one spot, a bit more yellow ochre into that. Being very, very loose and very free and expressive with the brush strokes. I need a darker green now, bluy green, just for certain areas. I painting really thick, not adding water to the paint at all. The only water I'm using here is when I spray mist spray the canvas. Like that. Mist spray it again if it's starting to dry. Then with the silicon tool, once again, start to make it abstract and messy. But this time it won't be as messy because I'm already going over a painted layer. It won't be as messy, but you'll still see some of that showing through that previous layer. That creates the interest, as I say. So it's not as drastic this time when I try and mess it up and use this little tool to actually paint with and create little shapes and perhaps the impression of grasses, or in this case, abstract grasses because they are abstract in the background. Back to the brush, a smaller bristle brush. This is a flat bristle brush. It doesn't matter. You can use a filbert or even a round for this. It doesn't really matter. Use whatever you have to hand. It's not about the paint brush at the end of the day. It's about the hand that holds the brush and the marks that you know how to make with that brush. Take time to experiment with your brushes on pieces of scrap paper or card and see just exactly what one brush can do. I mean, a great exercise would be to do this entire painting with one brush and one brush only and see how you get along with that. Especially if you use a large brush, that will really teach you how to paint in an impressionistic manner. Very, very loose because you can't do anything else. If you're trying to get away from painting detail and using tiny little brushes, well, that's the answer. Just don't use little brushes. Use a big brush. And do a painting and see how it turns out, see if you like it. I'm sure you will. Maybe your first ones might not be too successful, but the more you do, the easier it becomes and you realize, actually, this is quite nice. I much prefer now painting, impressionist thick and loose than painting detail. I was always painting detail in my younger years in my professional years, although I still am a professional artist, I was known for painting very realistic detail, photorealism. This is so much more enjoyable painting like this. You can see how these layers are building up now. This is a second layer of the fur on the hair and you can see how I'm adding to what was there, just little bits here and there, building it up bit by bit. Okay. Starting to work now. I can visualize the finished painting in my head and you'll be able to do that too. The more paintings you do, you'll get to a certain stage and you know if this is going to be an okay painting or a really good painting. You just get to a certain stage and suddenly it leaps out at you. Yeah, if I just do this or just paint that little bit like this, it becomes a really good painting. That will happen with time, with practice. Because not all paintings turn out to be masterpieces and expect that. Don't ever expect that to happen. Expect failures because that's how we learn. If something doesn't work, we learn from that experience. That's what really painting is all about every day is a learning curve because you're learning something new every time you put a brush to canvas or paper. Putting some cadmium orange now, just little bits, hints of it, perhaps dull it down a little bit, it's not quite so bright. I do need to lighten it up a bit now. That's it. That's not quite so vibrant and bright. It doesn't need to be vibrant and bright, all that area, perhaps a couple of little pieces do, but just add some variety of colors, variety of tones of those orange colors I've just been putting in. I'm creating different tints and colors from that orange just by applying different colours to it and then putting them down onto the hair in certain areas. You'll see more or less apart from the orange that those colors in the hair are elsewhere in the painting. They are in the background as well. Perhaps not as dense, not as contrasty, but they are there. I'm putting some lighter areas in now with this brush and using my finger to blur certain parts of that fingers are great tools to use when painting and when working with wet paint. You can do all sorts of fancy movement of the paint with your fingers. It becomes very tactile. Get to learn about your painting by getting hands on with it, paint with your fingers. I've done that before now quite often, actually. Okay, got to get that outline correct there of the profile of the head and then put a little bit of a highlight there with the lights just catching the top edge and also little bits of light catching these little white areas on the hair, white areas of fur, and then some lighter areas of the brown color of the hair again, one or two elsewhere into the hair of that same color just to keep the harmony going. 6. Painting into the 2nd Layer!: Now, I've gone to a small brush for this because I just need to be a little bit more accurate with this lower part of the mouth. That's it. It has to look right. Basically, the mouth and the nose and the eyes have to look right. It's worth taking a little bit of time, care and attention over those areas. Those are the only areas, by the way, that I'll be using a small brush to do fine detail. It won't be that detailed, but it'll make it enough so that it stands out against the rest of the painting so that the eyes, nose and mouth, they're the parts that are going to have the detail. They're the areas that are going to be the most concentrated on. That's where the viewer's eye is going to concentrate. Wherever you put the detail. Everything else is nice and soft and blending into each other. Apart from the ears maybe, the ears got a little bit of a hard edge, but certainly the hair will have the hard edge on its face and detail. And those two things, hard edges and detail, direct the viewers attention to that area. If you want somebody to look in a certain area, use a little bit of detail and some hard edges. If you want other areas to be not looked at so much, then you use soft edges and soft brush strokes. Blend those edges, which is what I was doing with my finger on that paw there earlier. Then people or the viewers will see those areas, but their eye will immediately be drawn to the detail and the hard edges. Okay. I'm just going to put a few little greens in here now with a little bit of thalo blue and a bit of cadmium yellow and a bit of yellow ochre to give me some different tones of green. I've got bluey greens in there to show that there's foliage in shadow. Those are the light areas of foliage that's in shadow. They have this bluey green tone to them. Then a little bit more yellow ochre added, will give me a little bit more of a green color. Again, these are added. In a random manner, just to create the illusion of foliage and leaves without me actually painting leaves. I don't want to get involved in painting individual leaves and the veins of each leaf. I've done that. I used to do that. It's not necessary. I'll just keep adding some of those greens elsewhere into the painting. So you can see how loose its little pores are now and in amongst all that impressionist foliage, but they still look like feet because your eye is making that up. That's what impressionism is really for. Not putting the detail in but making it so that the viewer makes up the details in their own mind. Go little highlighted areas here and there. A few little light bits up here. You can see how just by adding one or two of those little lights now brings the painting to life, that foliage to life. It automatically gets your mind working. L say, What is this? I know what that is. It's leaves. Without actually painting leaves. I suppose you could say impressionism is the art of painting without painting. If we're going to get all zen about this. Yeah, I might use that as a catchphrase. Back to some green tones now. I'm going to put some up here into this dark area, just a couple. And make these a little bit more blue with the blue. A little bit of pains gray will just dull that blue down a little bit more and I can put some of those in over the dark areas as well. They look like leaves in shadow. In that dark area. But you see how that dark area really does throw out the hair's head and face because it's dark against light. One thing you should be always conscious of when you're painting is painting with great contrast, dark against light, dark against light. Keep it going. You can see how the ears are light against dark. The edge of the hair's face around the nose is light against dark. And it all helps to create the overall painting and the graphic nature and quality of the painting. Go back to some more browns and fur colors. Now, these are muted browns. They're not bright, but they're added to those colors that are already there. Again, it's quite a large bristle flat brush, which isn't really flat anymore. It's a little bit worn. 7. Painting details with a smaller brush!: Now with some cadmium orange, I'm just going to put in the colored area of the eye here. I need to start getting this looking a little bit more like a real hair. Just a little dab there and I'll lighten that up as well. Perhaps a little bit of yellow into that. Just for this bit inside the ear and then blend with my finger and that will lighten that area up then. I'll also put some light in the bottom of the eye the lights just catching the lower edge. Then a bit of pains, pure pains gray to delineate the shape of the eye once again, make sure it's correct and also of the right depth of darkness, the right contrast. But a little hint of an eye on that side, and then this nostril and mouth. I just needs to be augmented. That's about as dark as I think it needs to be. I'll just get some darker orange and just put in some shadow areas on those orange areas because the top eyelid is casting a shadow down, it won't be bright all the way around. I won't be bright orange or bright yellow. It'll be dark towards the top, which is why I've got the highlight at the bottom of the eye to show that the light is catching the eye below from its surroundings. Okay. Now, I'll get this small bristle brush here and just put in a couple of little points of light gray on the eyes. Then I can go even lighter with that now and start to put in a few little details on these areas around the ears. These are little highlight areas now. Let's get some pure white on the top of that eye there and a little bit of a dot here and there on that one and then highlight the edge of the hair once again where the sunlight's hitting it. Because the paint, as I've said before and previously, will become slightly dull as it dries so you need to do several layers. Once a layer has dried, let it dry and go over it again and it will be more vibrant. You do this three or four times until it stays vibrant. Like that. I'll be going over them again yet several times. I just want to put some highlight in this area here, this eyebrow area, which has just got a little light color and also underneath the eye, the lower eyelid just catches a bit of the light. Then there's a fur bit in front of the eye and then around the muzzle once again just lightning that area. Putting some really thick blobs of paint here now is more or less well, it is straight from the tube. So it's nice and thick. It has texture. 8. Painting the Final details!: I'm going to splatter now using a splatter technique, this little old worn nylon brush using some of the colors that have already used. So greens here. I like doing this. It creates a little bit of movement to the painting without actually going overboard with it. You shouldn't do too much. A few little light splatters as well. You'll find out by varying how much water to mix in with that paint, the different effects it will produce when you use the splatter technique. Pure white now. Which won't stapu white as it dries. I need to get a bright yellow, just to put in with this little brush and perhaps a few over here as well. So little lines to create the effect and the illusion of grasses and a few brighter leaves, using a little bit more of the cadmium yellow in there. Then again, brightening up some of those leaves in the background. I don't want to do too much to those because I don't want to take away from the detail that's in the face. I don't want to do too much detail in the background. Bit of burnt sienna, just to add to that background because that's what's in the hair itself. Add a bit of that to the background creates the color harmony. I'll just get a bit of this transparent yellow now with a bit of glazing medium, and I can paint over these areas and they'll suddenly become much more vibrant because I'm painting a very thin glaze of this orangy yellow color, which is a transparent color. You can see how it brightens up some areas, and then I can actually paint onto those and into those at the same time. Okay. A little mist spray of water now with the liner brush, I'm going to paint in the whiskers. You need to dampen the canvas to do this and have the paint relatively thin so it comes off the brush. If you did this on dry canvas, you would find it very difficult. But doing it on damp canvas allows the paint to be pulled from the brush so much easier and allows you to paint these long thin, fine lines, which would be impossible on a dry canvas. I'll add a few little dots and dashes with that as well. Just here and there, a few stray hairs. Like that. I'll put some in the ears as well. Now, that highlight, you can see the dulled down, so I'm just going over it again now, those highlights. Put a few hairs on the eyebrows as well. They have a few stray hairs like that. Now I want to put some hairs on this side, but not so many because they'll be in slight shadow so they won't be as bright. But I'll just put a little bit of a highlight into that eye again. You can see that's the only place I'm putting any caring attention to detail. The only place. I'll put some of these whiskers in here using a gray tone rather than the white because this is going to be in a bit more shadow. Like that. I can lighten one or two of those up as well here and there, where the lights just catching. I put in one or two those on that side again. Like that. That's better. A couple of little hairs here just put in with this fine brush. It's a liner brush. That was. Back to the bristle brush now, putting the darks back into the ears. It's almost finished now. I'm just creating subtle blends now with a bit of pains gray thinned down. It's quite thin, and then actually blending with my finger quite a lot there as well. So I'll just add one or two more little details here and there where I think it just needs improving. The hairs on the ears, for instance. And then when that's done, then that's the painting finished. Hopefully, I will see you on my next painting video. So until then, have a lovely day and happy painting.