Transcripts
1. Introduction: Hi everyone. In
today's class we will be going over acrylic
paints as a medium. I'll be sharing with you
all the little tips and tricks that I've
collected over the years, just by painting
and working with my own pallets and doing
all the pieces that I do. it's a really really fun medium and I'm sure all of these
tips would really help you If you're starting to
get into acrylic paint. I will be doing lots
of little swatches and we'll be going
through techniques like Impasto and creating gradients and doing some splatter
work, drip work How you can use them, where you can use them, be it
portrait, landscape All of that fun stuff I hope you guys enjoye this class,
I'm sure it will be really informative for you Especially if
you're getting into acrylic paint just
now and you are a beginner or someone who's been painting
for a while as well I think this might be really helpful to you This is going to be a really
fun and informative class and I'm looking forward
to sharing it with you all.
2. Materials: Now before I get started
on the swatches, I'm going to talk to you guys through all the
materials I'll be using. I've got some acrylic paint here. I'm just using regular
camel artist grade paint. You can get these
at any art store. Even if you have the set
of acrylic paint that comes in the the students set, which is about 12 main colours. That's awesome as well. I'll be using some palette knives just to show you guys how I
work with palette knives, I've got some flat brushes, I've got some regular household items that I'll be using to
just create texture. Show you guys how I work with these in my pieces, I've got this foil ball I've got this regular
dishwashing sponge that I've torn a piece out of and
some kitchen paper You just need some freshwater
to clean your brushes and a dry rag for when you want to clean your
brushes and dry them off.
3. Getting to know acrylics: Before we get into all the swatches that I'm
gonna do which is going to be all of these. I'm going to swatch
all of these and in front of you so you guys can
see how I did these I want to talk a little bit about acrylic paint as a medium This is a water-soluble
material which means it's, it works a lot like water paint, but it's a bit thicker
in the sense that it's a bit like a mix between oil and water paint It dries really,
really quickly. So you have to work
really quickly and your palette will
dry within 15 minutes. All the paint that you have, you just want to mix your colours right on
the spot and do it. You can make any colours that you want out of your
three primary colours. But I would just suggest, if you've been
working with these for a while just pick out colours that
you love and just go to an art store and pick out some fancy colours
that you might like. I'm using an aqua
green colour that the bluish teal tone or use a portrait pink or just get
colours that are pre-mixed. It's gonna make your
life so much easier. Also want to talk
about how a lot of different mediums available
in art stores that gel mediums, matte mediums, glaze
mediums that are gonna give your painting a
different kind of finish. This slow drying gels
that you can use, which are going to help your
acrylic stay wet for longer. So if there's pieces where you want to blend or create
a lot of gradients. It will be really helpful. to use a slow drying gel, there's an impasto
medium you can use, which you can mix with
your colour to give it a bit more of a heavy body feel. There's also heavy body
acrylics you can use There's Matte mediums which
are going to give your acrylic a very matte effect There's also glaze effects, or gloss effects, that would just give
your paintings, a bit of a glossy feel There's lots of different things available that you can use to add to your current
set of acrylic paints. To start out with just get
your regular set of 12 paint that you normally get and mess around with those. Once you get a hang of it, just try and mess around and get
more mediums to work with. And also you want to remember that if you are
working with mediums, you don't really
need to add water. But it's always
good to have water handy and you can clean
your brush constantly. Because if you don't,
Its just going to muddy up your colours. Also. You just want a
general knowledge of what colours work best
with each other Let here, I'm using
a lot of warm tones in this one that's reds and
yellows and oranges. Here you have some cool tones, That's greens and blues. Near mix of purples and pinks. Just mess around
with your paint. Get a hang of it, see
how they work together. And it's really, it's a lot of fun trying two different
pieces with them. It's a really forgiving
medium as well. If you don't like a painting, you can just paint over it. You can cover it up again and just create something on top. You can create little pieces
in your sketch book as well. it just really adheres well to any kind of paper. Just make sure your
paper is thick. What I mean by thick is
it can handle some water because if you're using a
lot of water on your piece, especially for wet on wet
or dry on wet techniques. It's just going to make
the paper crumble a bit. Another important Fun
tip I've found is that you can make moulding
paste using the, using some baby powder and glue and some acrylic gesso or
just white acrylic paint, which you can use to lay
on your Canvas or on your paper before you
start painting to create even more depth
and texture to it. I believe that recipe is
is one part glue, one part baby powder, and then two parts of
the acrylic paint I often use it in my
paintings as well Other than that, just mess around
with these tricks and tips, mess around with
the paint itself, see how it works for you. It's really quick drying, so work on your speed. That's what I would advise That's it Let's get into the swatches
4. Basic application techniques: The first few application
techniques we're gonna be talking about are wet on wet, dry on wet, wet on dry and dry on wet, gradients and impasto. These are some application techniques that you should just first learn to master because you're gonna be using
these the most. And I'm going to swatch
all of these and show you guys how to go about it. In this order.
Let's get started. The first technique that
we're gonna be covering today is gonna be our
wet on wet technique. This is when I take
clear water and I put it on my surface to
make my paper wet. And then I slowly add
diluted pigment to it, which is, my brush has color on it that's also been
diluted with water. What this does is
it allows you to let your colors
blend more fluidly. This works a lot
like watercolors do. If you've ever worked
with watercolors, you know how you're normally, you would make the
surface wet and then add pigment to it, for your first layers This is an awesome
technique to use Especially for your
background layers You know, stuff
like that where you just want the color to be more transparent or for
it to not be too dark. I recommend using this technique to use different colors and
see how they blend together. You can achieve some really, some beautiful
textures on the paper as well as different. You can add more depth by adding more color
as I'm doing now. Now for our dry
on dry technique, it's just basically taking this is how I think a lot of people
work with acrylic as well. This is normally how
I work with acrylic. Um, where you just
take dry paint that hasn't had any
water on it and you apply it straight on your paper. This allows you to make quite
a lot of gradients as well. We'll talk about gradients
in a little bit. But for now, an important
thing to remember with this technique is acrylic
paint dries a lot faster. So it might be a better
idea to mix the color that you want to use on your palette
before you apply it. Otherwise, you
would have to work really fast for it to blend. But you can get some really bold results with
this technique. So now the wet-on-dry
technique is when I load my
brush with pigment that is already diluted
with water and I apply it straight to the
surface that is dry. As you can see, this is
an awesome technique, especially if you want to do overlays and create that effect where you still want the paint that's underneath
to come through. It also makes it really easy to blend different colors together. And it's one of the techniques I use most
especially in my portraits. If I want to add another layer of color to make
it pop a bit more. Now the dry on wet technique. This is a technique I don't actually use very much because I personally find it a little
bit hard to work with. But this is when you apply water to your surface and
then you add dried color. I'm just using thick pigment. This I think works really well again for
background tones, but you want to be careful how you work with this
because if your paint, if you're not moving quickly
and blending your paint out, what it does is you
can be left with some big splotches of
color on the side. But as you can see, this technique also leads to some really beautiful textures. Especially if you're into like abstract and contemporary stuff. You can get some really
cool effects, the water makes, some really cool textures
and swirls on the paper. So it's fun to play
with. Gradients. Gradients are important
to learn because this is something you'd want to do quite a lot in
your art journey, especially if you're
working with acrylics. Because any kind of backgrounds, even if you're using
just one simple tone, you want to learn how to add
more depth to it by making the borders darker or adding lights and darks and
mixing your color as well. With acrylic, you want to be careful that you
work quickly. I keep saying that, but it's important that you do so because it dries
really quickly. So if you really wanted to blend smoothly and you want
to get a smooth finish. You just want to apply
the color and then just brush back and forth to get the
result that you want. And this is now
the technique that I probably use the
most is impasto, I'm just taking a
huge blobs of paint. You can mix colors
in your palette before or after. That's okay. But I'm taking huge
blobs of paint and I'm just putting it
straight on the surface. And then I'm using
my brush to create all these awesome textures
in the pigment itself.
5. Dried swatches 1: This is how the swatches
look after they've dried. As you can see, all
my wet swatches have dried to look a little
bit lighter, which is, how acrylic works just
like watercolor Especially if you want to
work on different layers. It's a really good technique
to work with because it's you can use a lot of different colors
and still have that sort of washy fact that
watercolor creates. Other than that, I want you
guys to really just practice, these techniques a lot because it's going to be one that's really gonna help you when, you're working
with acrylic paints. Especially just try
and experiment with how dry brush and wet brush works on a dry
surface or a wet surface. Practice this creating gradients with a lot of different
colors to see, to get that speed and that confidence that you
need to work on it. This is all really
gonna help you, especially if you're
doing like landscapes or things that require
that kind of background. Let me know how it goes. And I'd love to see some of these swatches that you
guys do.
6. Abstract application techniques: Now we're going to cover some of the application
techniques that I use most for my abstract pieces whether landscapes
or otherwise. These are quite
fun to do as well. The more you do them, the more you kind
of get a handle on it Glazing, scumbling, dabbing, dotting splatters and drips. I'll be doing swatches
of each one of them and showing you guys how it
works in the next few clips The first technique I'll be
covering here is drips This is one that I use
most often in all of my original pieces and it's
really fun to do this, just a few things you want
to be cautious of doing First to make sure that the
drip is going straight down. You want your surface to be in a vertical position
or at least a bit slanted so gravity can do half the job. The next thing is you want
to load your brush with maybe just a touch of
color and a lot of water. As you can see here, I am adding the water just in the places where I
want the drip to be. This is an awesome technique
to use for backgrounds. It creates this really
awesome washy effect. I hope you guys give it a go because I love, love, love using this technique. Up next we have splatters. I've just loaded my brush again with a lot of
water and pigment. And then really just dabbing it, just dabbing the brush so it
creates all these splatters. You can also use a
toothbrush if you want, and then you can just hold the toothbrush in your hand and use your thumb to flick all these nice little splatters. This is quite an
awesome technique, especially if you want to
make things like stars. This is the one I use
most is just it makes these really small
splatters that you can't get any other way. Give this a go,
see if you can do maybe stars or even just create an effect of there being
splatters on the canvas. Now dotting, as
the name suggests, is basically just
using a fine brush and dotting your surface with paint. You can also do this with pens, and I believe it's
called scumbling, but I could be wrong if
you're doing it with ink But with paint, you just load your brush with paint
here I'm doing like smaller ones as well
it works best with a finer brush is
with a flat brush. I find that it makes
really big dots that usually don't work for the the pieces that I
do, but give it a go. This technique is also
awesome for doing trees Remember if you load your
brush with more pigment, you can create more texture
as well when you lift it, because it creates these
little peaks in the paint. Try using this technique to make some really regular
household items. I think that'll be fun. Dabbing similar to dotting
is kind of the same thing. But now I'm using more paint, more pigment on my brush, and I'm dabbing it with
a much bigger brush. Again, this is an awesome
technique to use if you want to create some really
textured strokes, play around with it. Try and use a lot of pigment. Even try and do it. with just some some water in your brush
with the paint thinned out because that would create some more more
translucent shapes This technique, I think
you can again can use this as an awesome technique
to use for painting trees I think, that's what
I'd use it most for Here I'm using a
flat brush to do it but again, art is all about messing around with
what you have So try different brushes see how it works for you Next up we have scumbling This is when I apply paint
directly to my surface and I kind of pull it in whatever direction
that you want. not only does this create some
really beautiful textures, but it also you can even blend
different colors together. Again, you can use
a lot of water or not whatever you guys want These are all
abstraction techniques, which means you want
to try and have as much fun and add as much
of you in it as you can. Use these to create whatever different things
you might want to create. Maybe you could
do trees or paint an apple or anything you want
to try. It would be fun. Last but not the least. For this section we have
glazing or overlay This is when I first
apply paint directly from the tube onto my surface or whether
you mix it as well. It's just dry paint
straight out of the tube. And next I'm gonna add
a really light I'm going to thin out
the paint on my brush and I'm going to
overlay it on top. You want to make sure
that your first layer is completely dry
before you do this. (*I did not, hehe) so the bottom layer doesn't blend with the layer that
you're using on top. What this does is you can create some really beautiful colors because of the translucency
of the next layer. Just make sure that your
first layer is dry. have a mess around with it. Use it to add some different colors on top of a piece you've already
created
7. Dried swatches 2: This is what all the swatches look like now that
they have dried. As you can see, all the ones where I use more
water to thin out the pigment they've dried to be lighter than the ones
where I haven't. Swatches like the scumbling and the dabbing technique where I tried to make
peaks with my brush. Those peaks have also
dried out to be proper hard peaks and
looks pretty cool. I did have to redo the glazing swatch because
when I was doing it, I didn't quite wait
for the first layer to dry and it kind of blended out. But I couldn't record
me redoing it, but that's what it looks
like now that it's dried, which you can see the
blue kind of a bit more, a bit more darker with the green on top. And it looks pretty nice. All these techniques are for super abstract compositions and I recommend you guys
to just have a play around with this. Abstract It's just a really really fun way of finding
your own voice with paint. So use all of them together
or use just a few. Just make sure that
you have fun with it and create your own textures. Just put them all together. I always recommend using regular household items as
practice and try to make it, try to give it your own twist to make it look the way
that you want it to. Just have fun with the
pieces that you do.
8. Using tools for application: Once you've worked with all the other application
techniques we've done, and you sort of have a hang
of all of these. You should just
try and experiment with all different kinds of tools that you can
find around the house, see what kind of
effects and textures that they make, here I'm going to show
you just a few, but just you can use all kinds of things really that you can
find around the house. You can create different
textures using masking tape here
to teach you foil, paper towel, wet
sponge, dry sponge, a palette knife, and etching. All of these things
I'm sure You can just find these
things around the house. Just experiment with them, see what you can make
and what you can create The first one I'm going
to show you is a foil. And you can create really
awesome looking texture. You just want to take a foil, just foil ball, just take it, crumble it up however you want. So it has all of these ridges, and then you want your
color ready on your palette. Just Pemix it, dip your
foil in that color. Lifting some, and then just dab it it creates these really
like dry, dry effect. You can take
a lot of thick paint straight on the foil, just mix, mix it using the foil ball
and then just sort of dab it The great thing about it is
it's always going to create some different
textures depending on where you're holding it, how much paint you apply to it. And it should create
these beautiful textures. you just want to dab it. And use really dry paint. Because the wetter it is, the harder it's going to be for those colors to kind of shine. Literally just do whatever
you want to do with it. It's just try different
ways of doing it. the ball You can open it up, make
it into different colors, try and layer different
colors on top. That's how I'd use foil. The next thing we're
gonna do is do it with a paper towel and I've
again crumbled it. sort of the same
effects that we're going for that we did with the foil. Again, you want your colors
pre-mixed on your palette. Just dab your paper towel in it. And then just dab
it on the paper. Again, creates just
these different effects. You can mix these colors. You can just pick colors
straight off your palette or just out of the tube and just dab it, it creates
this really nice, really nice sort of fuzzy effect that's very different
from the foil in the sense it's a bit more blended
in a little less rough. It's got those softer edges. The next one I'm going
to show you is I'm using this sponge that I've torn from a regular
dishwashing sponge that you might have
at your place This is a dry
sponge techniques so the sponge is completely dry. I'm just going to dip it in the paint that I've already
pre-mixed on my palette. And I'm just going
to dab it it creates these really like
little small little textures that you really can't get from
anything else. And I love, I love using
this for literally anything, especially like abstract pieces. It's just, it's a great
tool to work with. Again, I'm just
dabbing and lifting. The next one we're going
to do is wet sponge. It's going to create sort
of a similar effect, but it's gonna be more it's gonna be softer Instead of dipping
your sponge in water, what you want to do is mix some water onto your
paint on your palette. So the paint that you're lifting on your sponge is a bit wet and
the spongy would soak it in. Once you have some
paint on your sponge just again just sort
of dab and lift. it's going to create
that same effect, but it's going to blend out
your colors a bit more. Instead of making
those really tiny dots that the dry sponge will do
it's gonna just gonna Make everything more soft if you want to use
different colors I'm just going to go
ahead and use my red more and just drop
it in and lift. This next one I'm going
to show you is going to be how to use a palette knife now these come in all
different shapes and sizes because I
have a small one. I'm just going to
use my small knife because the small swatch paper I have here, you can use a palette knife in all different kinds of ways. And it's really awesome
to create textures that you can't get with
any other tool. You can mix colors with
it here I just have my same pink and red You can create all different
kinds of textures. you could just place it on
your paper and sort of pull. It's going to create colors that are just perfectly blended. Or you could, you
could also just dab it and sort of lift to create
more, just more textures. It's really awesome, especially
if you're working on impasto pieces that
have a lot of that. You could also use
it to create sort of vertical and
horizontal effects. Or just make dotting effects. Or you could just sort of blend, colors on your Canvas It doesn't matter
how you use it, just sort of have fun
with it and see how this works for you. You can layer different
colors on top. here I'm just gonna use it to sort
of swirl my colors around. So it really just creates all
these different effects. Depending on how much color
you have on your brush. Mess around with all of these and
see what works for you and how you can make it your own Your final technique
that I'm going to show you today is gonna be
etching or sgraffito. I hope I'm pronouncing
that right I don't normally use this
technique in a lot in my pieces, but maybe it'll work for you. You can also, before
I start doing it, you can also just place
another color on the bottom, let it dry and then etch on it. But it really just
depends on You I'm just going to
show you how I do it. You just want to take
thick thick paint and just place thick paint
straight on a dry brush. Now once you have all
this color there already, you can use the
back of your brush, which I'm going to use now. Or you can use a toothpick or just a pin or anything you
want to use to etch with. On top of this, you
can just etch little patterns by sort
of lifting color. Wherever you want to do. if you have another
color underneath it. it's just going to pop out you want to do it while
the paint is still wet. Just whatever you want to
etch. This kind of work This kind of work you'd see a lot in pieces that are tribal
inspired. I love it. It just really, maybe
I'm gonna use it soon, someday, but I've never
really dealt into it. Let me know if it works for you. Just mess around with all of these techniques and
let me know how it goes. And if you create any
fun pieces with them.
9. Dried swatches 3: There you have it. This
is how I'd use just anything I can get my hands on around the house to create all these beautiful textures
with different colors. It's really just acrylic is a lot of just messing around
because it's so forgiving and it dries
so quickly you can layer on top if you don't like
how something turns out. That's what you
should do. Use all of these techniques to
just have fun with it. Honestly, you can use whatever
tools you have on hand. Try using a cloth I remember one of my aunts once. She painted a whole
tree just using bread. And I just made really
beautiful textures, just a regular white bread. Just mess around with
these techniques. These textures i'd
normally used with. Other application
techniques to go over, over a piece where I've
already painted a first layer, different colors and
I just mess around with it on top to create
all these textures. You should use them however, you want to, create specially if you want to
create abstract pieces. All of these just
work really well. They work really
well with trees Because you can create all
these nice little effects that you wouldn't get
with anything else.
10. Project and Final thoughts: These are all the different application techniques
we've covered today. you guys should just messing
around with these, use different colors
for this video. I just use two colors
for all of these, but you should try and use like three to four different colors
and just have fun with it. See how they work for you. Maybe do a landscape or
do an abstract work, or even try it with a portrait. Of course, there's
thought and techniques that might work better for you just like there's some
that work better for me. Like I tend to use
a lot of impasto. I tend to use a lot of blending. Lots dabbing, splatters, drips. They're all really fun to do. But you should just try
all of them on a piece and see which one fits for you and which one
you enjoy doing most. The best part about art is just the freedom to sort of figure out what
your art style is For the project. I really
would like for you guys to try using at least five or more
of these no less than 5 techniques on just one piece and see how
you can bring them together. See how you can layer them
so you can use different colors to
create different effects. Just try and create whatever. I'm not going to limit you in terms of what you can paint. It can be a landscape, it can be an
abstract piece, a portrait, just an animal, whatever you want to do. Just try and use five
or more techniques. That's a little bit
of a challenge, but it'd be fun to do. just try and make like a
swatch card for yourself. These were really
fun to do for me. And I'm just
gonna keep them as a reference for me because
they look so pretty together. Let me know how it goes for you. I'd love to see your projects. I love to see how
these work for you. Mess around with acrylics. It's a really, really
fun medium to work with. Not only that, it's just, it's I love using it because
there's so much you can do. and you can work
really, really quickly. Things just dry quickly. In one day you can
really start work on a big painting and
be done with it. And if you don't
like that painting, you can just scrap it and
paint all over it again. You can create textures and it gives you this
really mad effect. You can use anything
around the house. I hope you guys
enjoyed this class. I hope I will see you again
for the next one. Thank you.
Varnika Prakash, Delhi based mixed media portrait artist
