Paint with Me Mr. Duck in Oils!

1. Introduction: Hi, everyone. Welcome to my painting lecture. My name is Macheta and I have been working as a painter and illustrator for 15 years. My works are represented in private collections across Europe, the US and Canada. Today, we will paint together this fine gentleman, Mr. Duck. We will be using oils, and this lecture is designed for complete beginners as well as intermediate level painters. However, advanced artists are also welcome to join us and paint along. I hope you will have fun. Let's get started. 2. Step 1: Linework: In the description, I provided two versions of our reference photo. At this time, please take the black and white version. This photo was taken last Saturday when I went out for lovely cup of tea with Mr. Duck. Just kidding. It's an actual clash. I created from two photos. I downloaded from pexel.com. I recommend using this platform for reference photos, since the images are copyright free, ensuring we won't be stepping on anyone's toes. Now we can move on to the actual drawing. As you can see, I have divided the canvas into several fields. I have only four fields, but your reference photo has been divided into more. I recommend dividing your canvas in the same way as your reference photo. The purpose is to copy as precisely as possible from your reference photo, focusing on one field at a time. This approach makes it much easier to get the proportions right by breaking the overall picture into smaller units. As illustrated in the video, I first drew the line work for the first quarter of the image, and now I'm proceeding with the other sections. Always, keep in mind to check the proportions. Remember how far each line reaches and what proportion of the whole field it occupies. For example, whether it extends to half of the field or one third or else. Take your time. There is no rush. Focus on getting the line work accurate, as it will serve as a foundation for our next steps. At this stage, we don't need to worry about shading or values. We simply want to ensure the line work is correct. It would have been much more challenging without dividing the canvas into four fields or more. If I had to draw everything at once and get the proportions right, there would be a significant risk of mistakes. Now, let's focus on Mr. Duck's beautiful eye, this kind smile, and his lovely neat appearance. Once this initial sketch is satisfactory, we can move on to the next step, the painting process. 3. Step 2: The Underpainting: We are now already with the linework, so we can now begin the underpainting. The underpainting will be done in acrylic colors. I'm using black, white, and burned sienna. While burned sienna is necessary, it can add a little interest to the picture if you are more advanced. Otherwise, feel free to leave it out. The purpose of starting with an acrylic black and white version of the picture is to get the values right. Values refer to the darks and the lightest lights and everything in between. Getting these values correct is crucial as they form the foundation for the entire painting. When we start painting with oil, I always recommend doing some form of underpainting, whether with oils or with acrylics. The key is to ensure the values are right from the beginning. This type of underpainting is called Grisel because it lays down all the shades of gray. As you can see, I started with the darkest areas, applying blacks and mid tones. You can approach this step, however, feels most natural to you. The great thing about acrylic colors is that they can be easily corrected. Don't worry about making mistakes. You can always lighten or darken areas as acrylics cover well. Now, why are we using acrylics? Simply put, they dry much quicker than oil pans because they are water based. This allows us to continue with the next steps without waiting for the oil to dry completely. Additionally, one of the main principles when painting with oils is to layer fat over lean, meaning we should use more condensed colors later. By avoiding oil in the first layer, we adhere to this principle and ensure we are not painting a slow drying layer beneath a quicker drying one, which could lead to cracks in the painting. As you can see, I'm now applying the darker shades to Mr. Duck's head, which is a deeper gray. Don't hesitate to go bold with darks. There's always a way to lighten things up later. We are gradually working our way through the underpainting, placing the colours, shades and lights in appropriate location. Make sure to take your time, don't rush, enjoy the process. We have already established the proportions and composition, so we have a solid foundation. You can see I'm working on the background now. The background color is slightly darker than Mr. Duck's peak. This ensure that Mr. Duck stands out as he should, allowing us to see his beautiful smile. I mixed a bit of burnt sienna into the background, which adds a touch of death. However, as mentioned, this is not necessary. Notice that my background is not uniform. It is darker in some areas and lighter in others to create contrast and avoid visual monotony. We want our eyes to engage with the painting, so having some structure and variation is important. Try to keep in mind that nowhere in the picture should be two areas with the same shade of gray next to each other unless the area is meant to be uniform. This makes sure that the picture will have proper plasticity. Now, let's focus on the beak, which can be tricky since its value is close to that of the background. We need to ensure it is lighter than the background color. If you are unsure, you can leave the edges white and paint gray on around the middle of the beak to maintain contrast. As I work on the suit, I'm careful to keep the shades of gray distinct. You can see that when there is a dark shade, I always ensure a lighter color is adjacent, creating a smooth transition. This technique prevents the contrast from disappearing. Remember, do not worry too much about detail at this stage. When working on the suit, it often helps to view the reference with your eyes help lost. This will blur everything slightly and assist you in determining the various shades of dark in each area, simplifying the task. Again, you don't need a perfect copy of your reference. You only need to identify where the darks and lights should be. The underpainting will shine through the upper layers, significantly reducing the workload compared to painting directly on the canvas, la prima, it is called, where you would need to keep everything in mind at once. A As I walk on the right side of Mr. Dove, which is in the shadow, you can see that it is darker due to the light source coming from the left. The upper side of his hand will receive more light. So we will have some lighter shades of gray there. And In general, it is beneficial to translate your reference photo into black and white when painting. If you are not planning to do under painting, at least spend some time studying the values in a black and white format to identify the light and darks. You can, for example, do a small sketch before painting just with a pencil. Don't worry about making mistakes. There's always a way to correct them. Be sure to step back every few minutes to view your painting from a distance. This will help you see the overall composition and to assess if everything is in propportion. Now, we are nearly finished with the darkest shadows. I have added some burnt sienna under the table, since this era is part of the background and doesn't require much detail. This portion can be a symbolic representation of the era under the table. There's nothing particularly interesting there. Just the leg of the table and some shadow. I have added a few final details, and we are almost done with the darks. The lightest areas are left white, reassuring us that we are moving in the right direction. Now let's add the last bit of shadow between Mr. Duck's leg and suit. I'm using a smaller brush to add more detail. The tie presents a challenge because while the fabric is dark, the sunlight hitting it should create a lighter appearance. I will paint it black and add highlights later as the fabrics nature will likely yield natural roof. I'm also adding shadow under the table, ensuring it doesn't blend into the color beneath. I'm using a relatively dark color that transitions into a lighter shade as it approaches Mr. Duck's body, maintaining contrast, since he's sitting in a tables shadow. S. I know many of you are already experienced, so I won't belabor the details. However, I understand that starting can be challenging and I don't want anyone to get frustrated. You can see I left the left side of Mr. Duck's body quite light. I thin the paint until it was very, very thin. Ensuring this part remains lighter than the background, since it is exposed to sunlight. Now, we just have the coffee mug and a few details left and we will be almost. Take your time and break the process down by working either from light to dark or from dark to light. Avoid trying to work on everything at once, as this could lead to a flat picture with uniform darkness or lightness. We want to incorporate deep blacks and bright whites to enhance the painting. Now, for a few final touches, I'm adding detail to the attachment to the table, and we are done. With our chrysal underpainting credit, we can proceed to the final and most important stage of our painting process, the actual painting. 4. Step 3: The Painting Process: In the description, I have uploaded the reference photon that I have been following, feel free to download and print it out. As you can seeing, I have jumped right in and started with the head. The head will be the main focal point, so we need to ensure it is accurately represented and beautifully rendered. Rendered. To achieve the green in the darker part of the head, I have mixed cadmium yellow and Prussian blue. Be careful with the prussian blue, as it is a very strong color and covers a lot. So make sure to thin it down. To create some interesting hues in the head, I am layering colors on the top of one another. I will go back and forth, ensuring the values and hues blend naturally without turning into a muddy mix. Now we will paint the beak. I will add the darkest parts first, focusing on the tip and the left side, which will have a light shadow since sunlight hits the beak from the right. I'm blending cadmium yellow and cadmium red with some white for the lighter sections of the beak. Make sure to keep it all light and soft. I don't want the brush stroke to be too harsh. I have switched to a smaller brush to start adding the last details. Remember to soften your strokes. You want everything to blend nicely. So you can see now I'm working on the peak for that I have used amu orange. There is a nice green, nice green light under the Mr. Duck's eye. This, this was a light green which I used. I will put them all in the description of this class too. And on the very top of his head, there is also a light frame because his fetters are changing colors depending on what kind of light and what angle of light falls on them. So we want to also represent this in our No. Don't worry too much about darks yet because we can come back to the darks later. In general, we can put more saturated colors into the dark areas because that will also represent the shadows, but don't worry about it too much. As long as you mix the color transparent enough, then the values will be taken care of by our underpainting already. As I said, since the head is the fox point, we also want probably the highest level of detail in that area. So do not shy away from spending a little bit more time on that. Since whoever is going to see the picture, it is going to judge its quality from the way how the pine head of the Mr. Duck will look. The painting style I'm using is rather rough. I am using mostly one size of a brush and I am using energetic strokes and do not worry much about the detail. This is all purposeful and made the picture and gives the picture special moose painted quality. And You can see me painting the background color and all kinds of shades of pink. This color choice has its purples, since pink is complimentary color to many shades of green. With that, I mean that pink next to green together make the highest possible contrast. In practice, it makes sure that the picture looks lively and that the head of Mr. Duck stands out. To balance this out, I have also added some green to the saco, which creates a harmony and balance together with Mr. Duck's head in opposite to the pink background. You can see me thinning the color for the background. So the underpainting shines through and is visible. This gives the picture also quite interesting effect, and it doesn't look so monotonous. So Now, I I said that we already do have shadows and lights on place, but it doesn't hurt to take black oil paint and add some of it to those darkest places. The simple reason for that is that black acryl color is slightly lighter than black oil color. Black oil color is really black in its $0.02. So if we wouldn't have done it, we would get maximum very, very dark gray, and that could make the look dull too. Now you can see with light side of Mr. Duck's Sacko, I'm just using simple light blue, which also could be complementary to certain shades of pink. This is why it also works and makes the figure stand out. And since the head is in the middle of upwards, we want to add a bit of color and saturation onto the eye because eyes are windows to the sole and soul of fine gentleman, Mr. Duck is pure and beautiful and we want to see it, so we want to bring attention to his eye. You will probably also notice that I didn't put almost any attention to the coffee c on the table, since we do not want it to steal the focus from the head of Mr. Duck, so it does not really need much detail as such. Thank. All right. And as the last thing, the signature to the right lower pin, don't forget to add yours. And we can hold the picture ready. Thank you for joining me today. I hope you enjoyed. I hope you will show me your creations and upload your project. And if you want to hear my feedback, don't hesitate to contact me. And if you like this video, you can check out my other lectures. Thank you. And bye. Or.