Painting portraits for beginners with acrylic paint - Frida Kahlo

1. Intro Frida Kahlo Painting: In this video, I will teach you how to make this Frida Kahlo painting. All you need is kitchen to punches, a Posca pen, some paint brushes, acrylic paint, stencils, Canvas, and an ITU protector. Then you're already well on your way. I'll see you in the first lesson. 2. Choosing my background stencil: Hi again and welcome to yet another tutorial on painting your own amazing paintings. In this portrait of Frieda, I've used the Florida stencil in the background to create a little excitement and life. Unfortunately, I cannot link to the stencil. I've used. This one. I caught myself a few years ago. It does not matter though what kind of stencil you use. You can use what you have and what suits your style. I have a lot of different flowers and it's just because I've been painting and teaching for many years. This freed up painting, for example, only a single stencil with a rose in her hair has been used. So you can also make it a lot simpler if you like that better. I've gone a little bit crazy with the flowers on this painting, as I wanted to show you the effect of working in layers upon layers upon layers. It can certainly also be something that is super exciting. 3. Starting up my background: Okay, let's get started creating this beautiful background. I've chosen the colors red, yellow, and orange as I wanted to create a little sunset mood. Therefore, a lace more blobs of paint in different colors all around and work them into each other with my kitchen, two bunches. I always have a lot of sponges ready when I work as I constantly take a new one every time I have to work my colors into each other. Now I started working in the first color. I let my sponge do the work for me and I run it quietly around and small circles. I work quietly into the next color. I do not put pressure on. Just let this bunch do the work for you. Now I just keep working on getting my colors worked into each other. Using these kitchen sponges. It's a super easy way to create a beautiful background. I do not take a new sponge until I have to mix my two colors nicely into each other to omega beautiful and soft transition. As you can see, the transition between the yellow and the red is not very nice at first. When I make a transition between two colors, I take a new sponge and then I worked the colors into each other. Again, I do not put pressure on this branch. I let this bunch do the work for me to not disparate. If you do not get a nice in the first attempt, another layer of paint will come on later, which can damp any architect transitions between the colors. This is a discipline that requires some practice. It is super important that you work your color transitions together while your paint is still wet. Otherwise, one color just runs over the other and then it does not become a soft transition. You can possibly make a sponge a little bit wet if the paint is too dry. But be careful with that because you can easily pull off super dry paint on, make the paint transparent instead, and that is not what we want. We want opaque, beautiful colors. Here you can see I put a little bit of water on my sponge to omega thin layer of color between the two colors so that they glide more nicely together and make a soft transition. As I said a little bit earlier, you have to be a little careful with this as you can easily pull the paint off again. As you can see here, I get a little of the semi dry paint pull off as I run this bunch over because the paint is not hardened. However, I do not think this is a problem because it's just giving an extra effect in the background. But if you want to prevent this from happening, please let the paint dry completely before giving it a new thin layer between your transitions. 4. Making cool effect in the background: Okay, so now I want to make some effect in my background with my stencil so that my paint does not much in the back of my students are white. Most of the paint off again on a piece of paper before I start dabbing the paint on. Since I do not want the effect to be too visible. I used the same background colors, but with a little bit of orange mixing my red so that it only just hints. And then work my way down into the yellow area so that you can sense the effect. And there is a little contrast in the transitions from the red, the yellow background color. My stencil is very light and it lifts easily when I worked with it. Therefore, I roll my sponge with a light pressure instead of typing it. That way my stencils stays down and place. If you want, you can use a spray glue with non curing glue. You can easily spread on and move it around again and again. As to glue works many, many times, it is often called rebound glue. Now I just work until I think my transitions are nice and covered by my stencil. That way you should not worry if it's not perfect. We can fix a lot with a stencil to come fresh transitions. We're not completely happy with. Just carry on. 5. Painting the shadow of Frida: Now I have projected Frida onto my Canvas. For that, I use a small IT project that I'll link it in the text below. If you haven't already invested in a project that I would strongly recommend that you do. So it's a great tool to have when you want to create super cool Are you got a lot of freedom and the possibilities are endless. There do not cost much anymore compared to when I started 12 years ago. That was a small fortune. The one I use here costs around $150 and it can easily be used in broad daylight even though it isn't LED projector, it is my plan to create a shadow behind Frida, her own shadow. Therefore, I have projected her in a different size. It's actually is my plan to paint the actual portrait of her. I played around a bit with the size before I started to figure out where I would paint on my canvas. This is easily done by moving the projector back and forth for a larger or smaller image. Now we'll just paint the red shadow with a white soft brush and make the layer opaque. But you can also make it more transparent so that you can see your effects in the background through. I have not made them clear enough that they would be visible. So therefore, I have chosen to make the layer opaque. 6. Cleaning up the background: Now I have predicted freedom once more. This time I make her a little bit smaller. So you can, since the shadow behind her, as you can see, a line goes straight down the middle of her face from the shadow behind. And I want that moved. Therefore, I clean up my background by painting the silhouette of her white and then drawing the black shadow afterwards. You only need to paint the white where there's no black. But if it's more manageable for you to paint white all over, then you can easily do that. It can be a bit tricky to see the difference in the shadows. You can just paint the entire silhouette once more. I'm mixing a little bit of water to my paint so that it's a little bit easier to work with. Now I just finished painting my white background. The fact that my background is white and clean also makes Frida stand out more in a term we want to focus on. Once my white layer is dry, I paint one more layer, so it covers completely. Finally, I worked my paint around and small circles with a small sponge so that it's nice and even and so you can not see the brush strokes. Then I can also have word painting a third time. If you have a good wet titanium with a lot of pigment in it, two layers should be enough. 7. Drawing the outline of Frida: Now I have to draw after the lines are protected image, I'm very careful with the details around the eyes, nose, and mouth, as it is, the details that tell who it is we're painting. You cannot be creative here and invent extra details. Just surf or avoid drawing some acid will not look like the person you're trying to portray. Just have to accept that the computer is smarter than us at that point. However, I do not draw pixels. Sometimes you can see this more squares called pixels. If our photo has not been in a high enough resolution when we edited, it can become a big problem when we're going to draw it. Therefore, I round them off, make straight lines across the tops of the small squares for our general expression. 8. Painting Frida: Now I want to paint beautiful Frida. I do this with a regular black acrylic paint. As sometimes use black ink because it's very concentrated in the color and easy flows down into the texture of my Canvas. That way, I only have to paint a single layer to get it opaque and really nice and intense in the color. When I paint, I always make sure to have a brush that in size fits the area I need to paint. As you can see, I work with three different brushes in three different sizes. When I'm not using them, I make sure they are wet with paint so they do not dry out. In addition, it is important that you wash your brushes along the way when they start to get dry paint on the edges. That way, you could preserve your brushes for a longer time. And at the same time it wouldn't be much easier to paint with them. When they get crust of dry paint on the edge, they're not as flexible anymore. I say otherwise. I'm where they're clean on you. 9. Stenciling flowers and finishing of: Okay, Now it's time for some fun. Playing with stencils and complimentary colors. I've found a lot of senses. I have a lot of them because I have taught since 2009. If you do not have a lot of sensors, then you can actually make some yourself very quickly. I would recommend you to see my course was tensors. As I show you a lot of ways you can both make your own stencils, as well as a lot of ideas on how to use them. I'm going to make a green button with a lot of leaves from my students. Remember to mix a little widen your green color. If it's not opaque, otherwise, it will not be the color you have chosen it to be. I've cut my kitchen sponges, which had been used in different colors. As you can see, I've now chosen a lot of complimentary colors. I want my flowers to stand out and become very clear. If you want a more neutral painting, you can easily make less flowers. And you can also work with the same colors and not used to complimentary colors. It's entirely up to you and your taste. I like broken several layers with many different color changes. I think it creates life in my paintings and it's fun to make. Along the way, I use a hairdryer to dry quickly so that I can move on. And never claimed I was very patient. Sometimes I work in several colors on the same stencil and make color changes. Now I've built their upon layer. Twice. I turned my stencils over and do a reverse print. As there's a lot of painting sitting on it. It gives a lot of color and also a funny shadow effect. This is called a ghost print. There you see the outline of the flowers and that is a really cool effect. I have a stencil with small flowers that I cover with masking tape. So I only use three of the small flowers. I also make the hair and several colors. They helped to give a good finished as well as bring it all together in a whole. I hope that you've been inspired and that you have the desire and courage to get started painting your own amazing paintings. Remember to play and have fun. And if it did not work out the first time, painted white and start over. Practice makes perfect, right? And remember to see my cousins tensors. If you want to learn a lot more about making your own cheap stencils for greater variety and freedom in your paintings. See you in the next video. Roger, over and out.