Transcripts
1. Introduction: Oh. Hi, I'm Lori Rivera, an abstract artist in Indiana, and I'm here today
to show you how to paint abstract
flowers and acrylic. So here's what you'll need. A china marker or just a
pencil or any drawing, medium chalk pastel, anything
like that will work. But this is a China marker, which is what I use a canvas. This is toned already,
a solid color. I did not tone the canvas in the video, but
this one's toned. You'll need a canvas 11 by
14 or any size, really. I'm just showing you how
to do these flowers. You can do them on
any size canvas you'd like or even on paper. The other supplies we're
going to be using in this class are color shapers. These are rubber
silicone shapers, they're like paintbrushes
except they're silicone rubber and paint. I'm using actually, I use Novacolor paints.
That's the brand I use. You can get these through
Novacolor or through Blick. I buy them and then put them
in these condiment bottles. This is gesso. I use this in place
of titanium white. Plain old gesso. White gesso. Cadmium yellow light. Quinacridone magenta, the blue, green shade, and burnt Sana. That's what you'll
need for this class. Well, those are the supplies
I used in making this class. You can change the
colors you use. You can use a
different size canvas. You can use paper
instead of canvas. You can do this
however you'd like. I'm just showing you my
process. Let's get started.
2. Getting Started: Okay, guys, let's see. We're going to do a it's an
11 by 14 canvas, what I have. And we're going to do an
abstract floral today. So what I'm going to have you do first is take a China marker. You can get these off of Amazon. They're just called
China markers. And I already did this. I forgot to turn the camera on, but just kind of scribble
in to about there. Yeah, to about let's see.
Yeah, to about there. Scribble. Just do
some scribbles. And let's see. I'm gonna get some paints out. I'm gonna get some white and some yellow Magenta. Um Blue. And burnt sana, which is
basically brown. All right. What I'm going to do first
is I'm going to put in my biggest flower and it's going to go right here about where the focal point should be. Remember how you divide
a canvas in thirds, it would be divided in
thirds that way and then thirds this way. You want your focal point to be on one of those
intersections, which would be about right here. Let me get a little paint. About right there. Okay. I think I want my main
flour to be orange. I'm going to mix a little bit of this red with this yellow. I'm just going to
put a big big swath, I guess, that you could
call it of color right here in the focal point. See how I didn't mix
my paints totally. Now you can see a little bit of orange and a little
bit of yellow in there. That adds some
interest. I like that. Get some paper towels here. I'm going to put this
big color shaper down. I'm going to move to the small, the small one here, I'm going to start putting
in some other colors. Maybe I want a blue flower, sin mixing white
with the stat blue. Maybe the flower
will be right here. And maybe this will be
a little bit smaller and see how that blue is
mixing with that orange and yellow and making
a little bit of green. That's okay. I like that. Then maybe there's
another flower over here, bluing over here. Maybe one down here, maybe a bigger one down here. I want my biggest flower to be on the focal
point, though. So I don't want to
make this flower down here as big as that one. So this is our Okay, so we got three
of those flowers. Let's move on to a
different color. Let's say magenta. Maybe add a little
bit of white to it, make it kind of pink. And I'm just going
to put one in here, put a flower right here. And maybe put a flower
over here on the edge. Okay. And maybe let's see, I need some more
white paint here. Maybe a little tiny
flower right here. And maybe a little
one over here. Maybe one right here. So, see, I'm making different
sizes for these flowers. They're different sizes. Don't make them
all the same size. Because if you make
them all the same size, then it's not going
to look like I mean, it's just going to
look like a bunch of circles, you know? It's not going to look like
a whole lot of anything. So now I'm going to make Oops. I already have red. I actually I already have red
and blue down here. I'm gonna make some purple. I need some white in here. So I'm going to do
some purple flowers. Maybe there's a make
some colors there. I had that dark
tha blue on there. So maybe Maybe it
looks like that. I like this darker color because you don't want all your
values to be the same. Remember values, lightness
or darkness of a color. You don't want all
your values to be the same. You want to be different. I'm glad I got some of
that dark purple on there. That's darker than some of my other colors
I have in here. Maybe I'm going to do
some dots up here. Flowers, little dots. When we go in with
our background later, we're going to
have to figure out how to go around those dots.
3. Adding the Background: I'm going to do my
background right now. I think I'm going to do
it like a top color. That would be maybe let's see. A tiny bit of blue with
some burnt Santa and white. That gives me a real
pretty top color. I'm going to go in here and
put this top color in here. Actually, I'm just
going to go over my dots and put
them back in later. That's okay. It'll
be okay. Okay. I'm going to go up here,
take these dots out, put my background in, put my background in up here. And the China marker
that we put on there, you'll end up covering
up most of that anyway. So it doesn't really matter
how you did your marks. Most of that's
going to be covered up. We're going to do this. Get our background in there. Okay. Let's see here. All right. It's white. Okay. See, I put my flowers off to the right hand side
of the canvas too. You don't want them
right in the middle. It's more interesting if
they're off centered. They don't have to
be off centered a lot, just a little bit. Actually I'm going
to get my bigger color shaper for this job. I think in a minute, I
might switch over to that. Hold on. Let's see. Maybe I'll go and
stick with this one. Okay. So just kind of
getting that background in there and trying to get
everything covered. I'm going to leave this blank
on here because we're going to add our base.
4. The Vase and Shadows: Vase. I think I'm going
to do that in black. I'm going to the vase
now. Doing it in black. I need a little bit more burnt
Sana in there. Let's see. I think I'm going to
do my vase like this. I think I'm going to do it like that and once I get
touched the bottom. Doesn't have to be perfect. Actually, it's more interesting
if it's not perfect. Maybe comes down here like that. I really like striped vases. I'm going to make
this a stripe right here and going to
make let's see. Another stripe right here. And maybe a small
stripe right there. And maybe let's see. We have a let's see. There we go. All right. There's one, two, three, four, five, five stripes,
two thick ones, and three thin ones. I might put let's
see what color do I want in my vase other
than that. You know what? I like white. I think I might just do an off white for
the rest of my vase. I'm going to get
some white in there and get in here
and fill that in. And it's okay if your
colors touch the black. It's okay. I'll just
have more interest. So I like that. And down here, I'm messing up my lines,
but, well, that's okay. That's okay. I'm
just going to do it. I'm just going to do
all white down here. Okay. All right. So there
we have that. Now we want a shadow
in here, right? So I'm going to get some
more brown down here. Let's go and put in our shadow. I mix a little bit of blue
with burnt sienna and white. Our shadow is going
to be down here. That's dark for a shadow. Let's lighten that
up a little bit. So let's draw a
shadow like that. It can be messy. It
can be a messy shadow. But the shadow is going to
be not just at the bottom. The shadow is going
to be up here too, probably, you know? Because if light is coming
in from this direction, there's going to be a shadow next to all these
flowers, really. Maybe even a little
bit of shadow up here. I'm gonna lighten
up that shadow. It's looking kind of dirty. Okay. Okay, there we go. That's starting to look a
little bit better now, I think. Okay. Maybe the shadow. You know, the shadow
goes up here too. So Okay. That's pretty good for a shadow. It's not perfect, but we don't really want it to be perfect. I mean, this is an
abstract painting. It's not a realism painting.
5. Adding More Flowers and Leaves: Need to work on the
flowers some more. And I want to get some green in here before we get
too far into it. So I'm gonna get a
little bit of yellow. And a tiny bit of blue and some burnt sienna. And white. Okay, mix those up
to get a green. Kind of going for like
a olive green here. Add a little more blue there. Okay. There we go. There's
a good green. Add a little white to it. So maybe there's a M. A leaf there. And let's see. Maybe there's a hint
of a leaf here. A hint of one there. Maybe one. Well, now, we don't
want to put one on the opposite side
of the other one. That might look funny. But
maybe there's one up here. And maybe up here. Okay. Maybe there's some green
down here, you know? Maybe with the bottom of the vase or not the bottom of the base, but the
top of the vase. Maybe there's some leaves there.
6. The Focal Point Flower: I think I'm going
to add some white. To this up here. Add
some more interest to my focal who
something got in there. What is that? I don't know what that
was. I'm going to add some white to my
main flower here. It's actually a white, a pinkish white is
what I'm adding. There we go. Yeah. Okay, and then add back some of the yellow because we do want
that to be recognizable as, you know, the focal
point flower. So maybe it'll be like that. Yeah. Maybe it'll be like that. Then a little bit of red here. Move that around like that, little bit of red here. You don't want to make
it a perfect circle. Maybe it extends
out all the way out here, little bit up here. So I think I'm going to add a little
bit of yellow to that. So this is our main flower, so we need to put some
extra thyme in it. Okay, maybe there's
some yellow there, yellow here, yellow here. Over here. Maybe down here. Maybe we have some
yellow down here too. Okay. I think that looks pretty
good for the main flower.
7. Adding More Flowers: Going to add dark
purple actually. So dark purple. Yeah, you want some little specks of black in here too for the
shadows from the flowers. I'm just going to put some black in there different places. Maybe it goes like that. Maybe there's a shadow there. Maybe a shadow here
or the main flowers. Yeah. Okay. A lot of this is just
filling your way through. It's not about being perfect. It's not about getting
it just right. We're really going
for a feeling here. We're not going for perfection. Simon puts some purple up here. Maybe there's a flower up here. I don't like that. I
think I'm going to add some There we go. That doesn't look very
good the way I have it. I'm going to add
some pink to that. Maybe it goes like this. This can be another big flower, but I don't want it as big
as this one over here. I'm going to take some of that out and put
some green in there. Okay. These florals,
sometimes you just have to play with
them, you know? You just have to play with them until they start looking right. Maybe there's a
flower right here. Maybe we have some wines up here going through the paint with the corner
of our color shaper. Maybe it's like that over here
too with our main flower. We can put some little lines in there with the color shaper. Yeah, I like that. All right. We need yellow somewhere
else in this painting. I'm feeling like we need
some yellow over here. So I'm going to add some
yellow orange over here. Maybe it goes all
the way out here. Maybe these are just
some loose flowers hanging outside there. Maybe there's some down here. Maybe there's some loose
flowers hanging out down here. Down here, maybe one's
falling to the table. Down here. I need to do my background
on the right hand side. I'm going to do that real quick. Let's see. I need
that top coller. Okay. It's white. So it's like a more
like a brownish gray. You know, the white is
coming in over here. So it might be lighter over here than it is over on the
other side of the painting. It's going to be
a lighter, Okay? I have to go bi over that later. Fix that. All right. Maybe there's that
light coming in. Maybe we have light
coming in over here, maybe make that more white. The light coming in. Maybe
there's light up here too, Be maybe the light is
shooting down like this, so we need to make
it lighter up here. All right. There we go. It's not done yet.
You're getting there. I'm feeling like we
need to put some white into that
focal point flower. So I'm gonna do that right now. I'm just gonna put
some white in there. Okay. Let's see
here. Here we go. All right. Maybe a
little white over here. Maybe over here too.
8. Adding Even More Flowers: Need I'm thinking some dark
orange flowers. I don't know. I'm
gonna make that red. I'm gonna make those red. Yeah, there we go. Hey, a red flower over here. I'm using my color shapers pretty much for this
whole painting. You don't really
need anything else. You don't need you don't
have to have brushes. Brushes are fancy to
have and everything, but they're a pain to clean out. These color shapers
last forever. And, you know, yeah,
they just last forever. You don't really
need anything else. You can do everything
with a color shaper almost that you can
do with the brush. I'm putting some red over here. Scratching scratching
the surface. Getting some soft
edges in there. And you'll notice
too, that the red, when you use magenta, it is a transparent color. So if you put just magenta by itself over some other colors, you can see the
underneath layers through it. So it's pretty cool. It's a transparent color. Maybe there's one way over here. Maybe you get some
white in there too. I need some more white. Okay. Maybe there's some flowers
all the way over here. Because this is going to
be a wild bouquet maybe. Maybe it's a wild one. I'm going to put some
white different places in the bouquet of flowers. Because maybe there's
a little bit of white some white
flowers in there. Okay, let's see her. Okay. So I want some of
that green again. If I want it to be
more yellow green, I'm going to pull some
of this green out. Put some different colors
of green on there. We have a little bit
of green up there. A little yellow
green right here. Well, that's not yellow green. But that's okay. I'm
going to leave it. I'm going to leave
it. Add some texture. Let's see. Okay, so just
playing around here, playing around with the colors. Maybe I'll have
some red up here. Maybe there's, that's
another thing too. You want your you want some of your flowers going
off the edge of the canvas. It makes it more interesting if some of them are
going off the edge. That goes for any
composition though. Any composition. You want it to go off the
edge of the canvas. It's a good guideline
to go by, I guess. I'm getting some of this orange. I get some of this white, put some this white in there, and maybe we have another big
flower over here, bigger. Yeah. So maybe we'll have
that would be bigger. Okay, let's see. Okay. Let's get some more white. I feel like I need some
more blue in there, so I'm going to get
some blue paint, add a little bit of white to it. Actually, I'm going to
add a little bit of yellow so I can make
some turquoise. Yeah, Turquois screen. There we go. Wait, That
isn't very turquoissish. I think I mixed it in with some red or something.
So I'm gonna redo that. Okay, get some white
and yellow and blue. Okay. Mix that together. And we get turquoise, but I don't want it
to be that dark, so I'm going to put
some white over here and add my green to the white. There's some turquoise. See how some of my flowers
are bigger than others. You don't want all your
flowers to be the same size, you want them to be different. So I'm putting a little
one right there, maybe a little one right here. Maybe there's one right
here, maybe a little one. Maybe there's one down here. Okay. Maybe there's one over here too. Hanging off the edge
of the flower pot. I'm feeling like there needs
to be something over here. It's maybe there's a
big turquoise flower going off the edge over here. Maybe there's one up here that's a little
bit darker blue. Smish that paint around. I'm gonna smish this paint
around up here, too. Maybe I'll do that. Okay. Okay, so it's not
like I'm too bad. I'm feeling like I need some
bigger flowers, though.
9. Adding Larger Flowers and the Middles : I'm feeling like I need some
bigger flowers, though. So I'm going to take some white. I need to get some white. Take some white
and go like that. So maybe there's a flower there. So lightning that up did a
world of difference, I think. Maybe there's a dark middle. And let's see. Yeah, maybe there's some
dark areas in here. Like, maybe this one
has a dark area in it. Maybe there's a dark area there. You know, for the middle
part of the flower. That's what I'm talking about the middle part of the flower. The dark part. It's
not always dark. It depends on what kind of
flower you're talking about, but for the sake of this, I'm making the dark metals. And maybe maybe some
white over here. Okay. All right. Maybe smoosh that
around out here.
10. Finalizing the Shadow: I'm feeling like my
shadow needs some work. So I'm mixing some
more of that gray, I just feel like I need more of a defined shadow over here. I got a little purple in
there too. That's okay. And let's see here. Spread that color around there. I feel like it needs more
of a defined shadow. So and your shadow will be darkest
close to the pot. Close to the vase. Then I'll
get lighter as you go out. We can add some white. Whoops. That's not white. We can add some white now. Okay. I think I'm going
to leave my shadow alone. I don't want to mess with it.
Maybe do that a little bit. I don't want to mess
with it too much because it'll overwork it and then it won't
even look right.
11. Thank you: Okay, so that's how I go about making abstract
flowers in acrylic. I'd love to see what you come up with after you
watch this video. Please post your pictures
in the project section. I can't wait to see
what you create.
Lori Rivera, Abstract Artist
