Paint an Abstract Tuscany Scene with Pinterest Photo!

1. Class Intro: Hello, Lovelys. It's Suzanne Allard, soup dot artist here. And today, we're going to take a virtual trip to Tuscany and paint a beautiful Tuscan landscape. It'll be kind of abstract in style, and we're going to use a Pinters photo, which you have to be careful with using reference photos because you don't want to have a copyright issue, but I'm going to show you a way to interpret the photo that changes it so much that you're gonna you don't have to worry about some sort of copyright issue. So we're going to use acrylic paper in this one, and we're going to have bits. I'll show you some techniques to have bits of bright yummins peeking through. We're going to change colors in this one. Not a lot, but certainly some. You know, I have to so that the colors are just more exciting. And the thing with the landscape is I want to paint the way it makes me feel when I look at it. And that doesn't so you have to translate that for me into simplifying it, but also then making sure the values are strong, the lights in the darks, and that the colors speak about my excitement. So that's what we're going to work on on this one. And it's a lot of fun. I think you'll be really happy with what you paint, and I can't wait to see it. 2. About Me : Hey, I just wanted to tell you a little bit more about me if you haven't taken many of my classes. My name is Suzanne Allard, of course, and I'm a self taught artist. I got started painting later in life in my early 50s, and I finally decided to stop being scared of paint. I would create other things, but for some reason, painting felt like, no, no, though, that's for real artist. That's not I'm just a creative person. And I got sick of hearing myself say that and started painting. And I started just, you know, with some basic drawing, like little challenges on Instagram. And I'm not a big drawer. I don't draw much. I'm a sketcher. And just one thing, you know, I don't want to say one thing led to another because I worked hard. I don't want to diminish that. I worked a lot. I painted a lot. I created a lot, just asked my family. I was obsessed. I'm still kind of obsessed. I'm painting the evenings. But I just wanted to share a little bit of that story because I think one of the things that really gets you where you want to go is just frankly not giving up. And, you know, you can get tired and you can have take a break and recharge your batteries, all that, but just don't stop and keep taking classes. And eventually, you know, if you want, you can get to where it's you're selling paintings. Many of my students have gone to sell paintings and show paintings, and that's so exciting for me. I myself, sell my work online and license my work and teach classes online. I haven't done in person retreat yet. That's on my list. I have to think about that one because I get requests for it, but I think that if you are interested in pursuing, whether it's casual painting, just for pleasure, all the way up to an art business, like I have and beyond, you know, just stick to what you like to do, and then do that part and then add on things that you don't know little by little so that you can learn and keep your focus, keep your determination, and you'll be able to get there. Let's get started on this painting. 3. Acrylic Gouache Paint Palette: Alright, let's talk about this acro guash palette and how I put it together. These are little containers that come with these little rubbery tops, and it's been, I want to say three or four weeks that I've had these in here. And I have replenished them a little bit. You can see I'm a double dipper. I keep them sprits with either a little spray bottle or this one's really misty. And I only do that, maybe once when I start and then if I'm say painting an hour, then I hit them again before I put them away. But all I did is I took some colors, two, I took two yellows, a cool and a warm, and then some red. So I've got, true red, this is a cad red, a magenta, and this is opera pink, which is, you know, my favorite fluorescent type color. And then an orange, a lime green. This is a Prussian blue. It's just a dark blue, altamarin turquoise. And these are mostly Turner brand that are in here, if not all, this is an ivory, of course, white. This is just a peachy. I had a tube of it, so I emptied the entire tube into there. I think it's called Juan. This is yellow ochre. This is a pale lilac. It's not this one. This is a brand new one. It's a little darker, yeah. So I just basically took what I had, but I made sure the essentials are you don't even need both these containers. The reason I spilled over, I really only needed from here, about five wells. I really only needed the white. I like the ivory, the yellow ochre, and the burnt sienna. I threw the rest of these in because I have the space. I figured if I was going to fill that many, I'd fill the rest of it, but you don't need greens because you can make greens. Lime green is challenging to make, so I like that one. But the only essential colors you really need are a warm and cool yellow, a warm and cool blue. Warm and cool red. And then in my view, turquoise is it's easier to have it than make it, and then opera pink you can't make. And, of course, you need white. So then but I have a fair amount in each of these. So like, let's see if one needs replenishing. The white usually always does. Ultramarine blue is getting a little low. So let's go ahead and grab some of that and put that in there, and I'll show you how I mix a little bit of this blending medium. Alright, so here's some whole vein ultramarine blue. And I just squeezed them in here. But you want a fair amount of paint in there because that's partly what keeps them from drying out is the amount of paint. So don't be I probably should just empty that completely into there. But don't be too sparing with the paint. And then this is Windsor Newton blending medium. It is for watercolor mediums. But even though this is acrolGloh, it's been working. You could also use just acrylic retarder, which I'm also putting, which is what I use in my acrylic paints. So and I just put a couple drops in and stir it up. That's it. Um, I like to get stirs at coffee shops. Those are really great to stir with. And the blending medium just makes the acrogse flow a little bit easier, I find. Aqugage can get really dry and chalky. So this lets it blend easier. It slows drying to allow blending. Let's see. Any more that need to be filled? Not really at this time. And then the only trick when you close them is you just want to make sure that you don't just set it on top. It's sometimes a little tricky to get the little bits going around each well so that you've got a good seal. Yeah, so you can kind of hear it snapping in. Alright. And this one and then I just put them in a zip lock bag, and I don't even do this all the time. But let's say I know I'm not gonna use them again till tomorrow. I just figure it gives me an extra level of security from them drying out because this is acro guash. If it dries, it's dry. You're not reconstituting it with water. It's not like my guash, regular guash, which has no acrylic in it. See how it can be trike sometimes. Okay. And then I'll put it in a ziplock bag and throw in some wet paper towel or even a wet cloth, not wet, damp. And yeah, and if I'm gone for even longer, I'll stick them in the fridge. So that's how I've been using the acro wash. I'll put all the links to this and this in the supply list. Enjoy. 4. Tuscany Supplies and Beginning : Alright. For this painting, I wanted to show you how, even though I usually will often use my own photos as reference, the way that I show you how to create these, you can use Pinterest or other sources because you're changing it so much as an example that I mean, if you have an ability to ask for permission to use the photo, of course, do. And I actually did post below this and Pinterest. Can I use this photo? But the person never replied. And and again, we're changing it so much. It's not as if we are copying this and then selling it. So as long as you're changing it significantly, you know, it should be fine. So anyway, we're going to use this photo as inspiration. Then the other cool thing about this painting is we're going to use something different to sketch with, something that you probably have at home. So let's talk just briefly about the supplies. I've got a piece of nine by 12 acrylic paper. This one, the previous painting I did on watercolor paper, so either one works. I've got my paints here and my little let me get that out of the way. And my little airtight paint palettes that I'll have my latest toy. I change I always change and try to find things that work well. But I'm really liking these they're just so portable and easy, and I've had them in here for now a couple of weeks. I just keep them misted. We'll do that now when I'm not using or, you know, when they're sitting out here like this. And then, of course, I keep them sealed with these cool little covers. Color wise, I will put the colors in the supply list, but there's nothing magical too magical about these colors. I would say just make sure you've got two yellows, a cool, and a warm one, and then a couple of red magenta, and then opera pink, I do think is essential, and I also think turquoise is you can make turquoise. You can't make opera pink. It's basically like a fluorescent. And then I've got a dark blue, a cooler blue. And then it's a couple of cool blues, actually. I've got the Prussian blue and the Ulti Marine blue. You don't really need a green. You can make your greens. And then I just had another one of these, so I put some other stuff in it. I like to use ivory a lot. And then these are really colors to tone things down. This burnt umber, asiena Euler ochre. And then I had tubes of this, so I just threw it in there. This is just a dark green, and this is like a aridian green. This is a purple. And a violet. These are really not that necessary. You just need one of these, at least to tone things down. You can make your own greens. So basically, I took what I had, made sure I had the essentials first, which I would say are here, the yellows, the reds, the blues. And then these were kind of nice to have. And then I've got my palette paper here, which I like to use. As a palette, it's just the most convenient thing. And then we're going to use a highlighter. That's my secret weapon on this to sketch this out because I love having bits of pink show through. You can kind of see that it showed through here, here, here. You don't know where it's going to most of it gets covered up, but I just love when bits show through. And you can always try to let more of it show. And then brushes wise, I've been working on going with bigger brushes, but we will probably start with the size eight and then maybe go to a flat, a bit smaller. We'll see. Alright, so first things first, start to sketch this out. And when I'm sketching, I am really just catching the big shapes, like I talk about in the landscape kind of composition, foundational skills. So I'm going to I do try to stay away from the horizon being exactly in the middle, which it actually is on this photo, so we're going to just bring it up a little bit and kind of get this Try to hold your whatever you're sketching with lightly like this, you know, we're not drawing in that way. This kind of flattens out up here, which I actually ended up liking. And then we've got little I'm just gonna capture some of these little bits of trees and shrubbery. Here we have a good sized one. I really sticks up. Well, I may have made that too high. Let's bring it down a little bit. So look at that and then there's a bunch of This is where we got a bunch of shapes. It's probably easiest for you if you've printed this out. But if you haven't watched the foundational videos, I would encourage you to do that to help you with seeing the shapes. And also, when I painted it this time, I took out this road. I don't know if you can see this road. But maybe maybe we'll put it in. Who knows? We'll sketch it, and it may turn into something else. I ended up kind of just doing something else with. Alright, so here this is where I love with landscapes, and I invent them if there's not plenty of them, but I love all of the different sections that there are. So definitely going to capture those. Here's a bunch more trees, shapes. This one's another tall one. Maybe not quite that tall, but you get the idea, more shapes. You see how this sketches? Isn't that? Okay, then this kind of comes down like maybe here, maybe a little bit more like this. And we have a lot of trees and kind of coming like this and then like this and really well over into the halfway mark here. More there, more there. And then I make shapes out of these see these areas that are in the sun. So that's a shape, sunny there. Then if you come down here, there's sunny area there. Um, this is kind of sunny here. There's another big shape there. My drawing is beautiful, isn't it? Look at that. Um, that's how I work. And then I come in. Now, if you end up like this and you're like, Okay, I don't even remember the lines that I wanted to make or that I'm, you know, I move things up and I move things down, you can always come back through with a brush and grab, say, your pink or whatever other color you want to kind of peek through places and come through and go a little bit darker because we came up here. We moved it down, flatten that out. And these are all ways to just kind of make sense of your composition and your sketch. When it comes up like that. I don't even need that. That's just these are trees, but that's just kind of where it is behind there. And then we moved this. Anything else? It's not clear. I can come up here. We move that up. Yeah, so you can do it like that. And then once you've got your brush, you can start capturing your dark areas, which also helpful. And I like to decide, Okay, what am I gonna make my darks? You know, am I gonna go kind of with a Nabi ish or a burgundy, and I mix it up. So let's do kind of a navi ish. And this is just literally to kind of mark where they are. It's not throwing a little purple in there. That's too purple. You can knock purple back with sienna or this is just kind of mark where they are. And I like to vary them, too. So, let's say I just did those darks. These are trees coming along here. Let's, you know, throw in a little blue. Maybe back here, they're even a bit darker and throw in a bit green still in the dark family. For these things, that just pops over. Walking in is what this is called. But it helps you organize where your darks are. And I like this stage to be watery because I want here I'll put some of the shrubs in here. Some of that might end up peeking through, and sometimes it can be really pretty. So let's that was too green, too green. There's some kind of cooler greens here in the front of these shrubs. Just kind of it's almost like marking a territory, you know, claiming, Okay, this is dark territory. This is light territory. I grabbed a little light there because I saw some sun coming in, and I thought that could remind me. There's a variety here. It's not too dark over here. Here is a darkish tree. Grab a little more navy. So I keep varying these darks. And the shape, by the way, I'm not really thinking that it's gonna be a tree, but, like, I know, I might call it out like that one, then I might make it more of a tree shape. This is a bit lighter. Still dark, though. Maybe bring some of that purple back in. It's behind these. There's one here. They're all kind of sitting on this hill. It's dark, though. The bottom of that hill is dark. It's where the base of the trees is. That's definitely dark. This is our darkest area here. Then I would say this is the second darkest. To purply. Well, that purple is really strong. He's kind of come behind here. And then this gets lighter up in here. It's still a dark, though. So we're gonna put it in. Maybe just lighten it a little bit, with some yellow ochre. And this is what I like to do to challenge myself and to make things look a little differently is I don't You know, you could say, Well, all this stuff is green. Why are you using all these other colors? Well, I'm in shadow. I mean, I'm in darks, but it's not really green if you really look at it. So I'm varying these darks. To make it more interesting. This one out here is quite light. And I'm going to make it so that I can cut in, which I love doing, as you know, I hit it so I can see the sun's coming in there. I really am This is the way I work, so I am doing my dark right now, but when I'm there, my eye is there, I'm thinking, Oh, I might as well just throw that in. Okay. So I've got the major darks. There's another kind of dark shrubbery stuff over here. And then we've got some lighter darks, bits that are up here. A little bit more over here. We don't have to put everything in, of course. This is up to you. But I do love the way these little bits look once we cut them in. So I tend to I tend to put more of them in or at least not take many out. So this tree comes up larger. I'm gonna come up here with this. Okay. I might as well shift to some medium tones now over here where the sun is shining is let me put some yellow in there. Yes, I'm mixing right on the paper here. Grab some of this because this is pretty light, and it's a tree of some kind. And there's some sun heating it. So I don't mind. I don't want too much brightness over here at the edge, but that's a good there's a little bit of that, and I can tone it down. I need some more water to get this flowing here. We'll come in and cut in with that later. It is dark down here, though. Okay. So I'm just looking through and saying I want, you know, to identify my shapes. So now I'm going to come in with where those remember those sun bits that we were talking about, and one of them was back here, and I could choose this color, really any light color. I'm just going to go with this because it is in the photo and it is a light color, and it'll at least then I know that's where it is. I know I've got a light spot here. Then there's some shadow Oops, too much. Down here, a midtone shadow. I know it looks like a lot of brown right now because it is. I want lighten that up a little bit. My shadow. Okay. Alright, back to I'm wiping on a paper towel there. This was another light bit. Quite a bit lighter. I've still got some purple in my brush. I don't mind that. It makes some interesting blends there. I can already tell that's the part I'm gonna end up leaving 'cause I like it. And then let's go up here and get this really bright top of a hill. So now I'm actually starting to put some things in that might might survive the rest of the painting. You just never know. I'm gonna grab some more of that. I like that I've already that I've got this bit in my brush of purple and other things. I'm grabbing this lemon yellow, grab a little bit of this peach, too. And Oh, no, that's the dark part. Okay, up here is the light part. We'll darken that next one down. Let's do that now so we don't forget. This is darker here. It's in shadow. Okay. Right now, I'm just trying to catch those lights. I see another bit of light over here. It kind of comes through here. And then this is light as well. And I love making some of my lights with pink. So we're going to do that here. There's also some light here. I guess I'm gonna get rid of the road on this version, too. It's looking that way. Okay. Now, this is kind of lightish, too, quite light down here. So for now, I'm just gonna grab some of this and water it down. This greenish yellow. It's blending really nicely with the colors that were in my brush, so I'm getting, like, a nice kind of tone down version of it. And we'll just this next piece will just darken the tiniest bit. Oh, not that much. Let's see what's in my brush. Yeah, there we go. Then above it, we'll pick out maybe some oranges in here. I grabbed a lot of water there blot my I was a little bit peeking through there and there. I don't remember why I made a line there. We'll just keep it was a little bit darker there, but not much. Basically, I'm covering up the white. Same with this there's a mid tone there, kind of shadow, shadowy there. Well, I have this kind of shadow color. Let's put it here where this big shadow is. Basically, it's just a watered down mix of what I had on my palette. Got some more shadow up here. Shadow area here. And this is an area that is kind of let's see here. Yeah, this is in front. Okay. This is that bright green area, so I'm just going to so that I remember it come in here like this. Kind of comes in front of these some of these trees. Almost got everything, you know, kind of blocked in. Let's see. I'll just put a bit more of that peachy color there. This comes up here like this. And for the hills. So instead of in the picture, you know, it's just kind of all this atmospheric I created in my painting here, I created some kind of gradual mountains, but I think I might want to change them a little bit instead of having to go up up up. I think maybe something like this. I'm just sketching what's on my brush right now. And 'cause we forgot to sketch those in with the pink. And then if you're not sure I've looked at so many mountains now that I that I, um I don't know, kind of they're kind of in my head. So if you're not sure, you could grab a reference of just Google mountains. But I'm thinking that I do something different where it's high on this side. Let's compare it to where on this one, I made it high on the right side. And so the mountain would come kind of like, you know, this, maybe, and, you know, maybe just that. Also, when I'm doing mountains, I don't make them the same height. That's, you know, they should be different on both sides of your paper, and, you know, make them kind of natural. So I'm not gonna block those in. I just wanted to outline them because I'll want to come in and, um, do that negative space painting here on some of these bits, which reminds me I want a few more bits back here. These are gonna be trees and shrubs. They're kind of in the light, so I'm just trying to make them a little bit peachy, yellowy. There's not many there, but you can have as many as you want, of course. Alright, I think I have all the pieces I wanted in the places, for the most part. Got some green coming here. The thing is what you have to remember is you know, we don't get too attached to the reference photo. We're using it as a guide and just really as a source of ideas. And then from there, nobody who sees this is going to be looking at your reference photo and saying, Oh, yeah, you didn't get this right. Now, the thing has to make sense value wise and be interesting in terms of, you know, things being saturated and brighter toward the front, things being faded at the back, you know, things like that. But other than that, if you got the values going well, you can pick out the colors you want, and, you know, you'll see just kind of develop it how you want. And then at some point, you'll use that photo less and less, and that's good. Alright, that's a good start. 5. Tuscany Next Layer: Okay, so I let this dry a bit, and, you know, I think of this at this point as kind of a blocked in sketch. And sometimes it's fun to take your whatever color you used if you're doing what I'm doing and you like the hot pink, you know, take your it could be a pastel I have here somewhere. How did you go? I had a hot pink pasta. Oh, here it is. Oil pastele, but we could just take the highlighter. And just in case some of these don't get covered up, actually, that's too it's not bright enough. I can put little bits of this here and there, they will probably still get covered up. But some of them might peek through, and it's just kind of a nice little something. You could use the paint, as well, you know, opera pink paint. Sometimes I just like the texture of something else. And I wouldn't use it so much too much on the edge because it is going to draw people's attention in, so maybe concentrated around whatever you see as your focal point, which I'm not sure yet, probably this area for this one. Alright. So now I'm going to come through with another layer, and I realized I switched brushes last time. I said I was going to start with this big one, which I intended to, but then somehow I grabbed this one, which is number six. That's probably what we're going to use for most of the painting. And now I'm going to come through and just come in with some more layers or another layer on some of this. Some of this I might leave. Like, I really like the way this turned out here and it's kind of bleeding into that. So take a look at what you've got at this point. Like I said, I like the texture and the brush strokes. You can see there, maybe even there. But I'm going to start applying paint more thickly now. And I'm going to come through first again on my trees so that I can do my cutting in. And I don't need to do all of them. I'm not going to touch these because we can cut in fine on those the way they are. But I am going to come through here and put, you know, some lighter bits because you can see, again, using the photo just as a reference, there's a little bit of light coming in and hitting on the edge of the basically, the sun is coming this way, so everything in there is being hit on this side. So I'll be thinking about that as I put some of these colors in. Alright. And I actually like the way that looks, and when we cut into it, it'll be pretty it'll be pretty cool. That's kind of interesting. I'm thinking about color. Do I want to put I like this sort of turquoise here. Maybe I'll come in here with a little bit lighter, and we'll just kind of see how things go. Okay. So this idians good for that sort of thing. I got to tone it down, though, a little bit with maybe some yellow ochre. It's kind of. So like, these have sort of I'm gonna just do one stroke, a highlight. And I want to I don't like I kind of have this feeling that this is gonna sound extreme, but not that no brushstrokes should have the same color, but I like to keep changing the color, even if it's just a teeny bit of something. Just kind of suggesting those highlights gets a little more yellow in here. A little more. I am looking at the photo just to see where those lights are hitting a little more yellow up in here. Well, there, they're kind of more on the top of the tree of the angle of the sun. I mean, the top of these shrubs and a bit on the side. And I'll go with the violet to get the highlight on these. I really like this violet color. I'm looking for where else I can show kind of a highlight. Maybe right in there. So I haven't washed my brush. Let's look for kind of a So sometimes when I'm like I say, so this is already kind of a burgundy color here. So when I think, Okay, what's the light version of burgundy, it's it's sort of a pink. So then I grab that lighter color and do some of my highlights in that. Same thing here. There's a tree there with a highlight down here, maybe That needs to be darker, though. Value wise. These trees are much darker than this. So darken that up a little bit. Bring some of that. Can put a little bit of that purple up here. And we haven't worked here much. So I think I'm gonna stay more blue here. And the highlights here are kind of in different places are here. This shape, it's up here, and then There's kind of I'm gonna use some of that turquoise coming down in here on this side. Could be reflective light. Then these just kind of fade away into that background color. So I'm going to kind of make them do that. Not everything can be the star. Okay. This is going to be done, let's go orange with that because there's one next to it that's in the light and is more orange. So I just I'm gonna clean some of my brush out because if you grab orange with blues and greens in your brush, it's gonna really knock it back. I do want to knock it back. So, but so I left some in there. There we go. Oh, too much water on my brush. Let's try that off. I do want this layer to be thicker, but that's okay. We'll come back through. We'll work on something else. Well, let's come down here to this yellow. I'm gonna head to the orange and knock it back a little bit. This is there's a lot of sun hitting this one. So I'm just showing that here's some chunks of the tree. We can come in. There's some tree trunks there. We'll come in afterwards and do that. And this gets a little darker down here because this is a shrub in front.Tarken that just a tad. We can kind suggest a trunk grabbed a little bit of pink. That's one way also to get the viewer's eye around is some sort of line work, like this. Like we'll do here and here. I was a little toothick there, and then just come back through like that. And this is where I'm always trying to be careful not to cover all of my underpainting, a really cool things happen in those underpaintings, maybe because they're just so quick, but you get these, you know, beautiful bits, and so I'm trying to intentionally not cover all that. I really like how that's looking. Um, let's come back here and do something with this. It's not a I should be knocked back somewhat 'cause it's not a really important part of the composition. So just gonna tone it down a little bit. It's just some shrubs. Leave some of that purple showing, but this could use a little more variety in it. I'll leave those darks there, but maybe more suggestre type looking stuff. I did like that blue, though. I'll put a little more of that back in. Especially in the this whole thing. This one is in shadow. You can cut in a shrub below a tree below there. Here, I like how it just There's not I don't need a lot of definition here. Maybe just a tiny bit of that purple to being a little more give it just a little more form and cut into these below it. You're kind of thinking backwards with the cutting in and you get used to it, but I still catch myself going, oops, I painted the back first, but if you want to do the cutting in, then you paint the top first and then come back through. Okay. That thing is needs to be just a little bit warmer. Oh, grab some. When your breath gets too muddy, you just rinse it out. Um, but maybe don't clean it all the way. Maybe something like that. So you have a little bit of something interesting in there. I'm gonna just hit that maybe with a bit of orange orangy green. And maybe some green through it. Okay, now let's come back to this one. I'm gonna leave some of that orange and get some more orange. Taking mixing the green with the orange. Bringing it up here, which is where we'll figure out what parts we want to cut in. And then it gets real dark at the bottom. All these do. Over here to the end is just kind of like a we're just gonna make some sort of neutral shapes there and not draw attention to over there. Bringing the viewer's eye in. Alright, I'm just looking around, seeing what I think of this layer. I think it'd be nice to put some there's a really pretty green here, that bit right there right here that I think would be nice to call attention, and that's like a turquoise mixed with an orange, orange yellow, and just put a bit of it there. One and done. And a darker version of it maybe down here. Quite a bit darker, though. Kind of in front of these trees, there's a shadow. And I just I look at a color like that color that's in the photo, and then I just sort of exaggerate it from there. And I think that could work maybe a little more for this shadow here. This is too light, so I'm gonna add some water there. Start a little bit of cutting in there. The bits of pink there are not in the photo, but I love them, so I'm gonna leave them. Okay, and then I'm gonna go a little warmer and make a color to cut in around this shrub. I won't make a lot of detail. But because it's not a focal point, but I'll just give it some shape. I can just bury that shadow a little bit over here. Everything has variation in it. Okay. I'm gonna soften that edge. Sometimes I just use my finger that shadow edge doesn't need to be so harsh. Alright. It's taking shape. 6. Tuscany Building Layers: Let's work on this area here. I think this is a good place for some very light pink. But I want it to be a warm pink, so I'm going to lighten my pink with the ivory, which kind of gives me a peach and come across here with just a couple of strokes, trying not to overwork. I need more paint, though. And then I can kind of cut in here, make some interesting shapes here. You need a good amount of paint to cut in it and it can't be too water down a little bit of water, but it needs to be able to move. And to me, where the cutting in is just where it all comes to life. Just change that paint a tiny bit, warm it up a little bit over here. Keep cutting in on this tree. Sometimes I look at the reference to get ideas for cutting in, especially in the beginning. But then you get where you kind of know. But still, to keep it fresh. Cut in down here. I'm intentionally not covering all of our bits of pink. Yeah, I really like how that came out. And take this color that I've made just to make a little more squiggly there. It was a little too much of a line. And I've got this color. So where else might it be nice? I think, right there. That bit that's back there, maybe a little more yellow in it and come back in here and do some of this cutting in. And I vary my cutting in detail by, you know, how much of it do I want to be a focal point versus not. So I do think about that. Like, over here is not a super um focal pointy area. In fact, I want to darken that it's gonna draw too much attention to it. So I will cut into these but less. Okay. Bring this over in here. This green up here is bothering me. It's a little We blocked it in, so I knew it wouldn't stay, but it's a little too Kelly green and a little too dark. So I'm going to come in with it's in the shadow in the picture, so it can't be too light, but it's I think it's too warm maybe. We'll see if I can make color better. Okay. I'm trying to squeeze all the so you can see everything. Okay, we can cut in just a little bit on these guys back here. Not too much detail. Trying to get more paint on my brush. Okay, and maybe just dry my brush a little so I can scumble here and soften that. Got that color. There's a little bit of lightness down here. I want to soften some of this. I do want to put something on this green, maybe I'll take it in the direction of some turquoise. And we need to go right up against that dark because it's dark at the base of those trees. Okay. One brush stroke. I did have to lose the pink there, but I think I needed to for what was happening there. We'll leave it there, though, and there's still bits of it there. All right. I think I'm going to come into this pink area here with some ivory and just darken that up. Cutting into that area. And then, you know, sometimes when you've got the pink, just if something looks a little too monochrome, give it a little highlight. You might cover some of them up, but you might leave some too. Okay, so that's that. I think I want to take this in more of a green direction. Let's make some green. I actually don't like the green that I have in this palette. I think that's called permanent green when it runs out I use every single time I use it, I have to tone it down a lot. It's just too kind of classic green. I'm getting right, I'm getting a nice warm green. Let's see, no, I want it lighter. Much later. Maybe more peachy. One stroke. I don't mind if some of that. Um, Peach shows through 'cause I like it. I just want to have a little more something, something going on. Alright, here, I'm going to cut into this guy. I'm gonna keep that pink there, but get rid of the white that's next to it, okay? And I have this color, and I'm going to bring There's a little bit of a grassy kind of ridge around here. It's getting interesting. I'm liking it. You know, you got to get through that, talk about the ugly stage so many times in my classes, but every painting has an ugly stage. And I want to make sure I have the darks here that I need 'cause it's it's dark down there. Blues and ice dark, purples, browns. And I'm not trying to you can probably tell if you're looking at the reference. I'm not trying to imitate every shrub exactly, obviously. I'm just suggesting that there's shrubery and trees down here, different sizes, different textures, different kinds. And I think I want to I know this was supposed to be a shadow, but I think I'm just gonna turn it into shrubbery. I think it just makes it more interesting, and there's need little variety in this a little too purple. Alright, let's pause and then do the sky and then see where we are. 7. Tuscany Creating Depth & Interest : We're going to do the mountains next because then we can cut in into them on the sky. But remember, they're far away, so we're not going to do a lot of detail on them or on the cutting in on them. So we're gonna pick pushback colors, which means unsaturated and cool is where you want to start with anything in the background. And I do think about, though, the painting. Like what do I want that kind of goes with this? I think a violet color, slightly violet, which is always nice for mountains could go on this one, and warm that up a little bit. Basically, it's gonna be sort of a gray. Let's see what that's. Might be too bright. You don't want your mountains to or I don't want my mountains to my background to be so exciting that it jumps forward. Might be too light colored, too, 'cause we have to remember Oops. No, I don't want to go that direction. Sometimes it's challenging to talk and paint. Let's go back to some violet. Maybe it'll rain. We do have a sky to put in. So we don't want to make the mountains so light. I've run into this before this challenge where the mountains are so light that they blend too much with the sky. So I'm just putting down my brush, leaving I got to get more paint, so I don't overwork it. Here's where I need a lot of paint to cut in on that tree. So when I'm cutting in, I do make sure I've got a good amount of paint, and I've added just a little bit of water so I can really work with the paint, and then I use that end of my brush. I also want to make sure that the color of using is a color that contrasts well with what I'm cutting in so that it shows. Remember those were just little bits. I'm trying to add a little white or a little something different to almost each brushstroke. At these little bitty trees I'm not gonna do. Remember we talked about much detail at all on the cutting in they're way back there. And you wouldn't see that. That helps you be able to convey perspective. If I were to really detail each one of those, it would probably be confusing. Whoops. I just painted on the heads of the painting. I'm gonna leave that little bit from undernees like that. And I've painted mountains before and thought, No, that's not the right color, and I've painted over it. So I want something different on this mountain because, you know, I don't want them to be the same. So I'm gonna try adding a bit of turquoise, see what you think of that. I I have to get rid of more of the purples taking it down to just a blue. See if I can get a pale turquoise that doesn't look too um, forward because Turquoise is kind of warm and we want cooler colors. So this might be, you know, it's too warm. We're gonna end up with a blue with a bit of turquoise in it. I remember that thing about how they dry darker. So I keep adding white, 'cause I know about that. Alright, let me get myself some good cutting. I'm standing now because I'm just finding it easier to paint, but I want to get so that I can look down on this with enough distance. A cutting here. And I want to leave some of that pink bag there. These literally do not have to be any any descriptive shape back there. Just you can kind of look at the pictures, but don't sit there and try to make this one looks like a triangle, and that one doesn't do it quick, like I just did. That's how it becomes your own, too. Cutting in is like your signature. I don't want this to be too. There you go. Too much too linear. And don't add more white. Cutting in. I either hold it like this or like this when I'm cutting in because I'm using the edge of the brush. And I don't know if you can see, let me show you. Sometimes the brush gets just too much paint way down or way up, so then I'll scrape it and get the paint and get the color back into the tip. But you can see that it scrapes some of my green that I have in the brush from earlier, so I'll just grab a little more white. I'm trying not to make this look too much like a Christmas tree. I want a more kind of organic shape uneven. So we have to change the cut in color here, 'cause that's sky. It's also a nice idea. It's not too pronounced here, but to just grab a bit of your other colors and put them somewhere so that you like this violet, just somewhere that's a good highlight. So it's not only, you know, in a mountain, I'll look strange if there's this one block of that color, and it's not anywhere else. So I'm bringing some of that purple from that color from that mountain down in here and also from that mountain you know, maybe right in here. I didn't I wanted I covered it up too much, so I'm gonna take some of that away. Might have to come back with that's turquoise. Let's let it dry. Alright, let's stew the sky. I like different, you know, in this in this one, I did, like, a pink sky. Um Let me think if I want that here. I think a warm sky would be nice because this warmth that's coming in here and here, in fact, I want some more warmth right here. Right there. A little scumbling. Maybe some along here. Hitting some of those highlight areas with the lemon yellow or the gold and, you know, regular yellow to help the eye kind of know where I want it to go. I like that bit up there, too. Oh so I want a little more light on this tree. Probably too light. Sometimes, after the cutting in, I do this, and sometimes I don't. It just depends. I think that was too much. So let's grab the water on a clean brush and just remove it. Maybe blot it and see if that's better. Get some kind of interesting effects coming over it with water like that. Alright. Sky is next. No, that's when you do the sky, you do want a cleaner brush than I usually use. Whoops. Um, but I want a warm sky. So I'm going to take a lot of yellow, I mean, a lot of white. That's a little maybe two. And then I like to just take a color and then sometimes mix it right on the paper. If you're not comfortable with that, don't worry about it, 'cause you can always go over it. But I sometimes get a nice effect that way. Let me go back to some white. The skies are always lighter where they hit the land. I'm sure there's a scientific reason for that that I don't know. And I like just the big brushstrokes with Sky trying not to overwork. I'm getting lots of paint 'cause I have to cut in. And I want those juicy brush strokes on the sky. Got to get my paint to the edge. You could also take, like, a palette knife or credit card, but let me show you. When the paint gets way too up in the bristles, you can push it out and then get some on your tip. I've got my left hand going, which is definitely a way to make something less precise. I like that bit of pink that's coming through there. Well, I I take it. I'm gonna show you something I just did that I've done before. That I'll have to fix. Maybe you already figured it out, which is, I took my cut in color down below where the mountain would be. So hopefully some of that color is still dry and I can just pop that back in. This part was fine, but that part went right into where the mountain would be. Something probably no one would ever notice. Again, I'm gonna try to find someplace to put a little bit of that sky color. Somehow I got in water. Too watery. So that there's a little bit of that here and there. That'll end up fading. Okay, let's go in and just put this smaller brush, grab some of this before it dries. I pop in here. It might be too wet, but we can always Oh, that did it. Okay. We are very close to the end. This is why I walk away and give it some time and then come back and see look over some things and decide what to do next, if anything. 8. Tuscany Final Details: Alright, so this dried overnight and it gives me a chance to look at it and see what kind of I'm liking and what I might want to play with. One thing is I don't really like straight lines in something like this, and this feels too straight to me. So I want to just it'll be easy to fix. I could even do it with an oil pastel or No Color two crayon. Um, or paint, just kind of get that changed. This this mountain is feeling too bright colored to me to it's just a little too bright. And then this one, I feel like is I don't know, something's bothering me about maybe the height of it, but it's not too bad. I might leave it. We'll see. And then I think I want to just do a little bit more bit of shaping here and then maybe suggest some tree trunks here and here just for some detail. So flip this around, and let's start with the darkening this mountain back here. So I want the same shade, so I'm going to just work on getting, you know, something similar, but I just want it not quite so bright. You know, I know we did a little turquoise. Remembering that it's gonna be darker when it dries. Maybe this would tad more turquoise. See how that feels. It's gonna be a lot darker because it's gonna drive and darker. I'm gonna add more white. I think that's probably more where I wanted to be a little more white. Of course, it doesn't need to be all the same shade and I like having some variation. So I'll probably leave that darker bit. Grab my a smaller brush just to get in some of those details. This is also a flat brush. Trying to be unfussy in this. I think I said earlier that I often redo the mountain or sky once I kind of see how it's looking. We also have a little more variation now, which I like. Put some bits of dark in there. Because even when they're far away, you do see unless they're super far away, you do see variation. Okay. That feels better. Take that darker shade against here. All right. Really like how this scumbling turned out here. That's one thing I do like about this acrylic paper is it's got this sort of linen, really like a canvas, but more like to me, linen texture to it. And sometimes that can show through nicely. And Sometimes I'll take my hand and see, like, would I like this better if it was not quite so high? I think I would. So what we do there is just get some sky coolor going. This is where you get really good at, um, practicing making colors because, you know, I do need to clean my brush to make that sky coolor. And you get variety in the sky, too. Got a lot of blue in there. Still blue. Alright, let's see if we got enough of it out. Grab some light. Course, you can see my colors or not. Super clean. And it's okay if we have some variation in the sky, of course. It's too dark. We should have variation in the sky, so I'm just gonna try bringing this down a little and making it a little less lumpy to suggest that it's further away. Alright. So that brought in some of the whoops, bit darker bits. And added some variety. Maybe I'll put some bit of that here. Alright. Now, down to some of these tree thingies. I'm going to clean out this brush. And if it's nice and clean and flat and you haven't damaged it too much, you can get the lines that you want with a big brush like this. But you can just like I did, rinse it, and then take a towel and flatten it. So you have a nice edge. And this is where I like to pick up some color, like, that's maybe a bit unusual. Probably more in my focal point. So I'm just gonna grab some pink here, darken it a bit. Kind of like I did down here, but maybe this one will have a bit more yellow in it. It's pretty color. And just suggest that out of here is some trunk type stuff branches. And, you know, if you look at a tree, they're not you don't see one solid trunk. You see hints of it coming through. And down here, let's go a bit more orange. Okay. It's just still pink, it's going on orange. So I'm just kind of touching it down and just look at a real tree, and you'll see you just see bits of the branches showing through. And, you know, they're not in any kind of uniform way. Um Yeah, I like that. I like how this one turned out. Thinking about this one, what color do I want? Some light is gonna be hitting that, so we'll go a little bit lighter. And then if you make some that you say, Oh, I don't like that or it's too much, you just come back through it with some more leaf sections. I want to bring this color down here a little bit. Maybe more here a little bit more pronounced. I wanted to bring a little more life to this tree here. Not so much that I turned it into a focal point, but just a little sums, okay? I like that. And I may want to tone down. I'm kind of looking around going, What what changes do I want to make, if any? You know, what's what feels not right to me or not the way I want. A little bit too much of the blue. I love the blue, but I just don't want it to dominate here. I want it to pop more. Um, I'd like to do some more work on this tree. So I'm gonna get some yellow. I've got a blue. I can feel that I've got too much water on my brush. I won't get those juicy opaque colors if I've got too much water. I'm just trying to mix a color I like that's got some greenish, bluish to it. Try to improve that. Maybe I did. And I'm gonna do something that's 'cause it just looks a bit muddy. That might just literally be one brushstroke of something. Let's see. That's gonna be too dark. That's too intense, so we'll tone it down with some purple. I mean, some orange. A lot of times, what you already have in your palette you can use to tone things down probably still too light. Mm, it's okay. And I'm just thinking about this color because I like it. Well maybe put a spot of it there. Okay. And I want some green down here. I just feels like I'm I'm tidying up a little bit, but I also don't want to take away any of the really sort of happy accidents that happened along the way. So that's why I'm being a little more careful now. Alright, so I'm gonna go and fix that straight piece, and then then I just think I need some texture here or something. Something about this is bothering me. So I think I'll play with that. Let's see here. So for this, I'm gonna mix our yellow with this lime green and just change the direction just a little bit. Make it more of a curve. Whoops. That was some dirty green in my palate, but let's go with it. Sometimes those are happy accidents, too. Depends on what you're doing. Alright, that's a little less straight. Let me see if I just vary this violet in here if I like it better. Needs to be cool. That's a little too. I don't want it to match the other mountain too much. And I'm gonna try. See, I even like that bit of violet there. Scumbling a little bit of this textured brown in here. I like that better. I think what I was feeling is it wasn't feeling connected at all because even though I brought a bit of that color into here, it wasn't enough. And so it was just feeling like it was kind of out there. So I'm going to do the same thing, bring some of that bit of sort of brownish violet I just made and put a bit of it here. Maybe it's a highlight over here, too. Could be even some trunk action in here in branches. Okay, you know, you could keep playing with this, but I think it's done for me. It's done. I don't want to I don't want to, you know, risk painting over some of the lovely things that happened here, like, you know, just these bits here and this scumbling and even the texture of the canvas showing through here and there, things like that. So, yeah. There is our Tuscan landscape, and you can see that it doesn't look really anything like the reference photo. So that's what this style of painting allows you to use pretty much anything for a reference and not worry about, you know, being accused of copying it, which I love. Enjoy. 9. Tuscany Wrap Up & Resources: Well, I hope you enjoy painting that Tuscan landscape. It is such a beautiful, beautiful region. And using this photo that had some drama from Pinterest, I think, and then changing it so much allows us a lot of freedom when you paint this way. I like how we put colors in at certain points and just the branches that we did here. I love that. I love the light hitting this mountain here and just abstract way we played with color was fun. I also like the texture we got here on this acrylic paper which just has a lineny texture that was fun learning to let the brush do something and take a look and not mess it up basically is a really instructive point. I really enjoy painting that with you. If you're looking for other resources, just want you to know I have an email newsletter on my website that doesn't go out as often as it should, but I do like to write insights that I have about the creative life, studio updates. Sometimes I'll sell originals. I probably get the newsletter out four or five times a year. And then I have a YouTube channel, which has supply reviews and paint and chats and just some fun stuff that we do on there. I have Instagram of course, and that's Suzanne Allard Design, I should say. And then I have a Facebook on Facebook student only group. And if you don't have an email with that link, then just email me at heart at suzanar.com, and I will get you an invite to that group. It's a very encouraging group if you're looking for additional support. But either way, I hope you continue to create and I hope that this class has given you some ideas about interpreting a photo that you didn't take in such a way that gives you a lot of freedom with what you do with it and how you change it and make it your own. All right, keep creating.