Lets Paint Imaginary Landscapes

1. Introduction: In this class, I'll be teaching you how to create imaginative, colorful, expressive, abstract landscapes. These abstract landscapes are created purely from your imagination and don't rely on reference photos. They are created through lots of layers of acrylic paint and some mixed media, such as pencil or oil pastel. And it's a great way to really explore your own creativity and to create artwork that has restrictions and no limitations. This is a great class for artists of all levels, whether you're just beginning or you've been painting for a while and you want to attempt something a bit more imaginative and abstract. You can use really simple materials. You don't need to have expensive paints or canvases. And this is a really great no pressure exercise as well because you can continue to layer as many colors as you like until you are happy with your landscape. I'll take you through three complete demonstration of how to use these techniques. And I'm really looking forward to joining you in the class. 2. Preparation and Materials: This is a really fast and fun technique that you can use to create really expressive and messy landscapes that are tend more towards the abstract side of things. You can do this on paper or you can do it on Canvas. It's totally up to you. I'm using some watercolor paper is a smooth surface paper. Again, the surface is totally up to you. But what we need to do is tape it down. I don't wet my paper or stretch it or anything like that. Before I use it, you just tape it down at the table so that it doesn't move around too much. You could just use normal masking tape to do this. Make a bit of space here. So you can see we're just trying to take down a little border around the edge of the paper. So this says is true for two purposes. One, that it does hold the paper down and keeps everything in place while you're painting. And it also creates a nice clean border around the edge of your artwork, which gives it a bit more of a finished look to it when you remove the test. So we're just going to take around or Legends. Okay, measure them off a bit like this. So Latin secure on the table. So the other thing you're going to need is a selection of colors. It really doesn't matter what colors just choose. A limited selection of maybe three or four different colors that you like and that appeal to you. I am using midnight blue, which is quite a dark blue. I've got a little premixed pink here that I like. Also have some Australian sienna, which is a really nice orange. I have some blue. This is a sort of a cool colored blue. And I have another orangey pink color and I have some white. Honestly, it really doesn't matter the colors that you use. I want you to just not overthinking it and just choose some colors that you are attracted to or that you are drawn to. Because this is all about expressing and having fun and just playing around with materials. It doesn't really matter what you use, okay, so just grab what you have available. You also going to need a couple of brushes. I have a couple of round brushes here. You could also use a flat brush. Again, just grabbed materials that you already have handy and that you already have in your art space. But make sure there's a variety of brushes. So some big ones and some small ones, because you want to have some fun making marks. Once you have everything set up ready to go, you can move on to the next stage. 3. Putting down a base coat: Now we are going to be painting in a really intuitive way. So intuitive means that you just follow your heart, follow your expression, and just create compositions and things that feel good. So the first thing that we're gonna do is just blood down some colors in a random order. Sorry, I just got like a medium-sized brush here. And I'm just going to start with maybe some of the blue. And I'm just going to scribble down patches of color. So maybe I'll add a bit of white to that blue and spread that around mixing on the paper a lot. Don't worry about whether the colors are mixed perfectly. We're just having fun blocking down some color. I'm going to add a bit of darkness in here. Now, you just say how I'm not blending all these colors together. You can see how there's quite a sharp edge and I'm creating these blobby shapes. You don't want everything to be super blended because that's going to make it really boring. You want to have a really expressive, vibrant pattern or abstract art that looks like it's got movement to it. If everything is smoothed out and blended too much, you're not going to have that expression that we're looking for. So if you're not used to painting in such an expressive, loose way, it might take you a little bit of practice. But for example, what I see a lot of people do when I'm teaching in person, which I do quite often, is that they'll get something like this and then now start blending everything together and making it really smooth. And so all the brushstrokes are blended. And there's really neat transitions between the colors. So this sort of blended look, this is not what we're looking for. We're not looking for this nice blended look. We're looking for really defined patches of color. If you find that your piece of paper is starting to look really blended and smooth, then maybe you need to dry off your paper and start adding colors on again in a more loose kind of way. So to fix this up, for example, I can just come in with some white. And to be really abrupt with that color, I can come back in with some of the orange and be really abrupt adding in that color and not joining up any of the blobs in a really smooth manner. We want it to be very, very expressive. If you don't want your colors to smoosh together too much, you can wash your brush in between layers. For example, I'm moving to the pink is sort of semi pink color. Now, I don't want it to blend with too much of the balloon that's on my brush. So I'm going to rinse out the brush first before I come back in. We just sort of apricot color. I can mix a bit of orange into this to change it, and I can also mix some white into it as well. The other thing I want you to try and think about is make different shapes, different blobs. Don't make everything the same size. You don't want a patch of blobs that are all in a really patterning kind of shape. You want it to be haphazard, random, loose, expressive. You don't want it to be repetitive. So we're trying to get a bit of a surface happening that has a lot of interests in it. So you can see as well how far I'm supporting my brush back. If you find that you're being a little bit too fussy or to stick with it, hold your brush a bit further back and just push the paint around. The color is getting a little bit muddy. So again, if you find that your colors are getting a bit muddy on the piece of paper, come back, wash your brush, come back with some fresh color instead of whatever was on your brush. I want the whole page filled so every little corner really haphazard. You don't have to use every single color that you have at this stage, but you want to add a few different variations of color. So there's some darks and lights. Something like that. Sorry. If I just pick my camera up a little bit so he can see it a bit closer. I'm not a big glaring because it's wet. But can you see how really loose these shapes are? Nothing is blended. They're very brushstroke. Saving this very strong brushstrokes. This is what we're looking for. If your piece of paper is too smooth and all the colors are blended in perfectly, It's gonna be really hard to build up onto these layers. So make sure that your piece of paper, it looks something like this. And then we're going to completely dry this and then move on to the next step. 4. Building up interest: So this is what your piece of paper or canvas should look like at this stage. And this is what I'm considering, the underpainting to these abstract landscape. So what we're gonna do now is start to build up areas of color and interest to create some more visual patterns and textures. So the first thing that we want to do is work out where our horizon is going to be. Sorry, this is going to be a sort of landscape, ish, inspired abstract art. So any landscape really needs to have a horizon line of some kind. So we're going to do that first. I'm just going to wash out my brush. Make sure it's nice and clean. So a couple of rules of landscape painting is going to help us when we're pulling together these abstract landscape. One of the rules being that generally speaking, the sky is one of the lightest elements in a landscape painting. So in order to define the sky in our abstract painting, we're going to create a lighter area. That's going to be our sky area. So I'm going to go into the white that I have and create a really light value. Might add a little bit of the blue in here. And I'm going to mix up a really light value color. And I'm going to use this light value color to block in some areas that are gonna be sky. Now, what I can also do is use this to create some negative shapes to indicate where trees might be or where some bushes might be. Up in this area here, I can use the blogs that I've already created randomly to help dictate where things are gonna go. So for example, this really dark blob here, and this dark blob here. This could be trees, because trees tend to be dark in landscapes. So I can use those to dark blobs as trees by blocking in sky around them. So maybe our horizon starts about here by blocking a really light sky area up in here. And maybe around this tree as well. Just get a little bit more paint. Now, I can go over this sky color a few times later on. But for now we're just using it to block in with some sky. So you can see that now created these negative shapes that could be interpreted as trees or bushes. So now that I have this here, I can start to work my way down, adding in some areas of interest and color to emphasize certain areas. So these trees, for example, we can make them really stand out trees by making them darker. If I come in with the midnight blue, which is my darkest color that I have here. I can go over some of these shapes. Again, really loosely see how I'm not making them look like generic trees. I'm just blocking in some darker shapes. Okay. Maybe I can add some dark and standing heat to this sort of way of painting. You really have to just play around with values and playing the contrast. So you can see how I've added in some really dark shapes. Now, these dark shapes contrast really nicely with the light shapes. Okay, so now that I've added some dark shapes in, I'm going to come in and do some light shapes. So maybe like a nice lighter blue color. Again, don't overthink color choices. Just play around and do what feels good to you. This is supposed to be a fun, expressive, relaxing project. It's not meant to look like anything spectacular. It's just meant to be fun. So use your instincts to play around with the color placement. So for example, I put some blue and so maybe I can come back in with some of these salmon pink cut around the shapes that I have here. With the salmon pink. I can even maybe add some white to it. And lighten that up a little bit. Just to add a different value. Really loosely going in saying that there is blobby, weird shapes that we started with. So continuing on, we've really loose shapes. So I've got a lot of the similar sort of colors at the moment. Somebody into that, some of the orange that I have. Just to maybe add another variation of color, see how bright that is compared to everything else. It might add a few orange bushes around. I can also add a bit of white to that to lighten it up a bit. And I can even add a little blue to it. If we want to make more of a greenish color, I can add the yellowy orange and the blue together. Then we might have a bit more of a green to work with. Okay, not intense. So I can add some of that in. See how things are moving around my paper as well. I'm not just keeping everything in one spot. I'm moving this paint around and I'm moving this color around because he's not mix up some color and I use it in just one spot, it's going to look really out of place. So again, using your brush really far away. This way you have a little bit less control over what you're doing. Maybe I'll add a bit of a larger area of a colossal might. Wind up this greenish color on there. I can even maybe come in with some more stronger bowler. I might have to wash my brush a little bit. These two little different now. Okay. So now I'm going to change my brush because you don't want to do everything with the same brush. So I'm going to come up with a slightly smaller brush now. So this is like a round brush. A size six, I think it is. If you've watched any of my other videos, you'll know that I'm not very good at giving instructions on note which brushes I'm using. My deep into some of these lighter pink now. And use this brush just to add in some different shapes. You can blend and mix a lot on the paper as well. And I'm just going to have moving that some of this paint around with a different brush. You can lighten up some of these areas. And what beginning a bit wet at this stage actually. So I think we'll give this a bit of a dry first. But hopefully you can see, I'll just zoom in a bit. Can you see how, again, the shapes that I'm creating, a very textured nothing is blended. All the brushstrokes that I'm having that I've added. Still very visible. But it creates a really interesting, vibrant texture to the art work. So this is what we're trying to achieve here. So if you're finding that all of your marks are blending into each other too much. You may have a bit too much water in your paint. Your pipe might not be thick enough. So maybe try working with a bit of a thicker consistency paint. And it should really feel like smooth and battery when you're painting with it. So I'm going to drive this off now and then we can come back and work again. You continue to work too much on wet paint like this. It's a can get a bit muddy so we're just gonna let it dry and then we'll come back with some more layers. 5. Adding layers and contrast: Alright, so I paint is now dry. So we're going to add some more lines. You can continue painting and adding as many layers as you feel necessary until you are happy with the painting. But to start with, I'm going to go back to the sky area and add in another layer of color, maybe a little bit more opaque, sorry to cut out a little bit of that initial background, I'm going to make it a little bit thicker. Hey, let's go around. It doesn't matter if areas sort of blending or get a bit messy. This is a good excuse to just play. I find that when you paint in this technique, it's really important to let go of perfection or let go of any particular idea or a direction that you want your artwork to go in. It's much easier to paint like this if you just play and don't expect it to look like anything in the end. That can be a really hard thing to do, but it is something that once you've mastered, will really help you to create more authentic and expressive art works, because you will no longer worrying about the end result. Just adding in some more blue because I feel like a lot of the colors that are in here at the moment are very similar. Sorry, just getting it, add a bit of blue. Now I'm going to start thinking a little bit about some focal points are some areas of interests that I want to emphasize. So for example, I really liked this tree shape here that I've created. But I feel like there's not quite enough contrast between these two colors. So I want to emphasize this a little bit more. So I'm going to emphasize it by increasing the contrast. So that means that I'm going to make the value that's behind it much lighter. So I'm going to come in with again, some of the lips. Right now. Let's have fun with it. Who cares? They come in with some white paint and a little bit of that same orange, but I'm going to make sure that the ratio of white is much higher so that the color is a much lighter color, a little bit more vibrant. And we go and I'm going to use this. And again, the fill in the area behind this tree. We've a much brighter value. So you can see that now I've done that. This tree now stands out even more than it did a minute ago. I can do that in other places as well. Like for example, I can add in maybe some brighter and lighter bushes up around here as well. A little bit of blue change the value of some of these bushes around here. It's just going to clean the brush off because I want you to go back to slightly different colors. I'm going to add some of these orange to some of these pink and add that in as well. In some areas. Maybe add some white to it. Sometimes it's really fun to squint your eyes while you're painting as well. So by squinting your eyes, what you're going to do is see the shapes that you're painting as just blocks of color without any detail. And by doing that, you can sometimes pick out areas of interests or areas that require something else in them. So I'm gonna go back to the darker color now. I've washed my brush because that's like okay, so I might go back to this dark, increase the darkness in some of these areas. That'd be the shutter down here as well. What we're gonna do now that we're sort of, you can see now that I've kind of getting a landscape or abstract landscape happening here, now, we've got a horizon, we've got some trees. It could be a focal point, is all these patches of color and pattern happening here. And so I want to emphasize some of these colors and patterns here by adding some smaller marks and some more details. So I'm going to again draw this off and we're going to come back and add some detail. 6. Finishing Details: Okay, so we're back to a nice dry surface again. And so what we're gonna do now is start to add some marks and some interesting things onto some of these areas to again, just add another layer of interest and detail. So you can do this with paint, you can do it with pencils, crayons. So what I've got here is I have some current arch. These other Nero color too. I'm sorry, these are water-soluble crayons. These work really well on top of acrylic paint. Sorry, you can blend them back out again and you can paint back on top of them again because they're not oil pastels, they are water-based. So you can use something like this, or you can use pencils, paint, whatever you like. But what I'm gonna do is I'm going to pick a few colors that compliment what we already have here. Maybe it's the Arctic Council got a purple of Lewin barker going to pop these to the side. What I'm gonna do with these. So I might get just one more darker color. Come to sorry, a motorbike just been pasta. I guess I've got like a just a darker blue here as well. So I've got a couple of colors that, as you can see, I hold them up against his painting that fit in with the color scheme that I've got going here. What I can do with these is add some details. For example, I might add in some marks to indicate maybe some more trees that are happening up on this horizon. You want all of your marks to be very loose and expressive as well, because we're keeping with this whole theme. And you don't want anything that looks too realistic coming in at this stage because it won't really suit the rest of the artwork. So you want to still keep your marks and you're drawing or whatever it is you choose to do. Very loose and expressive still. Maybe there's a little tree coming out from this guy as well. Let's see what else we can do. We can add in some marks that indicate maybe some grasses down here. Maybe I can add it. You can use these to really add in some areas of interest and pops of color as well, because these are quite bright. And when you push really hard, they do work very similar to oil pastels. So you kinda get the same sort of look. However, I just put some marks down here. I'll zoom in and show you what happens when I add water to it. So these are some of the marks that I've just added in here. And as I said, because these are water-soluble, if I get my paintbrush clear off some paint, y, then come over. I can use the paint too. If I wanted to. I can completely erase what I've just done. Or I can just blend it out and add some different textures to it. So that's why these are really good. And then you can come back over and draw again. Sorry, that's why the nail colors are very good. But again, you could still do these details and all these different textures and things with just normal pencil as well. It doesn't need to be crayon. But I just wanted to demonstrate that. I'm just going to use these to bring out some areas of interests and pattern. For example, I can maybe add in some marks like this. You can also add little spot patterns. Important thing here is to not overwork it or add in too much. That's gonna be distracting for what you already have here. Because again, we're trying to create an abstract artwork or semi abstract artwork. Obviously it is representational of a landscape. But we don't want it to have a huge amount of detail happening. Because then that's going to really distract from the abstract kind of feeling that we are going for. You can also add it as I was saying, you can also use pink brushes. So if, for example, if I come back to this brush that I had before and say I want to create a bit more interests. Maybe in this area. I can use my brush to add some pattern. Okay, so I'm, I'm just blending the paint down with this brush which makes a really nice caught up teardrop shape. If I get a smaller brush, I can do more smaller details. I have a small flat brush here. So you can just continue to build up your artwork and take it as far as you want to a garden, you don't have to. You can completely paint over everything that you've just done. Or you can reserve areas that you really like. You can cover up areas that you don't like that. So there's something that you're not happy with or color you're not happy with. Just go in and cover it again. Play around and continue to build and build and build until you are happy. We that the artwork that you have. Sir, I find the lines that I just put in here, for example, a little bit distracting. So I'm just going to go back with some of that really pale yellow and block it out. Back to what it was before. Add summit. This brought us to the orange color down. Like that. I'm just going to continue to build and build and build. Once your artwork has reached a stage where you're happy with x, you can take off the tape. If you find that your tape starts to tear your paper, what you can do is just get your hairdryer, run the hairdryer for a moment over the tape and that will loosen up the glue on the tape. And so it will come up a lot easier without any looping or tearing. So that's a little tip if you find that your paper rips a bit. And here is my finished piece. You can see how the tape creates a really nice border and finishing sort of edge to the art work. This is what I have here. So you can now see that it has elements of a landscape, but it's still very abstract. A lot of the paint is not very blended, but there's a lot of nice color and interesting pattern happening. The little touches that I've added him with the crayon, a subtle, but they do add to that landscape field of this artwork. And Credit Suisse not aligned with the interests. Okay, sorry, Let's do another one. I'm going to start again. We have some different colors and I'm gonna do the whole process all over again. 7. Timelapse Demo 1 - Useing your imagination: I'm going to do another painting using the same technique. This time I do have a canvas board instead of paper just to mix things up a little bit. I've also changed up my colors. I still have the same midnight blue, but I now have a yellow, pink, and a lighter blue, as well as my white and the same lighter pink. And I'm just going to approach this in exactly the same way that I did the previous one. I will probably speed it up a little bit because you don't need to. He may describe what's happening again. But just know that the technique I'm using for this is exactly the same as the previous artwork. While this video is playing and you're watching the paint work, I wanted to talk a little bit about why it's important to use your imagination and not just rely on reference photos all the time, especially if you're wanting to create artworks that are more abstract or more loose and expressive and unique looking, you really need to focus on using it and embracing your imagination. Working on, on location, or looking for photos or doing workshops is fine, and seeking mentors is fine. But at some point you do have to turn into your, yourself and you need to allow that creative individual voice to spread its wings. And the best way of doing that is to approach a artwork in a way that has no boundaries and limitations. So I don't have a particular image in my mind when I'm creating art like this, I don't have a final idea that I'm trying to achieve. I am just letting the paint tell me what to do. So when I add color and globes and textures of paint, I allow those choices to then dictate where I go next. So for example, I might look up to the darker areas of the painting and decides that they are going to be trees, for example. And so I woke up where I've randomly put those dark areas and I start to elaborate those and build up on those. So this sort of technique of working with your imagination does involve a lot of trust and a little confidence in yourself. And you need to accept the fact that you will probably make a lot of really ugly paintings to begin with. But once you get over that feeling of having to create something that is finished perfect, it does open up the opportunity to explore ideas and explore techniques and see where your own personal creativity will take you. And I think that's a really important thing when it comes to not only your skills as an artist and your ability to create as an artist, but also as art as a form of therapy and mindfulness. And just allowing yourself to create for the sake of creating is a really important thing to learn how to do. And it's really fun as well. And it does take a lot of the pressure off you to create something that can be hung on a wall. Not every piece of art has to be display worthy. No, no one else has to see what you're saying. The American missile social media driven world, we are in our economy encouraged to share, share, share. But if you're not feeling confident in your work and you're just producing things for the fun of it. Don't feel the need that you have to share it with people until you are happy to share it with people. Sorry. Yes, I think that's a really important thing to remember as well. I also strongly believe that imagination is something that can improve through practice. And you can. Practice creating things from imagination. There's this idea out there, all this misconception that we have to wait for that strike of inspiration to hit us in the head or to magically appear. And if we don't catch that immediately, then we won't produce anything interesting. But really that's not really how it works. I find that the work of actually creating something in the process of creating something triggers that moment of inspiration. So the more you experiment and play around with materials and techniques, the more likely it is that the inspiration is going to hit you. Instead of sitting there just staring at a blank canvas, just start making something and laying down just basic shapes and colors and patterns. From doing that, you actually give you imagination the opportunity to start working and to start building on something and reacting to something. I often say my classes that, you know, if you're worried about making a mistake, just let that idea of it being a mistake go. Put something down. And once you have something in front of you to react to, then you can decide, okay, what do I need to add to these to improve it, or what is overwhelming or what is not working compositionally. But if you don't take that step and you don't add something to your artwork, then you can't react to anything. And so you're not going to then push yourself forward. Sorry. That's why I find that it's really important for just just getting there and do it, and just have fun with it. And try not to overthink the actual finished part of the whole process. The next thing that I wanted to quickly talk about as well is the use of color and how color can impact what you're creating. You'll notice that the color choices that I've made for this particular example a vastly different to the ones that I had in the previous example. The colors that I was using originally created a lot of really muted neutral tones. It was actually a contrasting color palette in the previous artwork. So I was using oranges and blues. So if you think about a color wheel, anything that's opposite itself on the color wheel is its contrast in color. So when mixed together, they create a lot of really nice neutrals and they do work really nicely together as a combination. Whereas the colors that I'm using in this particular painting, It's a bit more of a, let's say a primary palette of colors. So I have a yellow, a pink, and a blue, which is a basic primary combination. And sorrow because I have those three colors, it means that I can mix a lot of different varieties of colors. And I'm not just working with muted tones, I'm working with a lot more brighter values and brighter colors. So when thinking about color, it's really important to think about the value and intensity of those colors. And you want to make sure that you have a really nice variety of values. You can interpret colors in any way you like. As long as you think of them more as the value than the color which I sorry, I don't think I'm explaining that very well. The value is more important than color. That's what I'm trying to say. The value is relating to the darkness and lightness of a particular color. And it's really important to have a strong mix of values in your artwork, even an abstract artwork like this, it still needs to have good values and interesting values within the painting for it to look balanced and for it to look harmonious. Um, if all of your values are too light, for example, you'll be lacking contrast and it will be really hard for the viewer to work out where it is they're supposed to look. Also, if your values are all too dark, the painting and the Albert can appear quite dull and flat and have a lot less, again, interest in the actual painting. And it will make it difficult for the person viewing the painting to focus on what it is they're looking for and where to rest their eyes. So it's really important to have a good variation of colors and values. So you can see that I've got some really dark areas in those trees and I've also got some light areas. And so because of that, I can explore different colors. As long as the values of their colors are quite different. But you also need to think a little bit about mark making. So for example, you can say that I'm just literally dipping my finger in the paint and creating dots and marks to create patterns. But I'm making sure that when I mix that color that's going on top, the value change is significant enough for me to be able to see it if you don't have a value change. So if you're layering paint on top of itself and you don't change the value enough, then it's just going to disappear. And everything that you're doing, it's not going to make an impact. So those dots and marks that I've just added in on top of this particular artwork. You'll notice that the value of the color that I used is a lot lighter than what was underneath. So it shows up. That works the same with darkness. If you want to add something dark and needs to be significantly darker. This is something that acrylic paint is known for in that it does dry darker than what it is when it goes on wet. So it can sometimes take a bit of practice to get an understanding of values and color. So I do recommend this is again another good projects for that kind of practice layering colors, but I do recommend that you allow yourself time to learn how to mix colors properly and to mix colors nice and cleanly. It's again, just something that's just taken out with practice. And it will be a lot easier the more you do it. However, working with a limited palette, such as this, for example, where you only have a very small selection of colors to choose from. It's going to make it a lot easier for you to just concentrate on painting and creating because you're not overwhelmed with too many choices in regards to color. You'll notice a lot of my projects that I have on Skillshare, we work with limited palettes quite a lot. And even when I'm creating my own artworks in my studio, I do make sure that I limit my palette and I limit my choices. This particular painting has more colors available than to me than the other paintings do, but it's still a limited palette. So it's still limited to, I'm really, I'm using that the yellow, the pink, blue, and a little bit of that darker color, and that's it. So we've got four colors and watt. That's the limited palette that I'm using in the previous video. I had blues and peachy orange colors, but it was still a fairly limited palette. I didn't have the greens and purples and pinks and yellows to add in there as well. I was just working with limited colors. Sorry, that's limiting those choices that you have is going to force you to use what you have and learn how to work with value rather than color, which he's going to help you again to use your imagination and free up your creativity a little bit more. 8. Timelapse Demo 2- Brushwork and mark making: While you're watching this demonstration, which for reference, I'm using the same color palette that I had in the first step-by-step demonstration. So that's why the colors kinda look the same as the first one. So while you're watching this, I just wanted to talk a little bit about brushwork and mark-making and how practicing that different brushwork and different brush strokes and mark-making can really help you to develop your style and develop your confidence. So when we're talking about brush and mock working and where you apply the paint to the surface. It's a really personal thing and it's something that is as unique as handwriting. Just like your handwriting is totally different to my handwriting. The way you apply paint to the surface is totally different to the way that I apply Pie paint to the surface. And this is something that you can learn. You can learn certain brush techniques, such as being quite smooth and blending colors really easily. Sort of dry brushing and layering colors. You can also learn how to be really loose and expressive. But it does take practice and it does take a lot of confidence. The paint application is not usually the first thing you think about when you look at a painting, you might be attracted to these subjects, the colors, maybe the looseness or the tightness. And yet the application, it says so much about the mood and the intent of the oddest. And so you really read the surface of the painting, like I said, in the same way that you read handwriting. So when you're looking at someone's handwriting that seems really rushed and Missy and frenetic that you get the feeling that whatever was the person who was in the mood of being quite rushed when they were writing that. When you say handwriting that is very neat and controlled, then you may have a feeling that this person was taking their time and being very with what they're writing. And it's the same when you're painting. If you want to have an artwork that has a lot of energy in it and a lot of movement and freedom and expression, then you need to work quite quickly. If you are painting really slow, lazy brushstrokes, you're not going to have the same energy to that painting as you would if you were painting really quickly and just laying down colors. I tend to paint really quick, which is why I have a lot of energy and most of my paintings. So if you want to have energy, you need to accept the fact that you may have to work a lot quicker than what you're used to working. Different brushes are also going to help create different brushstrokes and marks and textures. So experiment with the large brushes, small brushes, brushes that have long stiff bristles, soft brushes, different types because you might find that you are a lot looser and find it a lot easier to express yourself when you're using a brush of a certain kind. You might find it harder to express yourself when you're using a different kind of brush. Work around that by just trying a few different brushes. I prefer to use brushes with quite long handles on them. And I also prefer them to be not too soft. I do have a combination of sort of harder bristle brushes. The brush I'm using at the moment, It's a bit more of a harder bristle brush. It's technically, I think an oil painting brush. But I do also use quite soft flat acrylic brushes. I really like the way that they apply paint as well. That you can use really thin brushes as well to add a different texture and the different mark to your artwork. It is always recommended that you don't just use one brush for the whole painting. You should really change it around and think about the way you're applying the paint as well in regards to the variety of your brushstrokes, something that I see a lot of beginner artists do in my classes is that they will reproduce the same mark on their artwork over and over again. And there will be a very repetitious kind of looking back, whether it's just a line or a dot or cross hatching kind of look. But all of the shapes that they make with their brush look the same. And as a result of the painting has a sort of repetitive and confusing kind of look to it. So you need to focus on making sure that you are varying the size and the shape of the marks that you're creating and make some larger marks, some smaller marks, and changing up your brush will help this. But you also need to really concentrate a beat on what you're doing and remind yourself, even when you're in that fantastic zone of painting, you need to remind yourself to change up what you're doing. Step back and look at what you've done so far and analyze the marks that you're making with your brush and see if they are too similar. And maybe try another layer of paint using a different brush and changing the way that you apply the paint. But it's, it really is a very individual thing. And the more you paint, the better you will understand the application of the painting, how it affects the artwork. So if you think about, for example, a Van Gough artwork, he would create a lot of really small lines of color. And the movement of those lines would then create movement within the painting. He didn't blend any of these colors at all. Everything was very just a mark of color on top of color. And when you step back from that artwork, everything sort of blending together. Where then if you think, for example, about more traditional Renaissance paintings, they would build up their paintings with a lot of really smooth layers of paint and scumbling of color to create a much more realistic changing values and real realistic skin tones. Sorry, that's just to do with the application of the paint and how they've approached the application. And so studying the Old Masters in that way and having a look at how artists that you admire and artists that you're drawn to their work, how do they actually apply that paint? Are they making really bold, big sweeping movements? Are they making really tight, fine mocks and movements with their brushes? By analyzing the work that you like and the work that you would like to produce. That you can then work out how they're applying the paint and then practice doing that yourself. But brushwork and mark-making, it's a very individual thing. And sometimes you just need to accept that. The way you apply paint is the way you are going to apply pack does it's like it's a way of getting it to know your style as well as having, having a look at how you approach art and how you approach applying paint. And it does take a lot of practice to get to a point where you are confident enough to just let go. I know that when people are watching me paint, they are often surprised at how quickly I paint. This video is sped up. So I don't paint quite this fast, but I do paint quite quickly. This painting here, it only took me about half an hour to complete. And often people will think, oh gosh, I could never do that in that time. However, I have pushed myself after many years of painting to work quickly and to get really loose with my art deliberately. I've done that and I've worked on that. And as a result, I can now create an artwork like this in a very short amount of time. However, it has taken me quite a few years to get to that point. So don't expect yourself to just be able to jump into it. I have a lot of understanding of color and composition. I can do this, this kind of work really quickly, but it is really important to you do practice. That's the most, most important thing I can say. So I hope that you enjoyed this little demo, and I hope you've enjoyed this workshop as well. I'm really excited to see what you produce. And I hope that it has been really helpful to you and it has given you some inspiration to just get out there and create something out of your imagination. And I look forward to seeing you in some other workshops.