Paint a Colorful Abstract on Canvas!

1. 1. Course Intro: I'm Suzanne Allard and I created this class so you can take your paintings to the next level and work on a canvas. This is a step-by-step full painting starting with a blank white canvas. Beginners and seasoned artists alike will enjoy this colorful adventure where we take inspiration from nature. I've got some great inspiration photos to get us going. I hear from students that they're afraid to use bright saturated colors or they want to learn how to get those colors and their paintings without them taking over the composition. We're going to head straight into that territory with this class. We'll use acrylics, but also gouache paint pens and oil pastels to get that interest in texture that I love. I have some tips and tricks to share with you about layering these. That is a bit unusual but fantastic. Sometimes starting and finishing a painting are the stages that are the most fun. But the middle is where we're not sure where to go and that's a challenge. This is where we really grow though as artists, it's important to develop and practice the practice of pushing through that uncomfortable stage. We'll take you along each step of the way, my thought process, how we get past those stages in a painting where you're not happy and how to resolve compositional issues that always come up. Have you heard that painting is problem-solving? Well, you have to create the problems in order to solve them. And we do that in this class. We stay with it until all the issues are addressed and we have a successful painting that you can hang on your wall. Join me in this relaxing, joyful painting, adventure on Canvas. 2. 2. A Little About Me: You love painting on paper, but wonder about translating that to a Canvas. I know I did because a canvas just feels different than paper in many ways. Then do you sometimes get halfway through a painting and think, I do not like this and they don't know what to do about it. We'll tackle both of those issues in this colorful abstract on Canvas class. I'm so excited about this class. Hi, I'm Susanna Allard and my passion is creating art that exudes joy and encouraging you to express your creative spirit, which I believe we all have. Did you know that I didn't start painting until I turned 52? I have learned to just about everything I know in online classes, just like this. Now I license my art for products, sell originals, prints and various products on my website, as well as teaching online. In fact, I now have over 30,000 online students across something like 34 countries. I want you to know though that just a few years ago I was terrified at the thought of even learning to paint. I'd always been creative things like knitting and faulting and quilting. But I thought painting was for real artists and I didn't think I was one of those. So that's why I became the kind of teacher that I need. Super encouraging, real relaxed, fun, supportive, not overly technical or rigid. As a teacher, I addressed the mental and fears, struggles and creating because I know that's what helped me back for years. Of course, I also teach you a technique composition, what different media can do, how to tap into your own creative spirit and style, and just how to get a sense of exploration. Whether or not you're just beginning or you want some new ideas and inspiration to shake things up a bit. I think you'll get value out of this class. When I create classes, I talk through out about what I'm thinking as I'm painting, as it evolves, what I'm looking for, what my thought process is. And my students tell me they find real value in that. I always feel like we're just kinda hanging out painting and chatting together. So I hope you feel that too. Make sure you watch all the videos because I have some bonus at the end. And please post your projects and questions in the project space. I know other students loved seeing your journey as much as I do. It doesn't matter if it's finished or not. And please download all the class resources and check out my website supplies and resources tab for even more. Alright, I'm thrilled to have you here, so let's get started. 3. 3. All About Supplies: Alright, let's talk about supplies, which I always say this, but it bears repeating. If you haven't taken my other classes, I don't I'll show you what I have, but I've collected all of this over three or four years, so don't feel like you have to have all this. There are other tools you could use to, I try to keep things simple, but I just want to show you what I'm using so that you can add it to your wishlist if you like. If you like it. I figure why not show you everything and then let you pick and choose the essentials that you need. Her course, some paint and a canvas and some brushes. After that, it's really up to you to decide what you like. So first thing that you need for the class as a canvas and you don't need the most expensive. This is sought a brain-in-a-vat of Michael's. They number two brand. So it's a step up from the lowest level, but it's not the highest level. It is Gallery raft, meaning that the canvas comes around here instead of just being folded over and stapled. I just think that looks kind of sloppy, but it's the back of the canvas. And if that's what you have, don't worry about it. There are different thicknesses of Canvas. This is the three-quarter inch. You can use the one-and-a-half inch if you like. It doesn't really matter. For the purposes of this class, we are going to paint the sides but Canvas. So if you get a decent quality canvas, then you don't need to deselect because it's already just sowed. Alright, that's the canvas. For palettes. I generally use lightly in both use different things over the years, but two different things. I'll use pallet paper, which there are links to pretty much all of these supplies on my website. If you go to my website and go to Resources, there are two drop-downs there. One is books and all my favorite books related to the art related life and then supplies. And I tried to find the best prices for those supplies that I use. Anyway, palette paper is this kind of shiny for most plastic surface. And sometimes it's really nice to use because you put your colors, you do your mixing, and then you just throw it away. And it's really inexpensive. So I tend to use this when I'm painting. Now. Usually when I'm traveling for sure I use it and when I'm painting, maybe in the living room, in front of the TV, in the studio. I've been using this glass, I'll show you. So this was actually from the class. So there's paint on there. And I'm just going to show you how you can spray it. While we're talking here. It'll soften very quickly. This is a sprayer I got from Amazon. I think it's a face, Mr. but it works really well for this. And then this scraper I stole from my husband's in the garage. But he had a few of them and he did. It, hasn't missed it. This is probably already softened yet and it's amazing if you don't spray it, you think just a little bit of water gonna do. But it's completely different. It makes it you have to really scrape, whereas just a little bit of water and it comes right up because you can see. Then I take a paper towel and I got a clean piece of glass. The I have several of these glass pieces. The better one than this. That is, it doesn't have the sharp edges is actually a cutting board. I found the smooth surface good price, well-priced One on Amazon. I put that and supplies as well. And so everything is there that you would need, even the scraper, there's only two that, alright, so that's palettes. Then. Let's talk about paint I use in this class, acrylic for most of the base and the elements of the painting. And I'm using the Nova Color brand. This is a company out of California. They make these there and they don't sell them in stores, So you just order by mail. I've done some comparisons with similar price point paints. And this so far, by far is a better quality with the opacity. I just did a comparison with the Sennelier abstracts that are about the same price. And the, they were just much more transparent and I like strong pigment. I want that intense pigment. So actually working with Nova and now they asked me to do a bundle. So probably by the end of June 2022, when you go to their website and click on artists bundles, you'll see that Susanna tailored bundle and I've been working on selecting the colors that I think will yield you the most fun and colors that I use in my work. Anyway. That's acrylic. You don't have to go out and buy Nova. If you've already have acrylics, you use what you have. All I will say is. Don't get the cheapest thing. You don't need to buy the most expensive, but you want the best quality pigment for the money. And that's why you can pay, you can pay more for paints like golden or Liquitex. But Liquitex basics is another brand. That is let me get a tube whether it's a decent quality, I would say the price is so just to compare. I would say the quality is similar to ANOVA, but what I would say Nova is better. And the price is, well, once you pay shipping for Nova is probably about the same because the paint containers are actually less. But it's also an option that is, I would say don't go any lower than this quality. Alright? Now, then I also use, which is a little different, but it works is I'll use gouache on top of the acrylic. And the reason I do that is acrylic gives me a certain field. But it's fine for the base layers and some of the, some of the elements that I put into paintings. But it doesn't give me the, the opacity and chalky texture that I like in a painting. I'll put on the top layers. Some things in either acral goulash or sometimes regular gouache are the only color I used in this class of regular brushes, this yellow ocher. And I'll talk more about that in the class. But hypoglossal, the difference between these two, just to review, is, first of all, let me talk about gouache. Gouache is an opaque watercolor. Regular blush. Think of it as like a watercolor, meaning it's, can be reconstituted with water. It's not permanent, but it's much more opaque and chalky than watercolor, which is translucent. Now. Apple gouache, which there are many brands over here. It's a whole day and brand and here's a Turner brand. Our gouache paints that have that same opacity and chocking us, but they have been, they've added some acrylic properties to make them permanent. So it's kinda the best of both worlds. The reason I don't use this for everything is it's pricey. These are little tubes. And you can imagine something little like this is maybe $6. Whereas that, which is, let's see, how many millimeter milliliters is this poem. Eyeglasses, 20 ml versus a thing of acrylic is 4 oz for about four or $5. You could, it would be pretty tough to me. You can buy these bigger ones, but you don't really need to. So a little bit of this goes a long way and I use it where I need it. So that kind of explains and you'll see as we do it in the class, how that works. I also use oil pastels and they just had a pop of color and texture that is so delicious, I couldn't be without them. So in this class I do use these. This is among you brand. I have a link to it on my website and have these, I would say two years, you can see some of the colors are wearing down and they've held up really well and the pigment intensities. Very nice. Sometimes I draw on the canvas just some shapes of the elements. And when I do that, I might use these neo color grams. They're water-soluble trans, they also can add texture to a painting, but you, this is completely optional. You could use, if you want to draw, you could use something, something water-soluble. You'd want to use either water-soluble pencil or even a bit of watercolor on your brush. You could sketch out with that, something so that you're not married to the sketch if you decide to change it, that's why I want it to be water-soluble. I do use passcodes. I think I only used a couple of colors in this painting. But Posca markers are my favorite paint pens. Just show you my dog. Don't make fun of my collection that's grown. The way I think of these posca pens is like the robot, the cost of a nice cup of coffee and I just have a coffee at home and not get the fancy Starbucks. And then I have the *****, my posca collection. But I've tried cheaper paint pens and my students will try them every now and then, and it's always disappointing. I'm paint pens though can be tricky. Just a quick, I'd actually have a YouTube all about Pascal's on how to prime them and how to change the nib or a flip them around if it's giving you trouble. And just in general, how do you use on a YouTube channel has a lot of supply resources. I think I have a video on Nova Color. I have one on the oil pastels. I think it's all in there. So make sure you check that out. And let's see. So we did posca pens are a big part of my work. I've linked to the, my three favorites. These are in three different thicknesses, so I have a very thin pen, and this is the Pentel pen. It will give me a line like that. And I have bought so many gold pins over the years and leaves right now. I have just the best I've found in terms of being durable and consistent and so forth. And so these are my three thicknesses that I have on hand. And then let's see, we talked about the palette. Then you just need a jar of water, container of water and paper towel. And that's all you really need. I will show you these, these blending mediums. Sometimes if you're finding it depends on your climate, but sometimes when you're working with paint, especially acrylic gouache, it can feel like if you put it down. I noticed this a lot with the whole band, acro gosh, I love them, but put a little bit down and I'm painting and it's already feeling like it's drying. And you can add water, of course. But these blending mediums, this is an ultra matte medium by Liquitex and I like Matt. So I like using this. Another blending medium that you can use, It's Winsor Newton blending medium. And you could use this for gouache or alcohol gouache as well. I haven't tried it with acrylic, but it's worth to try and think, maybe I have tried it. Sometimes they'll just take my brush and stick it in. Like I said, you don't need those, but I've learned that it's helpful if things are getting really sticky. So yeah, that's, those are the supplies. Let's talk about inspiration and how to get inspired next. 4. 3. Gathering Inspiration: When it comes to inspiration, we're so lucky to have these apps and tools now. Maybe we're lucky and maybe workers, because the masters had to go out and stand in a field and I couldn't pull up their iPad with Pinterest boards. But I do love it. I love having so much inspiration. And I encouraged you to use some kind of tool to collect what you love because it really will help you narrow in on your style and allow you to collect things that you love. And then you ask yourself, why do I love that? What do I love about it? So one of the things I'm inspired by a made-up board, and by the way, you're welcome to follow me in any of my boards. It Suzanne, our design is vases and bowls. I just think that the shape of them is so interesting. They come in so many different shapes and you look at those. And I just think they make interesting elements in a painting. Or I'll go through and collect flowers and leaves or gardens. Let's see here I've got flowers in this one. I've got landscapes, tropical foliage. Let's see. Pattern inspiration. I mean, you know, leaves, leaf shapes. It can just a fun thing to do when maybe you're not feeling quite energetic enough to paint something that day. But you want to do something toward your art practice. That's how I think of this. I take care of. I do this kind of thing when when I'm having some downtime. So then the other thing I do is I take lots of pictures and I collect those pictures and two albums. So in your photos app, you can create an album. And here are some pictures that we're going to use in this class for inspiration. It doesn't mean that I use every single thing that I've collected. I'll just collect a few that I've taken and then draw from that for that piece. I may only draw from three of the photos, but I'll just put them in an album for what is kinda calling to me right now. This was a plant at the Marisa Lee botanical gardens in Sarasota, Florida. And the same with this tree. I just thought the shape of these routes was incredible. And I have put all the photos in the Student Download section along with the class supply list. I thought these were lovely. So these are hope this was in the Naples garden. And sometimes it's just a shape that I think is interesting. We use the shape and the painting. This will inspire apart a piece, an element in the painting. This was right here near my, actually I have one of my front yard. It's called a tie plant TI. And then look at those leaves in those lines. It's great to study nature because we can get in the habit of doing like a leaf, let's say some leaf painting and think that it has to be perfect, one matching the other, and just get these ideas in our head. When we look at nature and say, Oh, I get that. That one doesn't even go all the way. And on this side it's missing one and look at that little thing and look at that dot. I mean, it's not uniform. So I find, I have to remind myself of that and not make everything symmetrical. This was a succulent, but I took a picture of an Austin, Texas and I'm nursery, a succulent nursery. My daughter to look at this, this, this, these thick waves and then the orange and the pink and the green. I mean, this, this little one picture to me just inspires a whole painting the way the light's hitting there. And then this was actually at a I just went to to get a massage and they had a bouquet in the waiting room. And I just thought the shapes of these were interesting. They've inspired, they've shown up in different paintings. Same thing, this was the same book. A was a monochromatic bouquet. And just looking something like this, can, you can pull this part right here and do these shapes just like this, very loosely copying it. Here's a restaurant in Tampa, and I thought the shapes were really interesting. They're all, they're a little different from each other. And I took a picture. Same with these little blooms. This is called a Firefly. Firefly, fire bush, something like that. I took at the nursery and then of course I bought three and put them in my yard. So where the deer have been trying to eat them. So I use those are my two primary. Well, I also use catalogs. I was gonna say catalogs that come in the mail. They can be floral catalogs, but they can also be like clothing catalogs for color. But these kinds of nursery catalogs that come in the mail or you could order them if you're not getting any new threats that are free. Spring Hill is one of the nicer The ones I think they're up and now they're in Ohio. Okay. I have that wrong. And there's all kinds of inspiration here. Sometimes when I'm at that element stage of a painting, I'll just flip through and say, let's make some of these dog was or what gets bows. And I'll just grab something and put it in to a painting. Inspiration is really all around you. You can become a real habit of looking at the world that way forever. The one, if anybody's walking with me or really anywhere with me, I might see the way that light is hitting something. Or it could be a painting at a restaurant on the wall and I like the color palette. Or I'm actually, I've been in, I took a painting. Where was I met him in the bathroom at a restaurant, hot places and I was wallpaper at a yes, it was in Austin and it was a wallpaper in the bathroom. And I said, I have to take a picture of this. Colors were amazing. So yeah, it gets everywhere, just get obsessed. It's a good, healthy obsession. And like I said, these pictures, I did, I did that I took for this class. I've got in the class downloads. Alright, let's get painting. 5. 4. Background Layer: So for this canvas, I've got the 12 by 12 and Canvas. I would just at least get the quality that is called gallery wrapped. It's wrapped like this. It's not just the cheapest which is, it looks like the fabric just stapled along here. It's not much more and I I just think it's much better. But if you just if you haven't hold Canvas, so you could even just go over it and, and paying on that too. First we're going to start by Yomi to prepare this anymore. It's already got comes with jostle on it. You can if you like, but you don't need to do anything to it. We're going to just take some colors and do some big swatches of color all over it. And I'm going to paint the sides too. And that'll be our first coat, so to speak, our first layer. Color wise, we're gonna do like a magenta, a yellowy color, maybe some turquoise, some blue, and modify them a little bit. So I'm gonna get some cobalt blue out. And of course white. This is my guess. I don't know that I just put in here and use those white. So I'm going to grab some of that here. This is not a fuzzy process. Get some glue down. I've got all my brush to like the color to vary a little bit. So I'm mixing more weight in perfectly. Wait for always increases opacity. I like opacity. So I usually ask, if you move just a little bit of white to color, make sure you get those little seams painting done that before you've finished the painting and then you can't match the color person my paintings, it wouldn't really matter. But better to get it. The first time. I'm seeing them being loose with my brushstrokes. Want it to look not too rigid. I'm not sure what I'm trying to say. Want it to look loose. Okay. Here, I think what I'll do rather than clean my brush out his way, but it gets a lot of the pain out, but still leaves me some of it so that I can get some interesting colors. And I'm going to pick up that was the cobalt blue. Cobalt blue with some white. Now I'm picking up the blue-green. This is a fabulous color. Hair with that, nearly mixing it right on my canvas. Just grabbed a little bit of white. Sounds like the neighbors decided to mother-in-law. And I hope you can hear that in that pretty colored love, this blue-green by Nova. Okay. Now, I will have to probably watch because I'm going to go with yellow and I can leave a little tiny bit of that in there. But if I leave all that pain in there, I won't get too much of a green. See how much I use the paper towels a lot because I can see how much pain is left on my brush. Home islands and they just absorbed so well. So there's a little bit in there. Let's see how that is. And I'm going to grab a cold, warm yellow. My cadmium yellow is almost gone. Again with some white. And you can see the bits of green in there. So I'm getting some good variation, like blending together, overlapping for good. Excuse me, my seem like that color variation there. So I don't want to over blend. I don't think I want to parent lining up, so I don't want this line here. So I'm just going to go with that. My paper towel again. Let's do, uh, let's grab some magenta, going to clean out. Mostly yellow but just with paper towel. Because this is the fluorescent magenta and it needs toning down. So having a little bit of paint in my brush will help tone it down. So we'll wait. It is really bright. I'm pretty let's see that sort of yellow. The bathroom it one of my favorite things to do is see what colors emerge by just leaving a bit of paint in your brush. Is quite a bit of a yellow coming out from the brush, which I like. You can see, you can see it. Fair to see how that's a bit more orangey. Okay. Now, at least gray colors. I'm going to, I'm going to rinse my brush. Now. Let's do a cool color, which is going to work really well because we have a bit of pink and a brush and this naps all crimson. It makes a nice coral when you mix it with white. Sometimes a bit of pink, just the outcomes out. And would it be odd? So let's see what's in my brush gets us, they're pretty nice coral. You don't see that yellow is coming out and my brush. And maybe go later. Okay. Wait. Do want to add a bit of your time already dry. You can see that there's no real rigidity to this part of the process. Hopefully you not to any part of the process. This is just getting color onto the canvas. Just the first layer. You could do five colors, six colors for colors. You can make them bright. You can make more subdued. But we will let that dry and then come back and start adding our first layer of elements. 6. 5. First Elements: For this next layer, I'm going to create some shapes. Just shapes that I like. Maybe a little pots or things that like sort of a half-moon. Just kind of you'll see, it's just hard to describe it. Shapes that I liked, that I get inspired by. I take pictures all the time and place things where I'm you know, these kinds of shapes. This was a restaurant, pots and like in a nursery. And then I've got the botanical elements, but I like to look for vessels. I look on Pinterest and then it also the pictures that I take. So I suggest you keep a Pinterest board with things like shapes. And that way you pick up the kinds of things, speak to you. You know, not everyone loves vessels, but I do. Whoops, that's not a vessel. Vessels and pots and pans and that pans, but things like this basis. The different kinds of shapes and textures that are on vessels like this. So I end up painting things like that and in colors that are going to contrast. So we're gonna go with a lighter, more opaque colors and start painting some interesting shapes to be. Circles could be. There's so much right? I mean, look at that one, that one's pretty there might be other shapes that you like, but this just kind of gets us to put something down. These are pretty as our second layer. Alright, here we go. Make some lighter colored. Actually think I'm going to use white and make some colors that are a little more complex and later than these. So get some light. Grab a bit of this. Getting that to be really light. Minty green. I'm going to knock it back with a tiny bit of red and maybe some yellow. I'm just looking for an interesting neutral. Yeah, there we go. Start with something here. Maybe I'll darken this a little bit and bring in just for some variation. Bring in grandma's blue-green kind of a shape over here. I'm doing this layer is scanning and dressed and breaking up these really bright colors. And so it really, you can use any type of shape you want. Right? So let's see here. So many pretty lines, right? Let's just do a big C. We're gonna go in pink directions. Let me get over to change that. Let me go with some fluorescent pink which will get knocked back a lot with this. But for those in pink is so bright that we can bring it back. Good. That sort of soft pink that I want without having to clean out the brush because the colors that were in there already, her altering. Let's do maybe something like this. She had to that hello. I love how pink and green lock together. So I'm just thinking about places to put color. These colors are a little more subdued than the bright colors we started with. Feeling like I want to glue the color. Here. Hey, another pot. Like that, pink underneath. And I'm going to grab a clean brush. And before this paint here, dress, make a second coat. So it's a little less translucent. Wasn't quite dry, but it's good. Okay. Something quite a bit lighter. Here. I'm taking some weight. I just grab a teeny bit of something. It's really going to end up being like an off-white. Just grab a few colors and go for a large leaf shape like that color. That's what happens in this process. You find a color you like and you say, Oh, I want to put that somewhere else. Just go ahead and put some little at pressure, so torn up. And I want these to kind of look neater. That's just personal preference. I can get that with that scrubby brush. Ms. premium rate for that, for this first layer. Let me just take another look and think if there's anything and so you want to do something cool, let it dry so we can come back in with some other stuff. 7. 6. More Elements: I just wanted to say that these elements, if there are certain elements that I don't mind being semi translucent like this. And then there are others that I want to be on the surface that I want more opaque. So what I do with those is I do a second coat or I do gouache on top of the acrylic gouache. Either one will do that. So the only element here, I feel like that I don't want that, I want another codon is this, so I'll do that at sampling. But now I'm looking through some of the inspiration photos, thinking about elements that I want to bring in. I like these leaves. I thought we could bring one coming in this way. These roots are amazing. So I don't know if we'll just do some lines somewhere. I don't know yet. I like the shape of these two. Maybe these will be up here. I just like these little criss-cross lines. Those leaves are amazing. Then this is just some detail on the leaves that is pretty. These are all pictures I've taken here and there. I thought this succulent had the most beautiful wavy lines and colors. So I just kinda look through a set of pictures and collect them for a painting like this, and then decide what I want to, what excites me most basically as I'm looking through. So that's what I encourage you to do. You can obviously follow along here, but as you do more of this, you'll develop your own inspiration, sources and things that excite you. I think my start with one of these leaves and have it come in here. And one of my favorite ways to draw leaves as either with a water-soluble pencil or any old color crayon because it just dissolves into the paint. And I like how this one is curling like this. So I won't make it green though because it's going to blend in with that. So let's, let's follow one of my favorite art movements, which is fauvism, harvest and make things any color we want them to be. 8. 7. Adding Interest 1: Alright, so this has been sitting in the video for a few days just because we went out of town. But I've got my glass palette. I've got my iPad with my inspiration pictures. And at this point I'm going to switch to acro gouache because it gives me that pigment intensity that I want on the upper layers to make things pop. And it just adds another dimension that I really like. So you could have regular gouache, you could use that just to understand that it will reconstitute with water. And Apple Watch is like a very matte acrylic. So it has the properties of acrylic and also the properties of wash, which is that chalky, opaque consistency that I really like. And I always recommend giving things some distance here because as I walk into the studio or walk by this, I I I liked it and I thought about what it needed and it just kinda sat there. And I just think that's a really helpful thing to do, especially if you reach a point in a piece and you don't know where to go. The best thing to do is to walk away, give it some time, and perspective will settle in and just give you some ideas. So with all that, I think there are enough elements here. But I do want to do something coming out of this pot in here. And I might do some little bits here and there with the gouache or wisp pastels, even maybe the Kranz, the neo color crayons, posca pens, pencil. If you don't know, until we get into it. I'm going to look for some inspiration for something coming out of here. And I start with pictures. But it doesn't always, you know, I might deviate from that or something I saw in a garden or somewhere else. I just give you a starting point, but I am fascinated with these petals on this. And I'm thinking I can make something that comes out of here with stems and then has these types of petals. So let's start there. I'm going to color wise. I think it should be a lighter color and I'm being drawn to the cobalt blue maybe to bring out some of this blue. So I'm gonna take metal crayon and start with some stems. Yeah, so then this is just giving you an idea. And remember this is water-soluble. So if I decide I don't like any of it as I'm painting, I just wipe it away. So now I'm going to make a cobalt blue, which is really just a, I don't know, it's a medium, light. Royal blue, I guess you could think of it. But I blew that. I like just the blue that I think is pretty what I'm going for. I like that. Maybe I want it to be just a little more cobalt to you. So and I do this all the time. We're going to mix a little bit of acrylic with metrical blush. No problem doing that. Okay, I'm gonna get a better brush for making these small lines. It might take some experimentation to see what kind of, you know, do I want the great brush. Let's try that either, right? One. If not, you can always look if you don't want to grab your scrap paper, I always have scrap paper close by and see if that's giving me what I want. The only thing I don't like about it is it's all dry at the end. So meaning it's all bristly and I don't want that. So I think actually I'm going to switch to a small round, maybe a one. Because once you get paint on there, it does make quite a bit of a thicker line than you think. And one of the things you're always learning, right? Hopefully, one of the things I've learned recently is that acrylic dries darker than you think it's going to. So just keeping that in mind, if this is the color I want, It's going to dry darker, which is fine because it'll be maybe closer to that. All right. Let's get started with these. This also will start drawing. Another thing I can do, I love using this blend BM mediums worked for acrylic or watercolor. I've used this Winsor Newton blending, meet him for gouache. Then for acrylic, I sometimes use this whole dramatic medium because I like my paints to be Matt anyway. So this helps kind of increase the quality of my acrylics. And I just, I don't use too much though because then it will reduce the opacity, but it does make it easier to do stuff like this. See how fat of a line I'm getting with just one brush. But it's still nice and opaque. You'll notice that I'm bleeding on the stem. I'll come back and fill that in. You can take some of these off the edge. I'm just kinda clustering these. Some of them, some of them not. I can vary the color, grab a little bit of a darker blue, even grab more Unlike cobalt. And you can use, if you don't have a medium, you don't need one. I mean, you can use water, just a little bit of water. If you use too much water, it'll just get too translucent and the pigment won't be as intense. But also the eventually if you have too much water to acrylic, it kind of doesn't. It keeps the binders when working. I'm just going to go through and paint these, varying the color and the shape a little bit. Okay. I like what they added. It did get big, which I saw when I drew it. But I was watching that to see if it was too much, but I think it's okay. And this seems like a good color to go ahead and sign list. So I'm gonna do that a little more water or make it more fluid to be able to assign? I like to make the signature part of the painting. So I just keep their pickup a color or use metallic gold. Okay. Now I'm going to take a step back and think of, I want to do something with these. I think maybe another coat of the off-white. And I can actually easily do that. I get my ivory posca pen. I could do it either way. I could take my halfway color. Do you think this size pen is running out my 5M. I did a YouTube video on posca pen and just call about the sizes and how to. Use them and take care of them. Quite a few supply videos on my YouTube channel and also all my favorite supplies. I have links to them on my website. And I tried to find the best prices for students. Okay. I think I'm going to want to add a little bit more ivory down here. So I'm looking for my next size. I agree. You have to prime Nice. They're just really, they're just acrylic paint in a pen shape, but for certain things they were just give you more control. And yeah, they're just they're a nice tool to have. Since I haven't out. I am going to do something. I don't know if I want this color. This is beige or just a little more Beijing. I think it's rather has halfway. It's called ivory. And I'm going to do some stems here are some details here. And what's cool about past, because as you know, you can leave it like this. Or if you want it to look more like a brushstroke, of course you could use pain, but you could also take your brush and go over the posca just so that if you want it to do that, if you wanted it to look more like a stroke, a brushstroke thing is, you'll notice there's a dot at the end. So see the dot at the end of the marker. So I can think about, do I want that dot at the end or that end in variant? Where are you paint? The more you, the better you learn, the more you create. The more you learn about all the different materials and ways to use them. And I just encourage lots of experimentation. Don't be afraid to mix types of paints and see what happens to mix colors. I turned it around and then I OK, I'm glad I did that because I can show you how to turn it around and made the the little stem, what are these leaf mark going the wrong way. So yeah, you just let it was easier with a brush and then let it dry because if you go back in there with your pasco on the wet, it'll just run a little bit. Again. My neck from experience. I don't have to do all of these the same. I can have some just be lines, just kinda suggestion of a stem. Now that I said that though, those couple of without anything with naked to me, it just depends on the composition. Okay, now I'm gonna show you something. What's happening now is there's lots of little detail here. I've got this little blue leaves and then I've put that in and it's too much, it's too much right there. So I'm going to continue with my details. But the great thing about creating is that, you know, I'll, I'll do details here if that's still feeling like too much little stuff after we've finished the rest of it and after we put these stems and then I can just paint over these white marks and subdue them a little bit so that I just wanted to observe that right now, but that's, that's too busy. Okay. Maybe while I've got the ivory out, I think it could be fun to do the center marks and knees. This part of the painting, which is like you could fill a decorating. Sometimes I think of it as adding jewelry. Your outfit, accessorizing, details, interest to a lot of things you can call it. But this is personal preference as far as how much you want to do. That helps the detail having us over here, it's still I think it's still too much, but I'm looking I'm going to ignore that for now and look around and see what else I want to do. I'd like to make this, these orange pop a little more. So I'm gonna make some orange with the glass. The glass will be more opaque and will help. That, so let's get that on there and see what we think. We're gonna get some to make some orange, I'm gonna get some warm yellow. And a bit of work got some orange here actually. But you could take a bit of red. I always recommend making your own colors, mixing your own colors. Even if it's just a tiny bit of something that you're adding to make it yours and not use it straight out of the tube. Make sure I'm not putting my arm and something that's wet. I've lost track of how many times I've done that. Is going to vary the color a little bit and do this one. Hello with that one a little later. I'm just using this number eight flat shader. Well, sometimes also called a bright. Let's see how those are coming forward. So I couldn't leave just those three in the foreground. And these two, by just looking faded, kind of recede to the background. Again, personal preference, I think I'll do that for now. I can always come back through. And I think I'll brighten up some of these guys, especially the ones toward the middle of the vase. So they kinda pop out a little bit more, maybe give it some dimension. I was just considering if I want to do the stem and orange. But I don't think so. I might come through with the ivory posca pen to just make it a little less busy. In fact, let's just do that now. And the, what that's gonna do is it's going to mix with this blue strand. Well, let me let this dry completely. It's almost dry, but we'll do that first. 9. 8. Adding Interest 2: Okay, so this is dry. I'm going to come through, it's going to mix and it's going to make a light blue. Which is fine. We might decide that we like that. And if we don't, once the posca dries, it's it's like putting acrylic paint over. I mean, it is acrylic paint. So if you let it dry completely, you can come through with another code or the Posca pen. And it'll be high rate because that light blue will have dried. Does that make sense? It's almost like it seals that watercolor CRAN. And you can go on top, but very well-made like the late blue. So we just will see course. I will have to clean off my my posca nib because it's going to be light blue. But the great thing about Pascal's, they can be cleaned off with water. They're water-soluble. So I could just wipe it on a piece of paper or good dividend water or both? This one is definitely drying out. What's on his last I have to order another one that goes I use this color a lot. I just find the weight to be too stark. And I also find black to be to start. So that's why I think I end up using February and Payne's gray. Well, I think it's officially out, so we'll go with this size. I kinda like some of it blue as I'm saying it, and then some of it later. And I'm not drawing the stem all the way through all the leaves because it doesn't need to be. Okay. That's good. Maybe come through here. Lines and the eye ray that you can barely see, I do like to do similar colors on similar colors. Now, these, I do this. Sometimes it just seemed random, these shapes here, but then they look like they're coming out of the pot. So I can have stems or I can leave them. But I think bringing in some stems would be a fun way to bring in a bit of color there. Now, I'm just thinking about the color. Don't want them to be. And I could do a yellowy color. Let's do that. I've already got some yellow here. Realm of my smaller brushes. It's been sitting in water. I'm just going to dab it on the paper towel, make sure I've got most of them panned out of it. I don't mind if there's a little bit so that it varies, the color. Lightened that yellow up a bit. And these can just be sort of suggestion of stems. It makes it look like this whole plant is on the one side of the pot, which is fine. If that bothers me, I could add another leaf here. And but I think it's kind of interesting. It makes, it, makes me look at it, go home, What's going on there? A little bit. So these are two something I'm not sure yet. Too bright to plane two. I'm not sure. I think I want to do another coat of the trash green and then maybe something with gold, metallic gold on them. So I'm gonna get, makes a variation of this fresh green color turner and paint over those. And then see what you think of him. Too bright. If you don't have, you know, aqua wash, of course. You can just do another coat of acrylic. You can get the same. You just, you can get the same amount of pigment. You just have to layer more. I'm just kinda painting this second coat down the middle of each leaf so that there's some variety. I like that better. Do the same thing up here with the same color. I don't have to do them all, just get a hint of that color up there. And same thing down here. With these. Just make them pop a little more. There's just something about For me, the layers that are really pigment rich are the bits that are big, that brings them forward. I like the way that looks, at least on some of them. And some of them I can leave with one coat and it'll just kinda recede to the background. Alright, so time to take another look. And I'm still feeling like those stems are too busy up there. So let's take care of that and see what do you think. The way I'm gonna do that is in the paint? Well, I'll show you a couple of ways just so you know how to work with posca pens probably will see if it hasn't dried too much. You can wet paper towel and rub off some of the Posca marker without rubbing off your paint. So that's one idea. We could just go ahead and do that since we're here. And then there's painting over it. But sometimes just rubbing off, faded enough that it doesn't bother me anymore. So we'll do that and see what they think. Now if you've used wash stead of acro goulash, you gotta be careful not to rub up any other parts of paint because that will come up with water. But since all of this is acrylic, I can rub freely either acrylic or aqua brush. Alright, let me see what we think now. It's better, isn't it? It's definitely better. But I still wanted to feed some more. So I'm going to mix up a red and just go over it with the gouache with red. Let's see. I don't want to have a round brush, so let's try this. Number six a little bit. And this is a pretty bright red, but yeah, I think I'm going to need to probably need to darken that a little bit. Trying to think what's direction. I want to darken it. I wonder if I just add, let's see what happens if I just add a bit of weight to it. If I like the color better, it's going to blend in too much with that coral. So let's just add a blue. Let's see if we can get a color we like. That's pretty the thing is, you know, Pete I think is so forgiving, at least in this style because you can keep working something until you like it. I do that all the time. And we're gonna probably be able to see a hint of these stems. Which I think will be interesting because i've, I've got fair amount of water in here because I think it'd be nice to see some of it. Just not as much as the pen left. And knowing me, I'll end up going over it with gold or something else, but we'll see something with less contrast. We might oil pastel over it. You can see how the, somebody who had, it's drying and you can see the stone, the meaning, that's what I've been trying to say. That was the word belief veining. Sometimes when I'm painting and I'm trying to talk, my brain has issues. Alright. So, you know, I was just thinking, do I want to bring that read somewhere else? But I kinda like that. It's just they're definitely my eye goes here. So that's what we always want to think about in a painting, is how do we keep our viewers eyes in the painting? And so this brings the eye into the painting. And then kinda look either here or here and kinda come down here. And there's nothing directing the viewer out. The only thing is maybe this because it spills over and then this, but then they come back around. Another green one here would probably be good. But we'll think about that or maybe some other element there. This is a good place to pause and let this dry and then think about what it needs next. 10. 9. Enhancing Composition: So this has been sitting. And when I look at it, I think that there's just too much, too many bright colors. And it needs, it also is lacking in contrast for me, it needs some darks. So I'm going to tone down some of the colors and darken some bits and put some of these leaves darker. Maybe tone this bright green down a little bit, and then put some darker lines in it and just calm it down a little bit. I like there's so many ways to calm down. We can add more color, we can add some line work in a different color or the same color. We can do a wash to soften like parts of this pink. Just take an hybrid wash and soften parts of it. So let's just play a bit. First thing I want to try doing is darkening some of these leaves. I'm going to take some of the blue, black, indigo, Navy, whatever you wanna call it, and just go over some of those leaves. He was kind of a wash, meaning I'm adding more water. And that just gives us more variety in these leaves anyway, I usually come in with something lighter or darker to have a little bit of variation. I knew immediately that I was going to like that. And they ended up doing pretty much all the leaves. And then you could also come in and add some light or even another color just to create interests. Okay. The other place, I think what I wanna do, this, tone this down, telling this pink down a little bit parts of it. And then we'll see once this dries, if we could do some dark navy blue lines on those leaves, I think that'll help. So I'm gonna get my ivory and make a pretty watered down wash because we can always add more and just soften this a little bit. Not all of it, just some of it should use a flat brush for that. Around is better for the detail work. I'm using RPO gouache, so this'll probably, this can dry and I might decide to do another code if I want it more softened. Okay, Now I'm thinking about what I wanna do to this green. And I think I'm just going to darken it a tad about some sort of I don't know what to call it, sort of has called hash my whole being as yellow. But it isn't good subdue or whether I could have used just a bit of blue as subdued at even the ivory would have to. And I'm not going to cover it completely because I like those pops of color coming through. Remember, you know, painting his problem-solving, you got to create some problems so you can solve them. And it's also pushing things back and bringing them forward. So what we're doing there is pushing back, pushing these colors back a little bit. We brought that forward a little bit. And then we step back and we say, what do we think? Letting that dry? I want this to be more opaque. I really like that color. So I'm going to make a close enough version of it and go over that. A covert painting. I just think that would be fun. I will see, you know, that's what it is. It's experimenting, experimenting and playing. And see if that's going to be, it's a bit darker than I wanted. So for more ivory. I just did that loosely because I don't mind if some of the other stuff pumps through and then I changed the color a little bit just to see what I thought of it. And I just added some yellow to it to warm it up. And I do like that that warmer this warmer color a little better. So I'm just going to go over this a little bit even though it's still wet, which is fine because it'll blend. And I like how there's bits of that other color showing through. It makes it like texture on the vessel. So yeah, they've made that more interesting. Now this is probably dry and we can go through some of this navy or some lines and see what we think of that is really being soft with this number four round. And using that whole name? No, it was the Turner. Black blue. I think that's helping. I feel like this yellow here is to break some thinking about what I want to do there. I had put this halfway lease their ivory, and I could go back in and put some more of those, which is more tricky since I painted on top. But I do it all the time because you never know what you're going to want to change in a composition. And so you can only plan so much. Well, so I'm thinking about do I want to do that or don't want to do something else? You'll just make some kind of circular shapes here to break up the yellow. Maybe they'll end up being leaves. We don't really know yet. See why I always have lots of bottles of pay every round. Just make a shape and it breaks up the yellow and then we can see what we think. Let that dry. And another place that needs to be done something with are these orange things. I think I actually wanted to do the ivory again. I'm just thinking about what Marx might be fun. We don't have to do the veining the way it was in a leaf, but I don't have any really small raining. So we could do that and paint over it if you don't like it. Just kind of a suggestion of painting. I love looking at leaves and seeing if you really study them close up. Oh my gosh. The meaning is incredible. Every leaf is different, every species, some have incredibly detailed meaning. Others have much larger veins, some have very fine veins. All serve to gather spread water, I believe for the vein. They also are involved with late. I think they're there to spread the water, mostly. Me just turn it around and see. I like that. You don't do one more. Since these are more faded, I'm just going to add more water to my My brush so that it's a little less pronounced. Maybe put a few less, something like that. I hit. Okay. Now I'm just kind of having fun with different ideas and marks. I really think, Oh, hello to my inspiration is from growing up in South America. We would go to these markets, farmers Martin, that farmers markets, that's what we call them here. But the craft markets really, I mean, these people were earning a living selling there and still do their wares are handmade bags and purses, and belts and scars, and they always had such vivid colors. Thinking I want to do something with those red leaves. I think what I wanna do is just add a variation of red. Sometimes I like to just change a red slightly. So I'm gonna do that with oil pastel and see what this one looks like. It's the same thing. Let's try this pinkish one. It just gives it some depths. Without changing though. Whole color. Yeah. Like that. Yes. I've had people say are you using oil pastel on top of acrylic? I certainly. Because why not? As long as you have a fixative that hold it together all those oil and going anywhere, It's very oily. That's pretty I'm thinking I might want to do a little bit of these marks of this down here, oil pastels and such a richness to your paintings. I, for me, sometimes it's subtle like this is just a little bit of delicious texture down here. Those little bits to me kinda make, make it just thinking I want to bring out some of the color in some of these with this orangey yellow, especially the ones to the front. Which makes sense to me. And then maybe take, you can tell the colors a little bit as those that are my favorites are the ones that are shorter and appealing. I have linked to these oil pastels and supplies on my website with all my other favorite supplies. They're just a great value. They're not they're not the cheapest, but they're not super expensive either. They are great quality. I've had them over a year, not even close to any of them getting used up. This is softening those slimy things which I felt they needed. I like bright colors, but I don't want to dominate everywhere. So then on these blues and turquoise, what I like to do, my turquoise is probably my shortest one. Let's see, this looks very similar. It shows up a little bit. I like to take light or like, unlike the great variations of one color, turquoise, on top of the turquoise, it doesn't, it just gives an interest without taking it over or changing it too much. And the same thing here up in this blue. We can tone it down and try to see how that looks. That's a light blue. Play with a periwinkle to maybe do some circles. Maybe do like some clusters. These pairing the ball. Beautiful color. What is this called? Late Azur violet. Okay. I feel like it's getting better. I'm thinking about 02:11. Do anything back here. I could use some crayon. Maybe let's see if we do something orange lines. They don't show up too much. But a little bit here, a little bit of interest. Right now, like all this dry and then we'll see if we want to do some metallic gold. When don't we want to do metallic gold? Well, every now and then. The other thing I want to fix this, I don't really care for that shade of green. So it will come through with something, maybe something like this. I guess we'll do it now. What's going to come back and do it, but let's do it now. Or at least Let's do this part and see if we like it better. All right, now we'll let everything dry. 11. 10. Color and Composition: I did some of the things I do when I'm working on a painting and I want to figure out what it is. I don't like about it or what what needs to happen to it. One of the things is just to stand back and give it time. Also. Take a picture of it and then you can kinda see the whole perspective. I've had this in my studio for a couple of days and I walked by it and I know some things that are bothering me and this is personal for everybody. So one thing is that I feel like this yellow back here is just too bright and keeps calling my attention. So I'm gonna go over it with like a mustard color to just turn it down. And then I'd like to brighten up this little pot. I think I'm gonna do that with some fluorescent pink Posca marker dots. We'll see what that looks like. We can always paint over it. And then the other thing is, I like this color back here and with the oil pastel on it. But I want to see what happens if we lighten it up just a little bit less like a wash of ivory, kinda like we did here. So those are the things I'm going to try and then we'll we'll check in afterwards and see what we think at that point. Okay. I'm definitely liking it more. If you like. The yellow is toned down. I achieved my objectives there. I think the red shows up better now that the background is a little bit later. And now I'm thinking about this and do I want anything here or these stems, but it's time to let it dry and come back to it. This is a good point to just talk about a few things in terms of what we've been doing. So we started out with really saturated colors. And then as we added elements, they needed to be toned down. And you know, sometimes I say, well, why do I start, you know, why not start with more toned down saturated colors? I mean, less saturated colors. And you could, and I do sometimes or I'll pick up a saturated color and then one that's not one that's more subdued. But I never know where I'm going to want some of that brightness to pop through. So there's different ways to come at this. There isn't really a right way or wrong way. I don't think it's really playing and seeing what you like to work. So I think we're getting close. It's definitely getting richer and less. When you just have all those saturated colors, it can look amateurish. There's still a little bit of element of that, this royal blue, I want to tone down. And I also want to think about is there a mother color are operating here, a dominant color that I can bring more into things. And I really liked these mustered tone. So I'm thinking that I want to bring that a little bit more into these leaves and then maybe use a wash of it over here on some of those blue to tone it down. The other thoughts I've having R that I want to try a green and a stem and see if I like it better. And I also wanted to point out that the mustard I did on here with this yellow ocher was regular gouache, meaning that there's, of course there's acrylic paint, right? Which once you paint it, it's permanent, you're not removing it. Then there's acral gouache, which is basically gouache with acrylic properties and gouache properties. So it has the permanence of acrylic. But it also has that opaque texture that I like and that I tend to use on at least parts of my paintings. Then there's regular gouache, which has no acrylic. And I think of it like a watercolor, just a highly pigmented, more opaque watercolor. And what I've found sometimes is that this is a great thing to try if you're not sure if something's going to work because that's what I did. Here was in regular gouache, this mustard, yellow ocher. So if I had woken up this morning and looked at the painting and thought, I don't like that at all. If I, if the rest of this was acrylic and Apple Glass, which it is, I could literally take a paper towel right now and wash this off and it would go back to the bright yellow. So it allows you to experiment with some things without it being permanent. Now, you can do that with acrylic or gouache if you wipe it off before it's dry. But if you want it to dry and see what you think, I really like using gouache that way. I do like this. I'm not wiping out, but I just wanted to share that with you. Then. It's all, you know, there's oil pastel on here and it's a lot of stuff on here. So we will spray a fixative at the end and I'll have a video on that. But for now, I'm going to put some of this omega mustard color for here. Maybe up in here, and tone down some of that royal blue so that there's just less of a competition with all these saturated colors. So that's what I'm thinking. All right. 12. 11. Finishing Up: So let's have a chat. You saw me take some of that mustard around. And I really like what it did. It's subdued and reduce the competition between those saturated colors I was talking about. And then I made a turquoise E, minty green and like that here. And then that often happens when I make a color that I'm happy with and I put it here and here. And who knows, I may go somewhere else, but we're definitely getting closer. And this one and I'm feeling like the what I do when I'm looking at a painting and I'm making progress as I say, what's bugging me? What? That's something that just develops over time as you do this more and more. And that's why I'm such a believer in that giving up or throwing paintings away, especially when they go through the ugly stage, which they all do. Or maybe it's not ugly like this one, I wouldn't say went through an ugly stage, but it went through what is this and why is it's so bright and wiser bothering me and it goes through a stage. Let's put it this way where you don't like it. Too many people, I think, take that and throw it out and start over. And so they never get through that tough stuff. That is where all the learning is. And almost every time when I continue to work through a painting in that situation, I end up liking it because I just keep at it until I like it. And you learn so much. So when I look at this one now and I'm saying what's bugging me? This bright pink is bugging me because it please subdued it here, remember, but we didn't hear because I thought I wanted to leave it. But it's drawing my eye down here. In a painting, a successful painting. You want your eye in the painting not out here in the corner. You want to be brought in, this brings you in and you kinda look at this, maybe you come down here. You don't want to I want to subdue that. Then that will make the we can even make them a little brighter, but that'll make this pop more and bring the eye back in here. So that's one thing. Then I also like how this oil pastel looked here, and I want to put a few more of those here and bring that up here. And then we haven't used any metallic gold. So I love to use metallic gold accents. I have these, these are my favorite at the moment. Gold metallic pens. These pilot, I have a link to this on supplies and my website, which is where I have the links to all my favorite supplies. You go to Resources and then their supplies and books. And I have all my favorites there. But yeah, those are the things that I want to work on next. So let's do this first. We're gonna do it the same way with just a bit of this ivory wash. I might throw a little bit of the mustard and just to vary it a little bit. Mustard IQ, probably a mustard, yellow ocher, but it looks mustard. Economy will just come in here and see if we can bring that down a few notches in between here. Neither really water that down. I'm using again. In this case, I just mixed regular gouache. That's the one that's not like acrylic. In other words, it can be reconstitute with water and I mixed it with the acrylic gouache. Not because I'm trying to mix those two, but because those are the two colors that I had. So don't worry about that. As long as you're like I said at the end, making sure you have a fixative. You might find that like, I don't know if you can see here that sometimes the gouache doesn't want to go on the acrylic, especially I noticed if I've touched it because you get your body oils on the surface. But there might be some times where it just acts like oil and water and it doesn't want to go on. You just keep working at and you can layer because you can't get it on the first layer over it wants to take the first layer it will in the second one. The creative process is all about experimenting. And what's the worst that can happen? You paint over something. The other thing that I like about the layers here is that when you use multiple colors to create a color, your multiple layers, you get a lot more textural interests. You get this lovely texture that this yellow ocher over the yellow is giving. And then the texture that this The same thing, the yellow ocher over that blue, you just get more interests that way. We won't know if it's covered enough of it until it dries because we were looking for is that my I no longer comes down here as much to this, to this really bright pink. So we're going to let that dry. We can always do another wash over it if we need to. And then we talked about doing this here. These oil pastels just add such a richness. Yeah, like that. Alright, so now I'm thinking about while that dries can think about gold and do we want any gold? Where do we want it? This painting is already very busy. I wouldn't, I don't. So gold sometimes allows me to just add a bit of interest, but I want to make sure that I'm thinking about, okay, do I need to add the interest because there's not enough going on in a painting? Or do I want to add it just because it's another dimension? And that also just comes with time looking at something and kinda letting my I go around and saying, well, this might be a spot for a little something on this painting since there's already a lot going on, I don't really need to add anything extra in terms of an additional shape. Sometimes I will with gold will see this. I think just maybe is a bit of interests. I'm taking this, this is what I wanna do. Finer work, I use this Pentel. I have the links to these also on my website. I have, basically, I use gold so much that I have three different pens and I have gold paints. I have gold ink, just different ways to use it. So this is a really extra fine. You may not even be able to see it from there, but you can see it gives a little bit of Pinterest. And I think I might do a little line in here to drawing on Canvas can be tricky. So don't worry about trying to be exact with it. This is just a suggestion of some dimension in the stem. And also, when does paintings hanging on a wall and you kinda come around the corner are these little bits of gold will give a glimpse. But I like, I think I'd like to take this one which is the one that's a little bit thicker because there's a new one though. So if you haven't used these, I'll show you how you prime them. When they're new, they're not trying to be as you shake it, shake it up or a piece of paper because I've done this before. You can and then you pump it shaking and pump together into come down for the first time and then once it comes down, it'll be there, but you still want to shake it each time. I think I'd like to put some gold lines here. I do make a conscious effort to do odd numbers, but sometimes it doesn't work. Yeah, I think that's pretty when I'm down to just kinda looking around with my eye, deciding, you know, going like that. I'm deciding if I want to do anything else anywhere else with the gold. I can come through and just do a couple of these. Maybe I'll take this pen. So this is sort of a medium white pen. And then the fine and then the thick. I don't know that I'm going to use the thick on this painting. Usually what I'll use that for is if a painting needs like some actual shapes, like let's say there weren't enough going on in this painting. I've got a bit of water there. And I wanted to add some shapes like this here and gold, but I think there is enough going on in the fading, so I don't feel the need to do that. I am thinking that it'd be nice to put something here. Just a bit more definition. I think we can. This has dried now and it has calm that down. Quite a bit. I see a spot that's brighter, so I'm going to just hit that real quick. Isn't layering great? Because you can just, it allows you to just experiment and take things in one direction or another. You can brighten it up, you can tone it down. You can take it warmer. You can take it cooler. Now that that's more subdued, I want to brighten these a little bit, some of them and see if it's changing how our eye is moving around the painting. And if it's keeping it more on the painting as opposed to in that corner. This pluralist, great pain with the, that minty green is quite yummy. Sometimes just those little pops of a really bright color. Just make a painting. That's why you can't have the whole thing be bright. Because then everything just as monochromatic and it gets lost. We shake it away from your painting. I've learned that one. The hard way. You shake it over your painting you'll often end up with, although there can be a happy accident, you end up with a little touch of something. But it can be an unhappy accident. Alright, so we stand back and yeah, I like it. I was thinking about do I want to take this pink and do anywhere else? But I don't because I like how, you know, you've got the muster here. You've got this leaf bringing you in. The pink is here. This is no longer distracting me because it's muted. And I see this pretty little pot. And I see these bright green leaves against the paint. And then I come over here and see the orange. I got my bits of gold. I do this. I'll see, do I have them pretty evenly distributed? I wouldn't want just some gold appear, although, you know what, you could do that. But for balance, for the rhythm of the painting, I like there to be some gold comes down here. There's some gold here. I could even put a bit, okay, I see one little thing I could do and now I'm just nitpicking, but that's fine. I could just come in here with a little Good of gold. Okay. This is fine. I'm happy with it. And I hope to show you that when we post this picture on Instagram at this painting, now when sees what you went through, the changes you made and the directions you change, they just see the end product and just to encourage you to stick with it and not abandon a painting no matter where it is. And the only time I will say that I've completely abandoned and it's not on Canvas because Canvas you can paint over as I have mucked up a piece of paper so much. Well, I don't mind if it's mocked up because then I've added texture and layers, which even if I just have over that, it's gonna be interesting. But I have times literally the surface of the paper is kinda rubbing, rubbed off and the integrity of the papers is an issue, then I will scrap it and throw it out. Other than that, I am pretty darn for a system and I just think it's really helpful and improving a painting. And now I'm sitting here looking at this, okay, and talking to you and thinking that a few little bits of gold, because gold, the Navy is so pretty, oh my gosh. I cried. I'm going to have to walk away. But now sometimes, yeah, I really like those little bits. Just to touch. Let me show you. Can you see them? All right, now we are done. Lovelace. I hope this was fun and keep it playful. And know that there's no terrible thing that's going to happen. No danger here is just fun and learning and creativity. 13. 12. Varnishing and Wrap Up: Well, I hope you had as much fun taking this class as I head creating it. You know, the colors that we chose, the way that we turn them down, the way we push things back and pull things forward. It varies a lot going on in his painting. But I like all of it. And I think it was a fun project and using our inspiration and just thinking about composition. And now it's in my studio. It makes me happy when I see it. I wanted to talk to you a little bit about fixatives. Now, for varnish, if you're working with something, especially one like this and you're doing some oil pastel. I did not spray this in the process. But you could and you could use if you want it to spray it before you're done. You could do workable, fixative, and then keep what the name says and then you can keep working on it if you want to, just especially if you used well pastel stay put pretty well. But if you use regular pastels, which are really powdery, them, when I do, if I do that, I do use the workable, let it dry and then you can keep working. But when you're all done and you're ready to hang it and decide that it's done. That's when I use the Liquitex matte varnish. There are all kinds of spray varnish is out there. You don't have to use these two, of course. I just like Matt I like a matte finish. And I do have links to those on my website. What you do is you just take your painting outside and foot, maybe some cardboard down or paper? Well, cardboards better because I've had work paper will blow in the wind and kinda blow over it. It doesn't take long to dry. But whatever you got, you protect your surface and then put your pain down when you spray your spraying this way and a fluid motion and not you're kind of going off the painting. So like you would spray like this. I don't stick at the end because they're not end up with a bunch of stuff at each end. Does that make sense? You go off over off and just continue until you're covered. Then you could do two coats. Let it be let it dry in between, and you'll be all set. So I use those for everything. I use the same fixatives, whether it's on paper or canvas, sketch book. And speaking of sketchbook, you may have already taken my sketchbook class, but if you haven't, it's a lot of fun. We do 31 little paintings in that class. And then of course we have the other abstract classes and floral classes anyway. And now a new color mixing class. So I hope that you have been inspired by this. And remember to be gentle and kind with yourself when you create. I think the creative spirit is something that has to be nurtured. And at least in the beginning, we can't be too hard on it or it can run and hide and not come back out. And that's the last thing we want to have happen with your creative spirit. Please join me in my newsletter, which is called the current your creative adventure, where I share inspiration, make announcements, and just all kinds of goodies. I used to do it once a week, but it's down to once a month. But I love having, being able to share on the newsletter as well. Alright, happy creating.