Painting Portraits: The Art of Mixing Colours with Acrylics

1. Intro video: Hello and welcome to class. My name is Christina warrior and I'm a two-dimensional artist and Turner Valley, Alberta, I've been painting since Idol, remember ways, so many years. And I've always loved art and I've just really always enjoyed the feeling of being in the moment painting. And I really enjoyed painting with acrylics. And so in today's class, we're going to learn the art of mixing colors. Mixing colors can be a challenge, but it can also be such a joyful experience and it's one of my favorite parts about painting. So in today's class, but to teach you techniques to and color and exercises that will help you to practice. And then we will take those skills and make a portrait. Yes, so we're going to conquer the portrait today. So if you're ready, let's get started with the project. 2. The project video: So what will we be creating with these skills? I decided let's try a portrait with these mixing skills. A portrait can be very challenging and you might be intimidated by that, but don't let the idea of it's a portrait gets you stuck in your head. Portraiture is challenging because we know what people look like. Look at ourselves in the mirror every day we see people around us. And if we're choosing to do ourselves or somebody we know closely, then it's especially difficult because we might, they're frustrated with it not looking like ourselves. If you want to make it a bit easier than I suggest selecting an image of somebody you don't know. There's less judgment with it. Find a free share site where you can use a photograph and you have the rights to use it and go for it. I've selected this because I think it's a really great time to practice mixing colors. Skin tone can be a challenge, as well as depicting the person in reality, as well as smooth blending of acrylic paint. That is very challenging. I would think that oils would be less challenging in this case because oils will stay wet and then you can lend it and continue to blend. Whereas acrylic, you kinda have to blend quickly or in layers. I'm going to give you my tips and hopefully you'll be able to feel confident in your project and be able to share that in the gallery once it's complete. So if you're ready to do it, Let's get started. 3. Materials video: All right, So here's a list of the materials you'll need to complete this class and follow along. It's also located in the class description. So take a look there or just pause the video and get those materials ready to go. So I have these paints here. You don't have to have these exact colors. But if you want to follow on completely exactly, then these are the colors I'm using and just to compare with what you have. So just having a yellow, red, blue, green, brown, white, and black will help you follow along. As I have my water containers, I have to wonder, keep dirtier and then cleaner and then a rag. My sketchbook and I have my pen and brush. You can see it's a square tip brush. And this one's a micron 08. I really like those micron pens, especially for doodling. They don't smudge, That's nice. Just showing you the rush. You don't have to have that exactly. All right. Let's get on with understanding color. 4. Understanding Colour video: Before we start painting, let's understand color a little bit better, starting with q. So q is the attribute of a color, by virtue of which it is discernible as red, green, blue, yellow, et cetera, which is dependent on its dominant wavelength and independent of intensity or loudness. So we're not looking at intensity or loudness, we're just looking at its dominant wavelength. So is it yellow, is it green, yellow, et cetera. So that's important to note that split we're talking about when we say hue. Now let's look at tonal value. It's so important. Tonal value is one of the most important parts of aspects of painting. How light or dark is it? Is it a, do you need to add more white to that yellow, do you is it a light yellow? Is do we add black to it to make it a darker yellow? What is that level of value that it has That's going to make a huge difference for your shadows and lightness and creating a likeness of the image. Now we have chroma. So chroma might sound odd to you. Maybe you don't understand or never heard the word chroma before, but it's the purity or intensity of a color. Is that a pure yellow or was it adult down yellow because he mixed it with a little bit of red. So as we mix colors more and more from their purity, we have less of an intensity to that color. So there you go. Let's play around with some paints. So get out your paints. Let's do some swatches. 5. Swatches video: Alright, let's get our sketchbooks out and do some swatching. So swatches, what we're doing is we're creating a reference guide for ourselves with various colors and their mixes. So if written out the colors at the top, you can even write the brands if you have a lot of different brands of color that you're using. And then you can also begin with one color and beginning with yellow. And then I'm going to show a different mixes with yellow. So I'm going to do yellow with red to make orange. And then I'm going to throw in some white. So I'm going to do white as my next little swatch. And then I'm going to clean my brush and go yellow, red with Mars black. And then I'm going to clean my brush again and mix yellow, red with a number. And then I'm going to clean my brush again. And then we're going to do yellow with blue and then yellow with green. I'm going to my next row. I'm going to choose red as my main color. So that's going to be solid red on its own to start out, to kinda show that that's the color that I'm using for my blends. And we're going to follow the similar process with the first row. Only this time I'm gonna go red with blue because I've already done red with yellow with some of the swatches. So we're making some purples. And then these really deep colors, almost blacks going on in here. When I mix red with blue with these different colors, except for white, white gets a nice, more like purplish color, depending on which one you use as well. The last one was red green and then red green. Again, only the first one was a little bit more red. The next one was a little bit more red, green. I decided I would make a little note on each swatch so that I understood what the Blend was. An underlined if I did more of one color than another, and then I went on and did some blue. So you can see I've got a row of blue and blue with green. And I tried to maintain a system so that it would be similar. Now we're going to play around with some skin tones. So I'm gonna kinda look at my own hand. Now, what should you do the same, use your own hand as a guide and then play around with that. We, if you look at your hand, you'll notice through lots of different colors happening. You might say, Oh, I'm Caucasian, so I have, which I am. So look at my skin and I think, okay, you know, we say that's white. Well, there's a lot of different colors and tones in there. And when you're looking at highlighting and shading null of that, there's so many colors. So what I'm going to do is get all my colors out. Now I'm going to start with a base tone that's kind of a peachy flesh color. And that's my flesh color that I'm focusing on. I want you to look at your flesh color and I'm going to start making other ones as well in this little swatching blend. And you can feel free to label them. But for this, I'm just going to have fun blending and making little swatches. So looking at my skin starts looking a little rough because it's starting to get cold here and I get really dry hands. So I'm going to take my white because I'm going to need a lot of light. And this to the color for my skin tone anyways, I'm going to mix a little yellow in there. Notice how I'm blending. You can also use, I like to use my brush. Sometimes I like to use a palette knife, but on a rough surface it's easier to use a brush. I find I've added a little bit of my red, and these are the same colors that I've already labeled at the top of this page. So you don't have to relabel that. And so you just keep brushing to keep blending those colors in. And notice my brush is also getting different tones on its own. To be kind of careful, if I want to have a solid color to really make sure I blend the whole brush out or use a palette knife because that will help to get it mixed more fully. But sometimes it's nice to not have it fully mixed. There's a little flesh, peachy flesh tone. Any WHO so and that's not even as light as I would go if I want to get the lightest highlights, if you're looking at my hand, there are certain areas where that matches quite well, but that wouldn't just be an overall blanket of their one color and done. And we've got tons of colors. So I'm playing around here adding a bit of blue. But wow, as soon as I add a bit of blue, it's really strong. So I'm trying to use different parts of my palette to get a cleaner Blend. If I just blend within that one color, like within the blue, It's just going to Bluebell, just overtake it. So I'm mixing some brown into this blue and it gets a nice teal color. So if you're looking for good teal, adding a bit of that, well, green and blue definitely. But if you want to kind of subdued white with some brown and you've got this beautiful cowboy teal color that I love. So I'm going to play around with different blends of making a color lighter by adding some white, making it more blue, more red, all these different things. And then Washington in between when I want to switch to a new blend. So those first few blends, it didn't need to wash my brush at all. But I will go in into the dirty or water than the cleaner water and wipe my brush off a little bit so it's not dripping wet. Get more of that first flesh tone than realists add some white to it first. And we're just playing around. So underneath that's going to be the lighter one. So play around with varying tones that are pretty similar and just kinda see what you can create. And this is a just want you to have fun with this. Don't have to follow this one exactly because I'm not giving you the guide to follow this exactly a want you to just play with mixing, see what colors you can create and try to avoid going into fully grays. Because if you mix too many and you don't clean your brush often enough, it's just going to be kind of a muddy gray color. And it's all going to mush into one similar tonal value. And we want to maintain some of those pigments so that it has some vitality to it and intrigue and depth. And we want to maintain that by not over blending and making sure that we do clean our brush. You can see that murky water on the right. That's kinda that murky color that I'm talking about, that if you just keep blending, you're just going to have that if you don't wash your brush in between. So really make sure that you're washing your brush. If you're a seasoned painter, you know this, even beginner painter, you might even know that already. That you need to make sure that you are washing your brush and using clean water, especially when you're going with light blends. And are various colors of your brushes dirty with red and you want to break blue, well, that's going to be a messy. So make sure you make sure you clean off your rushes as you're working. And I never like paint to dry my brushes anyway, so I make sure that I clean my brushes frequently. As I'm moving along, I'm looking for verite, variety of colors and variation in tonal value. So I'm looking for varying colors that will work for the Midtones, the deeper tones, and just various skin tones as well. Maybe not even my own, but a lot of these colors I could use. If you look at my hands and see that the shadows and in midpoints and on the fingernails and various colors show up if you really look at it. And you can layer them and blend them. In the next lesson, we will be blending color, but just have fun with making various swatches. You can make as few or as many as you'd like. I do suggest at least trying, you know, ten. And going from there, if you're really having fun with it, just make as many as you want. Feel free to write down the blends that you're making. This is going to be a little bit harder because it's more complex than just yellow plus green. We're adding, you know, a variant of white and, and that type of thing. So you can even film yourself making the color so that you can see how much of each color you used if that's easier, quicker than labeling it like this. But I still think that creating these charts and the Swatches can be really useful for referencing back and saying, Oh, I really like that color or even finding a color scheme that works. And yeah, so I found a variety of tones, some more yellow, some more bluish-green, and all in between. So I hope you had fun with that. Next, we have blending, so we want to make seamless transitions. 6. Blending video: All right, keep that sketchbook open and those paints and we'll continue with the blending. So now that you know a bit of mixing, we're going to see how we can mix color onto page, as well as how we blend in transition from one color to another. So take a little bit of each color. I'm just grabbing some white, some yellow, some red, some blue, and some brown. And I'm going to start with my lightest color. I'm going to wake up my brush by dipping it in the water, wiping it off. That kinda weights it up, it's ready to go. Move over the water, can see it a bit better. And I have my cloth. Always on my cloth with me when I'm painting. I'm going to start with the yellow because then it can get into the red and red is very overpowering. So if I start with the yellow and add just a little bit of red, go below the yellow first, and then blend upward into it a little bit, just a little bit. You can quickly overpower that yellow if you're not careful. Then moving my brush in different directions to try and maintain that yellow space and not overpower with thread. And dipping in with more yellow, washing your brush anytime you're needing to, which is quite frequently when you're doing this kind of practice so that you have, you're not getting red streaks into the yellow, pure yellow areas. We're going to do the same thing with the blue. So see how I'm bringing it below. And then I'm going to blend upward. And it's going to mix a little bit because the paint is still wet. But I'm going to mix two colors, the two colors together, and then put like a little strip in between. And hopefully my paints are still wet enough to kind of borrow a little bit here and there, so I have a better blend. If they dry too quickly, then you're going to have a harder time getting a nice blend. But if that happens, then I just mix the two colors in increments and kind of slowly blend them either layer upon layer or in just like little bits, just adding transitional color between the two. That's another variation of that color. So just a little bit more red and the color or a little bit more this or that. Now just add some fun to this mix and see what we can do. We're going to add some white starting at the top, bring it down a little bit, Washington brush between and then do the same to the bottom section, bringing it from the bottom than outward. And then I just thought this part of it a little bit different than the first demo piece. And I just thought let's try creating a smear in-between and see how that functions. And this is, this is your sketchbook, those, so this is the time to practice techniques. See what happens if you can blend something better by adding mister, you know, brushing down your colors while they're still wet. And the other side I've used brown to kind of blend on that side and then similar thing kinda swiping down. And this is my sketchbooks so you know, I do certain things and then I think note that didn't work and then I'm trying to fix it like in this top section, I'm kind of trying to figure out blending with the brown a little bit. And while it's still wet, sometimes you pick up the color and when you don't want to, sometimes you're in. So then I have to re-establish that color to create a stronger blend. So you win some and you lose them. And then I'm going to try that little strip of blur in between those parts as well. And that's fine. Now, I'm going to try something a little bit different on the bottom, but I am going to start with a blue and it's still going to be a sky with some clouds. When I'm going to start with blue and blending with white. And we're going to need a lot of white because I wanted this really light color that I saw as I was walking this morning. And I often use what I see as inspiration when I take photographs as inspiration, but sometimes they don't take the photograph and I just try to keep it in my mind. So I started with this really light blue and I was making it lighter. And in fact I had to wash my brushes. You just saw so I can get it even lighter because it's hanging onto some of those blue pigments. And then if I don't wash my brush, it's going to keep hanging onto those. Then there was this bit of pink at the bottom. So transition to this beautiful pink kind of this cotton candy sky is really lovely. It's almost so light, you can't see some of it just with the lighting. But in some instances you can. So I'm trying to create that seamless transition. Once again, Bye. Brushing frequently while the paint is wet and making sure my brush isn't holding on to any pigments that I don't want it to. So making sure my brush is clean when it needs to be, and has the right pigment on it as a brush across it. So important and great to practice these little swatch blends. I've mixed up some coral by using red, yellow, and white as a base layer for my Cloud. So I like to work with the base and then forward so from back to front. So what's furthest away to his closest? And I often like to do that. It's just seems to be easiest to get all of my low lights in the right places and just a bit quicker to layer it on top. And you're not trying to get these small low lights if there's just small areas of low lights in there. So I'm adding some white on top of those colors while they're still wet so that they'll blend in. Again, that seamless blending that we're looking for. I could have just left it here even I like when there's areas where the white is really strong and then there's other areas where it blends in. But I wanted to have a more soft look to it. So I kept blending and adding more paint and kind of dirty NEP my yellow male, sorry, my white, my weight was almost completely covered at this point. And so then I had to wash my brush and mix a new color. And I was trying to get more of a purple tone in there because I felt like that's what I was remembering. It's almost like my memory was changing. I'm not going off of a photograph. So I'm creating this purple tone to kind of bring into the Cloud and just mixing while it's still wet. So again, so what on what? The background is quite dry so it's not mixing into the background at this point. So now that we've gotten that base layer of cloud that's allowed us to get the blend from the Cloud to the sky more seamlessly there, although my clouded, you kinda want it to pop on the sky so you could wait for it to dry and that wouldn't be a problem. But I do like to work what in what I can. And that's why I wanted to work quickly to get this accomplished. Well, so I have my colors out ready, I have everything ready. And I'm going with the flow a little bit too. I'm allowing myself to work as the image wants it to become. It's kind of like telling a story. You don't always know what's going to happen with the characters. And the characters come to life for you as a writer. And this is what I do as I paint. It's telling me a story and I'm trying to depict what it's trying to tell me and I'm following my intuition. So it's a whole other lesson about following intuition, which would be really fun to do. Feel free to practice this blending method with an image that you're looking at, maybe the sky outside or various things like that. So now when we go into this project process, you'll be more confident and getting that accomplished. 7. Painting Process video: Alright, so let's talk about the painting process. There are so many ways you can do this, but let's just look at this way. This is really great for beginners. Intermediates are people that are just not great at drawing. So I've created a grid using an app on my phone to select how many squares I wanted I would like to do inch by inch. That gives me enough detail for this particular image anyways, if it was a larger, more close-up image, maybe like just the face than maybe you wouldn't need a square inch. Maybe you could use to square inch or three square inch. Just depends on the image that you've selected. But I wanted more information in each square. I did inch by inch on the 16 by 20 canvas, I drew the image with pencil crayon, which was the same material that I use to make my grid. And then you can might also be able to tell that I made a mistake with my grid and that's because the grid had a supposed to be 16 by 20, but it wasn't exactly so keep in mind that your canvas, even though it says 16 by 20 or 25, 30, whatever it is, make sure you actually follow what the ruler shows because I started from one end and then I start from the other end because of the ruler that I was using. And then I ended up having to redo some more lines. Anyways, after drawing my image on with pencil crayon, I started by blocking some colors in. So not worried about blending a bunch of colors yet because I need a base layer of color first. So I started with highlighting the areas that are really bright. So this image has almost as like spotlight on one side of the character. And this is a painting of my sister, so I'll just refer to it as my sister. And on the other side, this really cool red lighting that was shining through her hair and on parts of her body. That really made us for an interesting image that really stood out to me. And I just really loved the emotion of her singing as well. So I'm just continuing to block in those areas. And as the areas come into to being a knower, each spot is, I'm taking two brushes. I have a fairly small brush I'm using right now. I started out with a larger one, but as I'm starting to layer on top of that base layer and get my colors and textures more in line with what the actual image is. I am using two brushes because I can keep one clean and help that one to blend in some of my edges. So kind of use it as slightly damp and then and a clean one. Otherwise, if there's paint on, it'll just paint on rather than takeaway. So it's almost like an eraser. And so he just continued to have that there to help clean up my edges, blend a little bit here and there. And it really works pretty well, I think. So. I do like this process. And as I start building up, it starts to come to life. So you start to see the image look more and more like my sister. And even though this is a black canvas that I'm starting out with, I want to cover my grid lines and they're not going to erase very well. I'll probably end up taking off so the Black Death. So if I do that, so I'm just going to paint color on top of that and it might not be fully black in some areas. Some areas might actually have tinges of reading them or blue. So I'm going to keep that in mind when I'm creating my shadows within it, I still going to cover this whole canvas with paint. Please note that the angle that this image is showing that the moment is not giving super accurate color as if you're seeing it in real life. The way that the light is reflecting when I'm placing the wet paint, It's making it look like this lighter gray color and it's definitely not that color. It's just looking like that because of the way the light from the window is shining onto it. But you'll see a more accurate depiction of the color further along the way and at the end, and you probably heard he's seen it anyways because I have shown it already. The main thing I want you to take away from this is the process. How I went from a to D or E or whatever, a dizzy, whatever it is. So starting with the grid, getting the image on there, and then blocking out the colors and then layering those colors. And as you're learning, you're getting closer and closer to making it look just like your image. So it's kinda like doing these steps at a time to get there. And sometimes they take a step forward, sometimes you take a step back, sometimes my layers, I think. Okay. That was to whatever color maybe I went to Orangi with the skin tone when it should have been a little bit more pinky. So all of these things, you take a step back and look at your image from time to time. It is important, I think, to take little breaks here and there. Make sure you're washing your brushes so they're not sitting in paint when you're doing so. But even if you're just taking a quick step back, not doesn't have to be a long break. We could just take a step back, look at it, come back a little bit more refreshed. Such an important thing to do when you're painting, because you can get really stuck into a certain mode and a certain state of mind and get fixated on doing it a certain way without allowing yourself. Room to change. So when you step back, we be open to moving an object or fixing an area that you thought was already done in perfect. When I do that, I find that my paintings were goat so much better when I allow myself to, to say, Hey, it might not be right and I might have to go over it again and that's okay. I must rebuild my foundation. We don't want to have, but sometimes we need to and it can be worth it. You'll notice that in the beginning of this, as I started painting and blocking out the highlighting that I used quite large sized brush. And now I've moved on to my small angular brush that I love to use. One of my favorite gives me a lot of control. In the beginning when you're blocking out color. You don't need a small brush. You don't need as small of a brush. Some areas will need it for detailing, but you don't need to add those details are in a way. Get those first section down quickly. Don't get too nitty-gritty when you don't need to. Because at first layer is going to be covered pretty much entirely. I don't leave anything left open for my first layer, which is blocking color for one because I'm going to see a little bit of the black underneath. It's not completely opaque. And the other reason is I'm going to add variation in color on top anyways, I need to get in those different color tones throughout and highlights and low lights. So there's no point wasting time with a tiny brush trying to cover, and with the larger brush too, sometimes you can get nicer blends like in those forearms. You can really just attack those areas and not have streaky look to it. If you're using a tiny brush, it's going to be a lot harder to do that and your paint will dry lot quicker. So you're going to have this streaky look. So definitely start with a large brush when you're blocking large areas. Consider that, and then when you going into the details, bring it yourself into a smaller brush. Maybe go with a medium-sized brush in some of these details as well. But I really like this tiny brush, especially for the hares and just getting the face really established. I really struggled with the nose and the shadow that was happening on the right side of it. That was actually quite a big challenge for me in this piece. And so I hope that you find that you can get that blending and the color mixing combined together to accurately depict certain areas, especially in the piece. I find that for portraiture, getting the face, the eyes. If you have opened eyes, this one has close eyes, but if you have open eyes or head or like that from that face area, that's where it should be in focus in my mind. So that's my opinion. I think that the face area should be more in focus. And then you can have other areas that are slightly more blurred or, you know, that kinda thing. So maybe this angle now in the lighting you can see a bit better the colors and how I'm trying to blend the skin tone so it's not looking rough on the face. There are certain areas like on the shirt where there's like a textured look to it that I don't want that blend and look. But on the face, I do want that, especially the way it nice and smooth. This under the eyes and the nose, that kind of thing. It just helps to make it look more like a person when you're following that, because I have the texture of the hair next to it. It creates a dynamic by having that. So it's really fun. It's really good to start with a great picture, first of all, so I found a really awesome picture to start out with, I think. And that's the step one, write finding a picture that you're passionate about and that type of thing. And now just getting into those nitty-gritty details that take up most of my time in completing the piece. And again, you can be lost in these details forever. But just put into practice or blending and mixing techniques that we talked about. Practice those colors, maybe even do a swatch page just of the colors that are in your painting. And you can see what I'm trying to add this highlighting, what's the challenge is getting into blend in with what's already dry. And one way I mentioned was using a damp brush that's clean and softening those edges. Just using that or just your finger you can use sometimes I know some people who like to do that. And that was a mop brush. So mop brush has a lot of bristles on it that are really soft. So it's almost like using a blending brush for makeup, something like that. They have lots of bristles on them that are very soft. And so it helps to soften the edges and that's what it does. So you'll see me alternate between my mop brush and my small angular brush. So I'm placing the color on with the angular brush and then I'm blending it with my mop brush. You've gotta make sure when you're blending that you're careful not to just brush over all the areas you want to keep that confined to those areas that you want it blended. So keep that in mind. And if you'd like an area little bit stronger than don't blend it out, keep it strong. Blend out just the edge that you want to allow to blend into another area if that makes sense. Like on this section with the arm, there's a section on the left of it where it's quite bright, where the light is really shining. And then I'm blending more on the right side of it. So the left side is brighter than the right side, is blended in a little bit more softens as the light is further away and as the shapes curve and shadow comes on the other sides and all these different colors are popping on this one. So this was a really fun one for lightened shadow, especially because the arm is creating shadow over the chest area. And that made a really interesting dynamic for this piece. So it was a really fun project for me. I hope you're having fun with yours, or if you haven't started yours yet. I hope that this example will help you have more confidence in attacking your project and having fun with it, and finding solutions to problems along the way because we all have them. They come every piece I have theirs. Solutions I have to find for problems. And now we've got the lighting. That's not as good. Again, my apologies for that. And hopefully you can still glean the information you need from this end. It gives you different perspectives of different lighting. So it's not terrible thing. So I'm just adding in the last bits, making sure that all the colors or the way that I want them to be thinking a main color mixing techniques and continuing that blending as well as I'm adding highlights on top. Sometimes they don't have to worry about the blending as much. If I'm just doing my small areas that just need to pop highlight, they actually blend quite well as long as my colors match correctly. And I knew I needed to fix the neck color tones in there. They were just a little bit off and feeling a little muddy. So I needed to add more, give them more life. And just getting those little hairs make them really pop. Kind of find those details that will make your piece sing her right near the end. Once you've finish, sign it, see if you really feel it's finished. And let's go to the conclusion. 8. Realtime Demo PART ONE: Welcome to Part 1 of the portrait demonstration. So in this, we're going to see from start to finish how I paint this portrait. So hopefully this helps you gain more information that you can conquer the portrait by following some of my steps, maybe avoiding some of my mistakes, all of that. So first of all, we're going to get started by creating a grid. So you have a reference image, is it portrait or landscape? Make sure you start that way. So I have mine as a portrait, and that means it's taller than it is long, so the canvas is turned vertically. Also, I've used a pencil crayon to create a grid onto my canvas. And that grid needs to match the grid that I put on my reference image. There are apps that can create grids right onto your image, so you don't have to print it out. But I know that some people prefer to print it out and sometimes it is nice to have a printed version. And, and especially if you have a colored printer and just print it right out and have it next to you. I liked the lighting and coloring that is maintained on my device, on my phone. Whereas the nose, when you print it, you don't get the same color. So just take note of that. So once I've created my grid now, this is a 16 by 20 canvas. I do suggest starting from one side and going to the other. Don't start from the outside and come in if that makes sense. So if you're starting from the left, make all your grid marks and lines to the right, and then do that from top to bottom or bottom to top. What it, whichever way you choose, stick with that system so that you don't. I did look partway down my image and you'll see that I have some extra lines in there because I went from top to bottom to a certain point and I tried to flipping it around and going from the other end, and then they didn't match up properly. So your Canvas might not be a 100 percent, 16 by 20 or eight by 10, whichever size you're choosing. There's so many sizes you can choose for this, There's no size requirement, but this particular image I'm doing is a 16 by 20 if you want to follow along exactly. So I did all of these rows and I want my squares to be small enough so that I can get enough information from my image so that I'm getting the proportions correctly. If I made these scores are really big, then it would be hard for me to harder for me to determine the angle of all the lines and that type of thing. So once I've created my grid and I have a grid on my phone with my reference image. So you can get an app. There's like a grid drawing app, that kind of thing, depending on if you have Android versus apple type of device. And then once you have that on there, follow the grid to draw around the contours of all of the subject matter. So the contour of the arms, the head, the hair, everything that you need the information from. I even drew the lines where there's strong shadows are strong lights. So anywhere that I'm gonna need that information, she's creating a strong shadow onto her chest. So I'm going to, I created that curved line in my drawing to show that. So let's get onto the painting portion. So here I've mixed blend of white, which is mostly white, yellow, and some red to give myself a nice light tone. And this image is very almost monochromatic. Actually the picture that I've chosen, because there's a lot of peach and pink tones within my image, but I'm going to show you that it's just not two colors that you use. Even if you're doing monochromatic type of color scheme, there are quite a few blends that you can create. And there's going to be a lot of brown kind of tones in this. So pinky brownie, warm tones as well as some cool ones to get in our shadows. So right now I'm taking a mop brush, it's a medium size. I like to start something medium. And the beginning of my painting, because I'm not worried about the details. I'm worried about blocking out color. So make sure that you don't get into the nitty-gritty details in the beginning of your painting. Because you want to make sure you kinda lay out the lighting and that type of thing. This is your first layer. This is in the final layer. So just take note of that. Use a larger brush, maybe larger than you think. I wouldn't do a two-inch brush for myself on the size of the canvas. But depending on the size of Canvas you're working on, make sure it's large enough that you can get a nice block of color in there quickly and that you're not too worried about that now, I am working quite slowly because thinking a lot as I'm placing my color, I'm being very thoughtful, intriguing this you don't want to, with a black canvas background. I really wanted to make sure that I was getting my color blocking quite accurate because once you get the blocking in, then that's like your support. That's where your foundation starts. So yes, you want to use a large a larger brush and you don't want to be too worried about the details because you can fix things. You can fix a lot of things on the way, but you do want to be thoughtful and mindful of where you're placing your highlights to give you a good start. Because then it's a lot easier once you continue on getting the details and getting the shadowing in. If you've got your highlights and low lights in. And because I'm starting with a black canvas, I like to start with my highlights. And these aren't even as bright as they're going to get in some areas. This is kind of my medium to light tone that I found in the image. Plus 1, I'm layering on top of a dark color. I'm going to need more than one layer just to cover some of that black undertone that shines through a little bit into my color. So depending on the opaqueness of, I guess I should say, the opacity of your paint that you're using and mine is a blend. Some of it is more opaque than others. That will also affect how many layers need to come through. So I'm just hitting up those brightest spots to start. In. That kinda helps me guide my decisions as I continue on. And you can really see them taking moments to stop. Step back, look, I have my image, my reference image in my hand the whole time because I'm painting what I see, not just what I think I see. I'm not just painting. Okay. Let's paint all the skin this light color because it's not true. If I look at the image, there's areas of the skin that are quite dark and then whatever your images, right? But I like to start with the areas of highlight within my image. So look at your image and see what makes sense to block out color to get out your highlights. If you're starting with a black canvas, if you're starting with a light Canvas, you can also start with maybe more of a medium tone throughout your image. Think of it as a nice base layer. And then you can add after that. I find this part quite satisfying though it feels like it's a slow process. But it's the image comes together fairly quickly. Even though I'm working fairly slowly. You can already see that it's a person. You can already kind of get a context for, kind of what she's doing, where she is in just a few strokes of highlighting and low lighting and it's all about tonal value. So when we were looking at what makes up color and, and how we kind of categorize colors. Tonal value is so important. You can't just use humor to get an accurate depiction of something. You can paint with just different colors. Not change them light and dark. But it's not going to be as intriguing as something that has really bright lights and really dark darks. As you can see, I've started getting some more color in here. So what's really fun about this image? And one of the things that drew me into it was this bright fluorescent pink that was shining through. Evidently on the stage there are different lights and color shining and there was this bright reddish pink. That was just awesome. And so I'm starting my base layer of that. So I'm blocking in my color as well. So first step, after you get your image drawn on, block your color with a large brush. Notice I'm using the same brush. And because I'm just blending it with this reddish pink tone and it is my base layer, my first layer down. I don't really need to wash my brush if it's a very similar color. Now if I was going to this peachy tone into a blue tone, unless I wanted to really tone down that blue, then I would want to wash my brush. I owe. You also want to make sure that your brush isn't drying with paint on it. So if you're working slowly like I am, you're gonna take time to maybe dip your brush in a little bit of water as you're mixing your paint. I also like to have a spray bottle of water on hand right nearby. And just every once and awhile spray your palette of paint. That really helps when I'm working slowly like this to make sure that my paints aren't just drying. You don't want to over water them either. You don't want soup of your palette. But if you notice they're starting to kinda dry, just do little spritz. If you have a little mister spray bottle even better. And because those are just finer droplets that are going on there, help to keep it moist. I live in a very dry place. So that's another thing to keep in mind. If you live in a very humid location, you might not even have that problem at all, but I have definitely have that problem. It's very dry where I live. So that might affect how quickly your acrylics dry. So just blocking in color and I'm trying to leave the areas that are really dark, so my shadows leave them. I'm not I don't want to go in after and then add my shadows. I'm going to create the areas of shadow, but I don't want to paint over a shadowed area unnecessarily, unnecessarily. So as I continue on with the same method, I'm going to make different marks depending on what I'm painting. So when I started with the skin, I'm trying to keep everything smooth. So I'm painting with smooth motions. You'll notice when I was doing the hair that I was it was a little bit more like stippling because the hair had sections and it has a different type of texture then skin tone does. Now, the shirt that she's wearing has a bit of a textured fabric to it. So in the areas where there's less of a strength of highlight, when I'm putting on this primary color, this base layer, and doing it in a way that shows that texture. So I'm moving my brush in a way almost to mimic the texture that I'm seeing around the neck line was a little bit more of a strong part of of light. And so there wasn't really texture there. But you can see that around the top part of her neck, her shoulders, and upper chest. It's quite bright. So I'm going to add texture with other tones of color within that color range. But this first step will be less of that textured feel than the bottom right of her shirt that I started with. So it just depends on your image, how bright or the brights, how dark at the darks of your image. If they're kind of one more, one level of tonal value, then you probably will find it a little bit harder to find these areas of bright and dark because they will be closer to one another. This image has really bright brights and really dark darts. And it's okay to move slowly. It's okay to really think before you brush. And if you're fast, that's okay too. I just like to work very thoughtfully, I think is how I would describe it. And because I move at this pace, I like to not bring out all my pink colors that I'll be using for the whole piece because it won't all be done in one sitting. And I think it's good to give a painting like this more than one sitting so that you can take a break and come back to it with a different mindset. Because your mindset that you're in R3 now will definitely affect how you paint, how you're feeling. And sometimes if you're not feeling well, maybe it will actually help change your mood. I often find that painting is very therapeutic for me. It takes me to a different space that if there's things going on in my life that are challenging, then I come here and painting and I'm just in a different zone. It's a different world for me, kind of my own dimension. So I'm carefully brushing on these areas where it's not as bright. There is bright light hitting, but you see more of the texture of the top. And so I want to be very carefully putting those in and you can still follow the grid to help you. If you're, you see the grid on your image still. And if there's areas that the grid shows up still on your painting, now, as we're painting over the grant, we will lose some of that information. And that's why we want to paint out all the information first, that is most pertinent. So for me, those highlights and low lights, those tonal values, and getting a base layer of color so that I can recognize what areas they are without having to use my grid for their on. And what I love about this app is I can take away that grid at any point. So if I kinda need to see it without the grid, and you can also change the color of the grid on the app and that type of thing. I find it really helpful. I wish I knew about it sooner because I used to just print off a page and and I didn't even have a color printer, so it would be black and white. Or I'd have to go to a place that does printing and get an image. And when you can just take it on your phone and and use it and switch it up as you need. It's very helpful. I find this arm is really neat because it had this bright strip of fluorescent on the right side. And then kind of this rounded shading section in the middle. But because there were shadowing partway down, it almost felt weird to paint it because you're again painting what you see, not what you think you see. At this point for my image, it makes sense for me to have my two colors ready to go. This kind of reddish pinkish tone, as well as this peachy white tone that's almost ghostly like right now. And just kinda going back and forth between the two as I'm blocking out the colors. You're also re-establishing some of the lines. So when you're first blocking it out, maybe you didn't get it at a 100 percent and so you're really getting those outer lines and in trying to blend it into an areas that that are needed. When we add the shading will need to kind of read, read these colors to blend into the other ones as well. And you'll see what we do with that later on. Yeah, a lot of thinking. So there's pauses or I'm looking at my image, I'm analyzing it, finding the spot and Ben making the decision going in for the kill. It's almost like the whole measure twice, cut once. That's kind of my approach here. And then I don't have to redo it if I do it correctly the first time. There are a few images I could have chosen between this type of imagery that were taken at my sister's performance. And I just really loved this one. She had this expression that was so strong, like it was just this really feeling the music moment. And I liked that it showed part of her face because one of them that I really loved also had both hands at the mike. And so I like how this hand is kind of just down below and just almost holding something, but it's not right now. I'm just painting in a little bit of the midriff that's showing. And I've blocked out pretty much my main areas that into block out. So watch that brush and I'm switching now into a small brush. This is wearing, going to start doing my detailing. So the first layer, it's already dries in certain areas. See the nice thing about acrylic is often you don't even have to wait for paint to dry. You can move on. Depends on the area. Sometimes you do have to wait for some paint to dry, but sometimes you can just get right back into another area. So now I'm redefining my lines, my highlights. When I say redefining, what I mean is I'm making sure that the line is done well so that my outer edge is correct. I'm making sure double-checking things as I go, as well as creating brighter highlights, more variation in tonal value. The moment I'm working on brighter highlights because this hand is really the brightest part of the image. So I started with that base layer and now we can go brighter. We can layer on top to enhance our colors are tones and make it look more real. What I love is it didn't take us that long. What, 15 minutes to basically get all of our layering down. And don't don't worry if you didn't do it in 15 minutes. If it's taking you longer, that's just fine. Go at your own pace. Just be careful of your paint drying on your brushes, that type of thing, and don't take out too much paint if you think you're going to be a bit slower, make enough that you can put plenty on and have enough to work with, but not wasting paint either end. If you're using just one tone. Very frequently, you can get yourself a sealed container, a small sealed container, and put that mixed paint in that sealed container. Use it again. Now, I often just read, I use what I need and then I read, mix my paints. That's just how I like to do things, but I know as a practical method for many people, it works better to get small containers to put your painting. So that's another option for you. So I'm just working on these bright highlights. Again with a similar tone that I was using before. Just adding a little extra weight. I find when I'm mixing it with white. And I really want to get it to really light, almost white but not white. Start with white and add a little bit of the other color that you're using. So that base layer, that peachy tone, brownie tone that I was using, start with the white, add a tiny bit of that too. That if you're just adding white to that tone that you've mixed, you might be adding lots of light and then maybe more than you need. So I like to start with the white because once it starts getting mixed, it takes on the color pretty quickly. So I just like to do that. That's a little tidbit for you. So we'll work in these areas until we feel they're ready. So continuing those highlights, continuing layering. This isn't even the last time I'll be lecturing, on the hand keeps multiple layers until it gets to the point where I feel like yes, that looks like my image. Maybe I'll have to add other tones right now. I'm adding more of a peachy tone because the red coming from the other side of the room is affecting the coloring on the fingers. So the knuckles closer to the fingers, they're kinda getting this reddish tone in certain areas. So look at your image, your reference image, and really focus in on it. Use it as your guide for this type of exercise that's so important. Even if you're painting from real life, you're going to want to be looking at that image a lot constantly. Because you're absorbing the information. You're letting your brain absorb that information, absorb the curvatures, the lines, everything. It's almost like trying to just memorize the image and all of its different intricacies. And these are moments to when I'm kinda blending those colors in the lighter tone with this reddish tone in areas where they need it. So while they're wet, I can blend them a bit easier. If I wanted to stand out more and not be blended, then I can wait till it dries, then add the color in those areas. Think, think, and then paint. Step back, come back in. Look at your image. Translate that onto your Canvas. Try to push away the thoughts of what you think you see. And document what you actually see. Painted as if you almost don't know anything about the image. You're just everything's new to you in terms of what you're looking at. It's not even a hand, it's this vertical line or a diagonal line or rectangular type of shape with a curve, you can have your own language to make up what you're seeing. I like to kind of think of it. Also. You have the shapes and lines and that type of thing, as well as the types of color like what would you call that color that you're looking at? I do that often when I'm on walks, I'll think about what color am I looking at? What would I call that cloud? Is it purple? Is a pink. What kinda pink is it? Is it cotton candy? You know, make up a name for it that makes sense to you as you analyze it. Here, we're just about finished part one, but we'll continue straight on to Part 2. Just a moment. 9. PART TWO: All right, let's get going with part 2 of our portrait demo in real time. So I'm going to continue working into the nitty-gritty details. So as you can see, I'm focusing with my angular brush. It's a half-inch small brush and you don't have to use this exact one when you're working on details, you can use a round tip one that works as well. Or I also like using a square tip one as well. And often I will keep that nearby. One or two extra clean brushes. Not extra clean but just extra brushes that are clean and they keep them nearby so that if I need to do a little erase, I'll just pick it up, dividend some clean water, make sure it's just damp. So wipe off the excess and then just brush away the areas that are still kind of what that need to be pulled way. If it's dry, then you need to paint something else over it to fix it. But if it's still wet, then you can kind of use that method as an eraser. So I'm not doing that at the moment, but that will come up. So looking at my reference photo, painting in detail, so I'm getting that hand detailed in there by using multiple layers. And when I mix one color, I like to kind of find the areas that use that color and work in them. And sometimes they just focus on one section, like if I'm just focusing on the hand or focusing on the face or the eyes. And then maybe I will gather different colors just so that I can blend the colors while they're wet. But in other instances, if I'm just starting my lettering and I'm still early on, I'll use that same color all throughout the image. So I'll find the spots where it's really bright. Like right now I'm using just white to get those highlights on the microphone, on the hand. And those really, really bright areas. Being very thoughtful before I make a mark. So what's nice about using my device, my phone, with my reference images, I can zoom in on sections. I can only zoom, zoom in so much. Sometimes you wish you have more information. Sometimes the pictures a little bit blurry. So keep that in mind. If you find a source, an image that doesn't have very high-quality, it'll be hard to zoom in and obtain those details. Or you can fill them in yourself. You can just use it as a guide and make good judgments or make it a little bit blurry and follow the picture. That works too. Maybe it'll make it really interesting. So I'm zoomed in on the section that I'm focusing in on, which is around the hand or on the face. And I'm looking especially right now at the edges where those ends kind of happened. Because when I was using that larger brush, I was just kinda of plopping, flopping those areas in, not worrying too much about my edges. Just making sure I was going in the central area of where the highlight was. And then with a more detailed brush, I can finer brush even. I can just go in and finalize those edges, make them brighter at the same time. So it kinda works in two ways. I'm making it brighter by adding another layer. And I'm also finding those edges and refining them. Being very thoughtful as a place my marks and I'm not pushing hard on my brush. So keep in mind the pressure that you're using with your brush. Because if you think about it, soon as you push down on that, it's going to open all the vessels. So practice your pressure levels. And I actually would like to do a class that just focuses on brush mark making and line making, that kind of thing. And just seeing what you can do with your brushes and having some fun projects and exercises with that. But for now I just want you to think. Use a light hand. If you want a really thin line, you're going to have to use your brush and ascend way very lightly, very carefully. And making sure that when you put the paint on your brush that there's not too much paint on it. So when I use, when I want a thin line and get some paint on my brush, make sure my brush is fairly wet but not dripping. You don't you don't want a dripping for this. Then you wipe it back and forth. One side kinda do a swipe on one side, turn the brush over, do another swipe so that it makes the tip of your brush come to more of a point. So that would be quite different than if you're using a pen which maintains its tip. So you wanna think about the tool that you're using as well as the amount of pressure and your hand placement. So all of these things kinda work together and as you practice. You'll get more and more attuned to how much pressure you need to give in certain ways, in certain areas. And also the angle of your brush to the Canvas makes a difference as well. So if you have it perpendicular to the canvas, meaning in 90 degree angle from the tip of your brush to the surface of the canvas. Then you're going to have a nice thin point. You're gonna make small marks. But if you make it more of an angle, then you're going to cover a bigger portion of the canvas. So it'll make a larger mark depending on the brush you're using as well. So I'm just refining this edge area where the light is hitting around the eye. And I'm trying to work out where the highlighting is happening on the upper eye above the eyebrow. Kind of establishing where the eyebrow is in in greater detail than before. Because when I put on the initial layer, I wasn't too worried where the IRA was exactly. I wasn't making the full shape of the eyebrow, but I was just kind of giving a hint of this is where the eyelid is close to. This is where above eyebrow kind of is. So now it's getting into the greater highlights and more detailed, refined portion of it. You'll notice sometimes I step back and then come close again, because sometimes the closer you look at something, it can skew your reality of it, your perspective of it. So if you step back, it helps you to see. Okay. Yeah, that looks right. It's almost like when you're looking at a photo that you're putting on the wall like a picture frame. And if you're close to it, you can't see if it's in the right place, but if you step back or if you have somebody standing back, they can see. That's kinda the same thing. If I step back, like Yeah, that looks right. And as I hold my reference image to, I can kinda look at it and glance at my canvas and see, okay, around the right track here and all throughout, even if you aren't quite on the right track and you notice that you're not been this is a great time to switch it, to fix it. There's any problem areas. It's no, it's okay. You can fix it, paint over it. It's all good. It'll come even I'm still practicing to right. I'm not perfect. My practice. I don't think I'll ever be fully satisfied with where I'm at. That sounds a little bit sad, but what I mean by that is always pursuing greater ability and my painting, I'm always pursuing something more. So it's never finished for me, it's a more of a journey than it is a destination. But along the way, of course, I have moments where I can see my progress and that excites me and my accomplishments as well. So it's not that I'm always just not happy with how I'm doing. It's just that I am I don't want to just stay where I'm at. I want to continue to improve and to better myself in all areas of my life actually. But we're talking about art here, so talking about painting. So I'm getting that forehead in and the expressions can be tough. So if you have various expressions in this one, her eyes are closed and her eyebrows are kind of furrowed because she's really into it. I don't know what she's singing at this point. I'd like to know actually what song she's singing. And so getting those grooves, curves correct can be a real challenge. And I found that was actually the hardest part for me was around the nose area. And when I was when I get further into it and I'm working on the shadow. That's, that's when you're truly finalizing it and that's when you find when I found that I was really struggling to get it right. So this point, I'm still having a lot of fun, but I'm also trying to get those sections correct. And you can see right now I'm using my second brush, has a bit of an eraser as well. So being sure when you do that, be careful how much paint is on your other brush and you don't want that to dry out, so it's okay to keep a little paint on. You don't have the completely wash it off right away. But as I'm erasing, I can rework with my other brush as long as I'm not doing that for lengthy periods of time because I don't want that paint to dry on my beautiful brush. So I'm going to keep working in this section, keep layering and until the image comes to where I wanted to be. Until I feel like yes, this is the right spot. This is really looking like it. It has the right tones, it has the right colors. The hues. Right? Thinking about our values are hues, are chroma, how intense the colors are? Are they the right level of intensity? Do I need to pull them down a little bit? Do I need to brighten them up? Maybe I'm mixing my paint too much and I need to clarify them by using more pure colors and hues, right? So mixing it less sometimes is what I need to do. Usually further down the way at this point, maybe less so. But if I'm really getting to the end of one section, then I can do that. I hope you're having fun with this right now. I hope that you're seeing your image already in place at this point. You've blocked out your tone, your values, those tonal values we're talking, we've talked about so much. Then you should already see the image. It's not gonna be perfectly refined Of course, but you should already see that image there. You should already feel like, yeah, okay, I can see it. And then now we're going to get those hues. We're gonna get those values even more correct. Because that first layer, we're kinda just using one or two values are not really. We're just getting those highlights in while I already had my low lights because I have a dark Canvas. If you did the opposite, you had a white canvas which is more common. Or if he did a wash first, you could do that. Before you painted on the grid lines. That's always a possibility, but you could have started just from a white canvas. That's fine too. And then you would have seen, you know, you're one tonal value and then now you're adding those additional values until you, until the layers really make up the right image. So here I am erasing again that nose area. It's the angle of the face. It's the fact that I don't practice noses very often. If you look at my sketchbook, you'll notice I like to draw eyes. It's a very common thing. I don't know what is it about i's that we love, is that the beauty of them, the shape of them. There's the color there interesting. Whereas noses, you see a lot of cartoons and things that even just remove noses or they make them really ridiculous, looking like really large and strange shaped. So noses can be a challenge because you also don't want the nose to have a big line across it. Like if you look at yourself in the mirror right now, do you see your nose like a line around your nose versus when you look around your eye, especially if you're wearing makeup. But even if you're not, you almost see a line. Now, in life we don't often see dark, solid lines like a cartoon. There are kind of, yeah, we see where the edges of things are. But unless there's really contrasted with something like that, edge of your t-shirt or something like that or around your teeth, the dark background of your throat and the back of your mouth, against the contrast of the brightness of your pearly whites. Hopefully, you'll see a sharp line there, but then your nose. We think about the nostrils and the nostrils. We often will draw them like two holes, you know, kids will. And even maybe even adults. It's okay. But really when you're looking at a face, how much of your nostril DUC when you're just looking straight forward. Try and tell me what shape that is. If you're looking in the mirror right now and you're also watching me paint. That's okay too. But I'm trying to help you understand that. When we look at certain parts of our bodies, our faces, we in our minds think, okay, well this is the shape of a nose, so then we draw a line. But in reality there really aren't lines. I don't see lines when I look at my nose. And so it's really hard to depict that pencil that often uses lines, right? So it's more about getting the right curves with varying shades. So the values all about those values to show the nose, where it is and aspects of it. So if you're looking at your nose right now, I want you to try and find the areas that are the darkest. Compare that darkness, that very darkest part to the irises. No, sorry, to the pupils of your eye. The iris is the color. The pupil is the dark part of your eye. So well. And if you have dark irises, the networks too. But we'll look at compare those two darkness is, would you say that they're on the same level? What percentage of difference would you say they are? So these things really help when you're painting because or even drawing, because then you're going to depict it on a different level. My nostrils are not going to be dark, black holes that are circular. Because what I see when I look is almost like a little top of it, of the letter O or something like just a little arch. Just a little arch, almost like an M. A wide curvy M shape on the bottom of my nose. That's what I see. And other than that for lines, I don't see any lines. I see areas of light that some of it's quite soft, I would say. So soft areas of light curving around the nose. So hopefully that helps examined you're in a new way, right? Because if we just think about using pencil, which is what we've often used Growing up to depict things. Then this will really help us too. It's like re-learning. Re-learning how things actually look, and how I can depict them. So put it on your little value scale. Everything, you look at, everything on your image, whereas it on your value scale, what is the lightest light, what is the darkest dark? And then find what you're painting in that scale. And use the tone, the value based on that scale according to your image. So I hope that helps. Some of this looks like, Wow, it's so bright white. Some of it is the angle of the light from the room that I'm working in. One thing with color is when it comes to showing it through technology, whether that's taking a photo of it, getting it printed. You're translating it into so many different ways where light is reflecting and how light works is so different in person. Then through video and then through all these things. So working on trying to get my coloring more precise to what you're, what it actually is. Though, like I said, this is very monochromatic. There's more color to it than what you're seeing now by a landslide. But there is a little bit more color, especially in the pinks. Bright pinks. It's like an almost a bright pink red on the right. You'll see, when I finished the image, you'll see. But hopefully at least this will help you when you're painting to kind of see how I do it. And maybe you'll be able to learn from that and apply some of the things that will help you in your painting. Or see how, well I like how you did this, but I'd like to do it this way. That's fine too, because there's so many different ways to paint. There's not just one strategy or one method you can follow. But this one I found has worked really well for me and is a process that It's not too challenging I think, but that's, that's why it works for me. So give it a try and just remember if this is your first time painting, then, you know, give yourself a little bit of a break. This is not my first painting. So don't judge yourself according to that. Did yourself on your own scale. Notice how I use my hand, the movement of my wrist, the movement of my hand at times. So that's my wrist is quite still and it's the movement of my hand. So I want you to be like an examiner. Detective. As you're watching this demonstration. Look away lightly brush. The motion doesn't stay the same when I'm working in, in textured area, I want slight variations in the movement. I don't want it to look like a stamp. So I move, move my hand around a little bit. And then when I go into this area where there's the skin, I'm kind of brushing left to right, making it smooth because it's a smooth area. The shadows on that arm or so-called. So different. And you'll notice it looks a little bumpy looking textured looking on the arm. We'll fix that with subsequent layers, especially because this arm has more depth to it with different shades. So I'm going to use more shadow to get that in later with a different color. But at the moment I'm just kind of giving it a start. And you can mix your paints with your brush and then directly go onto your painting with that brush that you mixed. Or you can use a separate brush to do your mixing with so that you can have a clean brush. Especially if you're working in thin areas, if you're doing tiny thin lines like a fishing line or something, you know, you're going to want that brush should be pretty clean. You're going to want to have really good control of what's going to happen once you get that paintbrush onto that scene. The other thing you can use is a palette knife to mix works really well. And then sometimes I'll use the palette knife after I've mixed it. Use the backend of it, pink, use my paint brush, brush off some of the paint from the knife right onto my canvas. So it works to you. Don't forget to look at your reference image. Have it close by. You can see from this angle, you can see my reference image. How it's more of this pinky tone all throughout. It's almost like a filter of kinda this warm filter all over the image. So just imagine that translate it onto what I'm doing a little bit more. And hopefully that will help. The other thing is you're going to have a different image so you don't need to know exactly what colors mixing. I'm still sticking with the similar tones. I've been adding some browns as well to kind of mute certain areas. So some raw sienna and some some browns, burnt umber kind of thing. Just a dull down some areas, especially when I'm working in little shadowed areas where I'm trying to get that transition from skin that's brighter to the shadowed shadow areas. That can be really challenging section. So what I like to do is start to transition my tone by using different color. Making sure it's less intense, a little bit more muted. And utilizing my brushstroke, a lighter hand to fill that area. As you can kinda see what I was doing right there. So I'm going to work on this elbow a little bit. And she does have a tattoo on her arm. But it was a very challenging tied to you to try and replicate on an angle and on a curvature. I decided to leave that out. So that's up to you. But it was more of an imagery one. This was a text one that can be very challenging. So I just thought it wasn't necessary for my image. That's how I felt. So maybe I shied away from the challenge. So I'm using kind of that pinkish tone that's a little bit more brownie as well to get this lower elbow in. And the other part is dry now, so I'll have to work in more layers to blend them. You'll also notice kinda those bumps of the canvas showing through if you haven't used it enough paint or if your brushes too dry. And that can be a benefit if you're trying to get, you know, leaves of a tree or something textured looking sand. But if you're trying to get smooth skin, it's not what you want. But I know that I'm going to do more layer, so I'm not worried about adding too much in those areas, especially if I want the color to be brighter or a little bit different. And since your reference image will be different, the colors you use will be different as well. But hopefully, understanding the process that I'm doing will improve your ability to express yours. I hope you're getting a lot of value from this real-time demo. And then it's going to help you make your project that much more wonderful. And all your other pieces you want to paint. All right, let's go on to part three. 10. PART THREE: Continuing on with part 3 of our portrait demonstration. So I'm going to continue on with the same kind of system that I was talking about. Adding more layers where more light needs to happen as certain areas dry. While you work on others, you can come back to those areas and rework them, add more layers if you're finding the color needs to be stronger, especially if any of that darkness is showing underneath. And I found that in these especially bright areas, I needed to add a number of layers to really get to that level of value that I wanted. So I'm gonna do that slowly and carefully and just making sure that I'm not overdoing it either because you want to make sure that you're creating contrast in the right areas. So I want some of that really bright section to be just enough to create those areas of highlight and then transitioning to those areas of shadow. If I don't need to add that bright white hole in that section, I'm not going to waste my time doing that. So I want to make sure I'm carefully adding light in so I don't cover anything that's already good. But this forearm area needs some layers. It's not quite that stuff going on there, so we're kind of treading over it and then we can, we can always blend anyways, if you do kinda go pass that point where it should quote unquote, finish. So don't worry if you do feel like it needs another layer anyways, then we can just go over top of it. It definitely needs that layering anyways because you can see how much of the canvas underneath is showing through in that section. Especially now that I've covered part of it and not the whole thing. And I will need to create more of a transition in that spot. I just needed to get a different color, transition color. So as we're curving around the arm, I'm going to slowly add a different difference of color that I hit start blending into that first color. And I really like how the tip of the elbow kind of hits spot as well from the highlighting. So cut that spawning. Yes. How are you feeling with your painting so far? Are you watching this first and then beginning your work or are you kind of working through it? While I'm working through it, I'm curious to know how you're working through your piece. Maybe you're coming back to certain sections to rewatch certain areas that you're struggling with or that you find interesting or that are helpful to you. So anywhere that I need this color, I will continue to work that paint. And especially if I can manage to start with a light color and then blend it in with a darker tone, and then do that same thing in other areas at the same time. So lighter to darker while it's still wet. So I'm kind of going in a bit darker now. More of a peachy brown tone. Turn to blend in nicely. Probably be using a larger brush at this point. If you go to small, just know that your strokes will only cover so far. So if you're trying to get into a small space, then that's fine. But I have this kind of larger area where it's the forearm that I could use a larger brush and just use one or two strokes so that you do have more invisible stroking. So it's a nice tip to if you need to cover a large space, use a large brush so that you only have fewer brushstrokes shown unless you want texture. This is a nice smooth arm. Working that transition along the line of both the microphone stand and the cord that's happening. And then it kinda disappears in the background. But in this video, In this segment, we will be hitting up some of the shadows because we do still have that pencil crayon showing. So we're going to want to hit up some of those shadows. But first I'm just reworking some of these highlights. Getting some of the transitioning, making sure the skin tone is really coming through and not showing anything underneath or that's just looking unpleasant. You want it to be pleasing to the eye. Unless you don't. That's one thing I love about art, is, yes, you might have certain motive, certain goal set for it. And you know, not just anything will reach that, but you can also go with a path of that was supposed to be abstract and that kind of thing. So this neck has a transition zone as well because part of the neck was brighter and then the other part of the neck like basically where the collarbone. Points are showing through that and lower was lighter and then upward from that was a bit darker. So just be aware of those different sections that are coming up. So right now I'm using a small, about a half inch flat brush. And a lot of my yester years of painting, the beginning years of painting, I would just use one of these brushes, maybe one that was a little bit bigger, maybe three quarters of an inch. And pretty much do the whole painting with, with that brush. You'll find certain brushes that you prefer to use more than others. So I'm not gonna say you have to use this particular brush, but I will tell you if there's a brush that I find works for something better than others. Okay, So now we're getting into some of the shadowed areas, the shadows. So it's going to look light, but keep two things in, two things to note. For one, the reflection from my side window from the right is creating a reflection, so it's looking lighter. Also when you're painting with acrylics, it's going to dry darker. So keep that in mind. So, you know, when you're painting your walls, they dry darker, same thing. So everything's later and then dries darker with acrylic paint, watercolor paint actually dries lighter because of the high water content. So it's going to look like I'm painting a strange color, but it is a bit lighter than the background. But I am using a shadow because when I looked at this piece, it's not completely black or completely dark in those areas. If you remember, we're looking at our value scale. So like a value chart. So where's your darkest dark now we talked about like finding the lightest light and a little bit about darkest dark and comparing that along a scale. So in your whole image, What's the darkest thing that you see right now? Compare that to this current shadow you're working on. For me currently, there was actually some are light that reflects onto the area that you would have thought would be the darkest dark. That's why it's important to paint what you see, not what you think you see. Because light, when it's coming from all different sources will give us different effects. So if we just have one direction of light, then it's a little bit easier for us to presume where the light and darkness will be, the shadows and the lights. So when you'd have multiple light sources, which for the most part we usually do. We don't usually just have one light source. You might have a light on one side, you might have a window. All these different things creating different light patterns and different shadow patterns. So, but again, I chose this picture in part because I loved how many? Like the contrast of the shadows and the peculiarity of the placement of them made for a more of a unique looking image. So I'm not just mixing black in these areas. I'm kind of creating a blend using similar tones, similar hues, I should say, and then changing the tone and like the chromatic color as well. So maybe adding some blue and brown, maybe a little bit of red. If it's going too much blue, then I add a little bit of red to Dolan that kind of goes into Santa, kind of violet color. You'll notice when we did our mixing on the, in our sketchbooks, when he mixed red and blue. That gives you a really dark tones and colors, right? So that will be helpful to you if you practice in your sketchbook. Try and make the colors that are on your reference image. Find all the colors and try to make them. That could be a good practice if you're working on trying to get those colors accurate. I just love being able to make my colors from the paints that I have. Sometimes you need a certain color to actually get to those colors like certain blues, especially the primary colors, how they interact will be different. So if I have a cadmium red and then I did have a different red, those are going to react differently to a blue. So every color that you blend will make a different outcome. So use the paints that you have and see how you can accurately depict the colors that are in your reference image. And you might need to get another color for that or just alter it. Alter your image, alter the hues in your image to be a little bit different and that's okay. This is your own work of art? And have you ever seen? Some slightly abstract portraits that have just those blocks of color on the face that aren't blended in and it's like why is that? Why are you putting green on the face or are you putting a red logic? What's the sense of that? I actually really admire those and I find them really interesting. The one I'm kind of thinking of in my mind is a Matisse that the woman has dislike these different blocks of color on her face that are kind of random. And then this flower hat on top, this amazing flower hat actually did that for Halloween once. And it's really interesting. So sorry, a little off topic, I think. But to start to give you leeway and open this gate to allowing you to take creative control of your piece. As you're seeing the pain starting to dry in those areas, it's not reflecting as much. And you're seeing more of an accurate depiction of what it what I was trying to accomplish in those areas and more of a transition. And still kind of this extra depth actually, especially under the chin and neck area. It gives more mass to the actual object. So makes it look more real and, and kind of more fluid to from the highlighted areas as well. And it hides some of the the squares, the grid that we did. So that helps too, to make it look like a real image. So I'm just working on this kind of midriff area and thumb. So hens are always fun to draw and paint, right? Do you practice painting and drawing your hands? It's a really good practice to do because especially when you move your hand into different positions that are odd, like a thumb coming straight at you. It's not going to look like a sausage. It's going to be more look like kind of a stump that you're drawing. But if you do the correct values, then it'll look like a hand. Trust me, draw what you see, not what you think you see. That's one of my basic philosophies when I paint. And I find it very soothing to work that way. But if you find a different way that works for you, go for it, have joined your painting. So I'm just going to continue working in these areas currently figuring out that hand thumb forward and the lighting where the knuckles are kind of not in the exact same place. And while I have that same color, I will look for areas that need that color added to them. So a little texture on the top. Figuring out how much, how much I need to add in to create the shadow. But still that There's something within the shadow. If it's visible, if it's a very high contrast image, you might not see anything in the shadow. And if you want to challenge yourself, you could get something that has a slight shadow that has more of a bit of a light within the shadow. So you can work within that with some deep values, which can be kind of fun. So you can see I haven't changed the color on my brush much right there until now. Or I just want a bit darker. And when I'm using white, I often do need to wash my brush. When I'm moving to a deeper tone. I often say tone when I'm saying Tony mean values. As I grew up, always calling it tonal values. But if you look online and often just says values. So if you hear me say tone, I'm talking about tonal values. And there's a bit of a shadow that happens on that left side of the forearm there. And I see some of the same colors within the top rate opposite. So I will add those in following the similar brushstroke. Reviewing my image is or anywhere else with that tone, do I need to change my pink color? I have in hair. So I'm looking around my image and finding those spots anymore paint as needed. And discovering areas where that same colors being used, where it makes sense to place it. Like I said before, if it's scenario that needs to be blended and I need wet paint to blend it, then I will simply wait for another moment to use it, or I'll use a transition color in-between. So add that color in and then go over it with another transition color later. What I love about painting in some respect is just these little marks that you make can make such a difference. You know, the how much does the image changed from part 1 to this part 3? And knowing that there's many more parts to go, how can it change that much? But it's these small details that really get our attention, that grab our attention to see an image and think, Wow, there's feeling in that there's an image that I can see. And it's a whole story because it's taken a journey, just getting through this image, painting it. Stepping back, coming back again. Repeat that process frequently. It will help. Stepping back again. How's it looking? Am I on the right track? These are things I'm going to keep reminding you of so that they become second nature to you and then you don't really have to think about them as much just will happen. You'll just naturally step back three times. Maybe you have to remind yourself sometimes, hey, if I start back of it and my getting the right, and I couldn't write colors. Hmm, if it looks a little off, maybe I need to do something different. Wash my brush again, get a new blend happening. You'll notice I've left a little bit of a space in-between the actual line. And then maybe if you have a really strong dark line that happens for sometimes the shadow is like that, or I just want to transition it later. So again, notice how it's looking lighter because of the reflection and because it's still wet and then it will dulled down, it's not going to look so looks kinda like blue, light blue, almost. No reflection. Getting some reflection from the microphone on to the chin and cheek. Most mostly the chin outside. And looking for other areas where it can use that same color. While I still have it. Kinda creates a cohesive look throughout the piece when you do that too. And it saves you the trouble from trying to recreate the same color. In other areas. And especially as we're working in the nitty-gritty details and such. We'll be using that fairly frequently. Have your one color. Get it in all those places where you need that color. And it's working out for me. I feel like especially when I'm just working in the shadows because they didn't have a basal area. This is kind of part of their base layer. And sometimes in the shadows you don't see as much color or variation in color. Sometimes you don't see color because light is what helps create that color, right? So in here, I'm adding some red, going closer to the red side of that violet. So red with blue. Make sure you don't have any white in there unless you want to create some light. Like there's some light reflecting into that shadow from somewhere. If you want to get closer to a black value then and hue, then you're going to want to just clean your brush and mix red and blue. And then you can kind of go more to the blue side or more to the red side. I really liked another part was this long necklace that she had on. And, uh, up until now, I've just had left it black. I just hadn't painted it and now I'm actually painting the necklace. The straps anyways or chain. I'm not sure. I think it was just kind of a a chord type of thing, a fabric type of thing. So working in more shadow. Some of it will come quickly. Don't need to fuss over certain aspects of it, especially if it's in a center, a central area. But when I'm getting closer to my outer line, like that curved line right there, I'm going to want to be a little more cautious. Sometimes it's fun to just be a little more free and work that brush with a little more energy and freedom. And without worry. I always think painting should be fun, but there's challenges within it. And so it's okay if it's a bit of a challenge as well. And I think it makes it worthwhile because it's challenging if you just did things that were easy. I don't know that it would be so fulfilling for me. I keep pushing myself. And the pieces that I create that were more challenging. And I really pushed through those moments where I felt like giving up. Those are the pieces that I love, especially because it has a deeper meaning than just an outcome of a beautiful piece. It's an accomplishment. So I had that base layer under the chin shadow and it deserves another layer. Some areas will need more layering. Especially considering we had just done a base layer for the shadow section. Just now. We didn't do that in the first video. I'm also making some of my emotions to make sense with the actual image it is. We've talked about that a little bit before, like the texture and the shirt and now the midriff, I'm going to brush more side to side. Unless I feel like it's not showing much in that section. That reflection shirt sometimes makes it look like, well, you painted it kinda the silvery color. But it's not, it's a deep color, but again, the reflection is happening. Once it dries, it will, it'll all work out. And from my angle perspective of when I was painting this, It's not reflecting like that. If you're trying to paint with reflections onto what you're painting, that'll be a challenge. And I do like when I'm working in, I have a starting point with a color and then I can kinda shift it like as I'm adding more of this red tone to my paint, I can kinda quickly blend that into areas, giving it more depth and has a better transition as well. Some really loved when I added more of that color into that shirt that really helped it look a little bit more fun, realistic, alive. And just inviting with, with more depth. I love images that have varying depths. And the color transitions just draw you in. See my little short brushstrokes there is I'm maintaining that texture on the shirt that I want to keep. And maybe I'm not doing exactly the texture of the shirt. You know, if it was some kind of cruise shade top or that kind of thing, you can kind of represent it without doing it a 100 percent, but that's up to you as well. Okay. We're just finishing Part 3 and we're going on to part 4. Are you ready? Let's go. 11. PART FOUR: Okay, let's continue on with the portrait demonstration part 4. In this demonstration, we'll go into lots of the shadow, shadow areas and work on them, building up some layering as well as working out any of the areas that show the grid still. So that background, I want to kinda cover that up. So working in the Site Lease of dude, shadow, left chest area. Mixing my colors to get variations in tone and working my way into the underneath the chin area, making sure and get the angle correct as I'm brushing as well. Holding my image close by. Especially as a well all throughout the process I do this. But as we get closer and closer to the finish line, a one to make sure that the decisions I'm making are in the right direction. Don't want to mess up what I've already done either. And that has been intimidating for me in the past. If I get to a point where I feel really happy about my piece. And then suddenly you need to do another layer on top of it and I worry about ruining it and are overdoing it or that type of thing. You want it to look a little bit effortless? Yes. Yet it's not at for less, is it getting an a bit of a transition between the shadow and where the light hits on the chest. And I just do that by using kind of a neutral tone between the two. And as I rush lightly around those areas, it kind of softens the bluntness of the contrasts between those two tokens. And that can be done when it's dry. So that's an effective method for me to do because the rest of those sections are dry already. And it's just one thin area that I need to transition. Not looking to do a whole gradient from a long distance of section. Pinpointing the areas that have similar colors and tones and layering with the paint that I have. C, Then I'm moving from different areas throughout my painting with my tone. And we're going to work on the eyes a wee bit. Because the eyes I kind of did quickly and they were pretty messy. So I'll touch on them a little bit here and then probably rework them throughout. And they need it to dry or as I'm working on other areas and then see still changes I need to be made. So sometimes a tricky part can be not only the size of it, length ways like the width of the eye, but also the angle that the eye moves. It's not the same for everyone. And when you're using an image, you're trying to just go off the lines that are given there. So I'm turning it the right upper lid line, eyebrow line. So thinking about the lines that I see as well as the mass. So if you kind of think of both of those things and you practice that, then you'll be able to figure out how big of how big your brushstrokes need to be when you're making marks. And it's okay if you make a mistake, have another brush ready to fix it, or paint over top, whichever one makes more sense. You'll learn that through practice. Working out that eyebrow. Step back, make sure it's correct. Still working with that small square tip. So half inch square tipped brush. It comes to a nice point. So I like that. I can make a wider mark by using it width-wise or if I use it just the length wise, I can get a nice thin mark as well with IT. And similar with my angular brush. But if I'm just doing lines, I'll usually use my Angular one. And then this one's nice. If I'm switching between the two a lot, then I don't have to have two. Brushes that I'm worried about, paint drying on them. I just have the one working out the other eye. I think in our minds we're using familiar shapes to represent what we paint onto Canvas. And then we're also dealing with how well our hand and mind work together to create that. So as our hand actually able to create what we're seeing in our mind and our reanalyzing that properly when we're first looking at the image and regathering or information correctly, and then are we displaying it correctly? And if you're having trouble getting that accuracy than think about that, it might actually looking at that angle correctly. Maybe put something that's straight, like a ruler or something like that along your shape that you're looking on it, that's the line of the eyebrow. And line it up just make sure you don't have it twisted funny, just lined up along the eyebrow of your reference image and see, is it sliding down to the left or sliding down to the right or is it straight across? That will help you figure out your angles a bit better? And I often do that even in real life, I'm looking in a, you know, if you're standing at a road and you can see the perspective, like the road is getting smaller as I look into the distance, but the road isn't actually getting smaller usually. In this case, this is what I'm thinking of. It's not getting smaller, but it's looking smaller from your perspective because it's further away. So if those angles will go towards that vanishing point, you might have a 45 degree angle, or maybe it's sharper. Take a look at what that is. It's not straight up and down, right? So use a ruler from the same distance from top to bottom of the ruler to figure out the angles. All right, so I'm beginning the background. Hurray. It always feels a little bit more complete when you have sections like the background going in. When you've covered the whole canvas and paint, you feel like you're closer to the finish line. So I started mixing with some blue and red and it was a little bit more on the red side because in my reference image, this section of the background looks a little bit more red. It's too blurry to really know what's happening in the background, which is fine, but I'm just trying to go off of what I see. And what I could see was that just a little bit of that reddish color. As you may have noticed, I've upgraded to a larger brush. Yes. I don't want to be using a tiny little brush to cover this big space. So I'm using a large angle brush. I believe it's about a one inch and it's much quicker. And it's also an angular brush so that I can go around and make a nice edges. I find they're just easier for me to make a nice straight line if I need to. So I do enjoy that. It holds more paint as well with the more bristles and that type of thing, so able to cover things quickly. And I'm just checking to see how much of that space is kinda that reddish color and then move into more of a medium to blue type. So more towards the blue side, I should say. And maybe mixed with a little bit of block two is fine. I sometimes do that as well, so I'm just pure blue, pure red, with some black. There we go. It's awesome. And that little section hand up bit of root two. So make sure when you mix, you're doing a large background space. Make sure you mix enough color that you don't have to keep mixing every few square inches. You're going to want to mix a little bit more color. Not too much to waste, but enough that you can cover at least most of it. And then sometimes I'll add a little bit more paint to that mixture. And it might vary it a little bit, but it's not usually a problem with this type of coloring. As long as it's kind of a similar mix, you know, I'm not adding any white or something like that. And some areas you could kind of see like a little bit oh, the this is a little bit different than the background, such as the bottoms that she's wearing. Can't really tell what they are. The images pretty dark, but I could kind of see a difference between that and like her skin. So I want to make sure that that's slightly different and go from there. So I'm going to let you guys just watch the rest of this section. And if I have any tips about what I'm doing, I will add them in as B roles. And other than that, I'll just let you enjoy. And clean information from my actions. Please enjoy this course. Hi, the first lesson. Hi, students. Hello. This makes sense. And you can see intelligence. Okay. Good. Okay. Nutrition. Hi. Hi. Okay. Okay. Hello. Hi. Hello. 12. PART FIVE: All right, Welcome to Part 5 of the portrait demonstration. In this demonstration, we'll be focusing a lot on the upper half, the eyes, the hair. But we're going to start out with some of this microphone action. So I'm just fixing up a little bit of that chord and now working into the microphone, I had simply put a highlight in and maybe a little low-light and I was pretty much it. And need to get in some detail because you can see parts of the microphone and texture near the top. You know that the mesh at the top was visible. So I need to kind of add that in, make sure the shape is correct against the skin, especially when I'm working in those areas and seeing if there's any dark line showing around it. You know, you don't want that cartoon looks so making sure that the transition line from my microphone to skin is correct. And in the shadowed areas probably will stay dark, but just in certain areas, you'll you'll see it connect fairly seamlessly without a dark line around it. Because I don't want it to look goofy, like a cartoon type of thing. It's not the look I'm going for. So it's very acceptable if that's the look you're going for. All right. So just using my angled brush, my half-inch to get in some of the details. So you can see I've I often use it on the line side, but I can also use it to make small little dots if I'm careful not to put too much pressure and that I have it set to a nice point. And that's how I'm using it. It's always just being careful about how you're holding your tool. And then you'll notice how my hand is resting on my painting. So Sometimes I don't know if you've ever noticed that you'll see an artist using some kind of tool to rest their hand on. And that's just so they don't touch the other parts of their painting. Now, when you're using acrylic, the nice thing is, oftentimes those other areas can be dry when you're going to work on it, but just make sure they are before you rest your hand on different areas. So my my hand is not resting on wet paint. Its resting. Usually I use my pinky to kind of rest it in an area it holds. It's still like if you wear eyeliner, then you might use one of your fingers to kind of hold it still while you get a straight line. And that's a kind of a similar thing if I'm trying to get very intricate detail and I don't want to put too much pressure, giving yourself a little stability by placing a pinky on the canvas in a dry spot can really help you out. I've seen people use a larger brush and using the handle of it, kind of touching on something That's it can rest on something. And then you rest your wrist on the handle of it. That can be helpful too. So you can already see the detailing that I'm doing. These little dots that are showing kind of that mesh look some kind of representing it by finding the little highlights in it. And making those marks. Depends how refined you want to make your piece. You can copy the lines exactly, or you can kinda represent them with light more than finding the exact spot. But depends if you want to go completely photo realism than you do want to make sure you're getting all those spots exactly the same count. That type of thing. Depends how patient you are. And I think there's a lot of patients involved in creating something realistic and just working my way downward, making sure that I'm getting the details that will make it pop and look more realistic. Or approaching halfway. We're about halfway through the painting. Which is interesting because when you look at it, it seems like it's almost done. But these little details take time. They're small movements forward at this point. It's like a steeper climb. To go a bit slower. You don't want to make gross errors to your piece. And I'm just having fun mixing my paints, making slight alterations to the tones. When I'm going into the shadowed areas that I'm working on something, there's still a little bit of light showing, but it's not going to be the same color of highlight as the side with the bright spot of light that's hitting it. So I'm doubling it down. Maybe adding a little bit of black if I want more of just kind of a gray. That's from this, you know, silvery gray microphone. So in this case, I wouldn't have to use the red and blue to make my black and then mix it with white because that will give me a different type of white, sorry, a different type of gray then if I were to mix black with some white, I encourage you to test that out in your sketch book. Take a black and mix a little white. See what happens and then take your red and blue mixed together so that deep violet. Now mix a little bit of white with it and compare the two. And then you can use that in future reference for when you need certain lights and shadows. Really looking at my reference image to determine my next move. It's like a steady. And that doesn't sound as much fun does it on his stuff. Unless you really love to study. The simplest Mark can really make a difference. So I'm going into the eye now. And for me, the eyes are one of the most important parts of a portrait. If not the most important part, I'd say one of the most important parts because the right proportions, probably more important, but getting the eyes, just write to me that's where everything draws into focus. We immediately go to the eyes. You could have the arm a little bit off, you know, other areas a little bit off but the eyes, the phase like the nose area, everything right in that central zone. It's kind of important. At this point if I made the eyes look really odd or I didn't finish them quite right. I feel like my piece would be ruined. I feel like it wouldn't be right. So I have to be very cautious because it's a small area on dealing with and every little movement of paint. Every value that I decide makes a huge impact. So carefully make these decisions when you're working in these small areas that are really important. So I would say the eyes super-important. And that would be probably any image you choose. There's a lot of pictures we choose are based on the way the eyes are looking at us. You know, if somebody blinks in an image, we don't really find that acceptable, right? We'd rather have someone eyes open and not smiling and that type of thing. Now, they're smiling with you. You have the teeth showing. That can be a challenge also, rather than just a serious face. So just kind of a set face. Let's call it a resting phase. I think that makes more sense. It's not released serious, it's just resting. We can't be smiling all the time. I'm carefully finding the highlights, the low lights, and those transition points to make these eyes look just like my reference image. And sometimes I'm shifting towards itch, sometimes I'm shifting away from it and then I have to redo a section or fix it up. And I found the nose probably the most challenging of this whole piece. I'll probably spend a little more time later. So I needed to add more pink in that zone. I didn't bring the hair down quite far enough. I'm actually wondering if my sister had some pink hair at this point or if it was just her blonde hair with some pink getting coming from the lighting because she often has different hair colors and things. So it's always fun to see what's happening next. So I'm using, continuing with the same brush, but I've changed my colors. So when I change my colors, I want something more vivid. What do we do? This point? I hope you know, it's wash your brush out first and then get your colors so that you're not muddied. Colors and muddy in your colors, honestly, it will look kind of muddy. You'll look at the color and say, That's not very nice. And if you don't like it, then it's probably not right to put on the canvas. And sometimes those many colors can look good in a landscape where it's needed. Where the hair transitions to the shoulder and the top, making sure not creating too harsh of a line of shadow that it's the right, just the right amount. And a really great just want to really make that pop on the right side. It's almost like a neon sign. You have this just black background and then bright neon fluorescent colors on the right, just making the whole piece. So you can see my pinky touching the canvas to help me create that straight line. Especially as I move it downward. It's resting against the canvas to give me more stability. Let's try making a straight line with your brush. Without touching your hand to the Canvas. It is a challenge. So I definitely recommend finding a spot, making sure it's dry. And then using that method. And the edge of the canvas almost helps me as well in terms of the fact that it's Street. So it has the wooden bar underneath it for the stretcher. And as I pull my hand on straight now, the arm isn't straight in parallel to that line. So you do have to be careful of that, but if you're pulling it along and holding your hand and just slightly maneuvering it, then that works out to and just bringing that same color down into areas that need it. Just like the thumb has. Some of this really bright fluorescent. And I think it's fun to do a portrait when there's colors that are kind of unusual, like having fluorescent pink along the arm. Well, that's not usual, so that's kinda fun. Back into the hair. Brightening it up with multiple layers. The first layer was not going to be enough. You need to go in. Make it stronger. And also make sure that it's bright in the areas that need it. And I'm not leaving too much of the canvas underneath showing in an area where maybe there aren't any shadows. Let's zoom in to see a little closer look at when I'm dealing here. So you can just see him making it stronger by adding more layer of more layers on top in certain spots where it's extra bright. So we'll go over the whole section, but I'll go over in areas that need it while leaving others to help me get contrast and depth. So just cover the whole thing. All of those pink areas with the same color, same tone. It's not going to give the same impact as if I pull it into certain areas and leave it kind of more dull and other areas. And comes right near the eyebrow. Trimming the face. And watch the direction and motion of my brushstrokes. In this case, because the hair is kind of moving in a similar direction. I can hold my brush in a similar way and have that movement now as that dries a little bit. And while I want to use the same color that I have on my brush, I'm gonna put a nice little spotlight type of spots that are showing up, probably from the camera taking a picture and you get those little spotlights and pop out. Just the way they hit the lens. Lens flares. Is that the right term? Yes, I think so. A lens flare. I think that's what those are. Otherwise, they're just lights actually within the room that she's in. It could be that too. I'm just gonna say their lens flare. So to get that circular image, I'm kinda starting in the center and moving my brush around. So starting in the center because it's safe, it's in the center. Not going to make a mark that's too wild. And then move it slowly to the outer edge to make sure I have that nice sharp line. He's rounded, sharp line that I want. And I can start in the central because it's all the same color in that part. There's even the highlight zone within that little flair. So making sure to include that. Now, when I'm taking a pure fluorescent type of color and adding a little bit of white, sometimes it actually makes it less intense. I'm going to carefully do that so that I'm not losing that intensity that I want. And at that point, amusing the top edge of the, of the brush to get that little highlight in. Blending it in a little bit so that it doesn't just look like a dot added onto it. And always looking for spots that we'll be using that same color. This one has a little bit of like a fluorescent mixed with some white and you can buy fluorescent paints. So I do have some fluorescent pink and red, blue. I find that they dry differently. They act a bit different and they're not very opaque. They're more of a transparent type of color, so they don't exclusively use them because they also seem to dry differently than my other paints. So if I'm mixing them with other paints, they will act differently. So that's why it's great to try your paints in your sketchbook first, see how they react with other things that you're gonna do before you put it onto your final piece. I think that the fluorescence are great for adding that extra bit of something that the colors that you normally have Kent Create. And I'll just add a little touch of that in certain parts of my pieces if it warrants it. And in this case, oh, yes, It warns it. But I was also using a very bright cadmium red to get some of this. Because that was more opaque, way stronger higher-quality paint. Sometimes a lower quality paint doesn't have the condensed color in it. And so when you start mixing it with other colors, it just goes to muddy really quick. Doesn't hold its color very well. If it's a cheap paint to times. You can notice when I'm doing those hairs on the edge, I'm just it's very light pressure there. Just this like feathering. Can Museum little feather. I'm just wonder if using a feather would work. All kinds of ideas common when I'm doing this. I'm adding more white to my mix so that I can create more of these highlights. On top of the bright color that I have that I'm loving. I don't want to overdo it, but I want to add in little streaks throughout to show that it is hair, get the texture of hair in there, and just make it pop that much more. And it's so fun. This is one of my favorite parts, is just adding little highlights like this, especially in an area where you have a little freedom. I could make the hair, I can go in and drugs actually. Well paint exactly each hair exactly as I see on my reference image, but it's not necessary. Lake, when I'm doing the eyes, I'm really focused, making sure I'm getting it exactly accurate. When you're going into the hair. It's a little more freeing. Zoom in and see a little bit better. You'll see how I'm making these curvy lines that follow each other fairly well because often our hair, we socially, if we styled it, it does kind of follow certain curves and patterns. So it's so much fun. And it really makes it pop quickly. And so I've really enjoyed this process at this point, just adding these little hair highlights. So I'll just go for it and have fun. And I add even brighter highlights to certain spots. So an additional layer on top of that, finding. Highlights within the highlights. Yeah, that one looks good. And think about the very top look at your image is it's showing, you know, is there a halo around the head, you know, is it is there a backlight coming and creating light? Kind of a rim around the top of the hair? Or is it kind of more dull and subtle? Some areas for me were brighter and then some areas were kind of more subtle. So I had to keep that in mind as I went around and I can go too crazy with my little brush highlights that I'm having fun with. Some areas of the hair that kinda different directions and right near the temples, you know, lot of people have, at least in my family and people that I know, have the cow looks right near the temples and forehead of our hairs. And, and so you have these little wonky hairs that are kind of going in different directions? Not that I think her hair looks wonky or anything, but there was different directions to consider in those areas. So it wasn't all just the same. And I also liked these hairs right near the cheekbone. We're kind of framing face and then somewhere in veering to the right, some towards the face. So making sure to notice those details within the reference image and apply them as freely or a strictly as you decide certain areas, I like to be more free. Like I've been saying, the texture of the shirt, the little highlights in the hair, I'm not doing exactly what the reference images says demonstrates for me, I'm taking some freedom there because I think it's a little bit fun. Give yourself a little freedom. Can also be a nice challenge to try to do it exactly as the image shows. So if you do that, I commend you, That's, that's a challenge to take on. And I know some artists that do that. And that's their style and that's their method and the rules that they've set out for themselves. So you need to decide. And at this point, if you're just getting started, don't worry about fully deciding what you're going to do play around. And even throughout your practice, if you're more intermediate or advanced, play around, see what you like to do, see what your intuition is telling you to do, but also challenge yourself. So if you are trying to get it photorealistic, then you have to push it further. You have to make sure you're getting every line correctly placed and almost a 100 percent as a scene. There can be some variations, but it really does have to be quite close to what you see. For myself and my practice. I don't feel inclined to take it to that direction for the most part. In some aspects, I do want to create more photorealistic work. But there's an element of knowing that something is a painting that intrigues me and seeing something that's like, wow, that looks so real. But then you get closer and you see the paint launches and things that are clearly not full photographic. So I could just keep working in this hair zone for a long time. But we're almost at the end of this part. So getting close to Part 6 now, I hope you're still enjoying your practice. Okay, we'll see you in Part 6. Thanks for watching. 13. PART SIX: I'll ride who is ready for portrait demo part 6. We're past the halfway point and we're focusing in on those little details that really make all the difference for her piece. So continuing the work on the hair does begin with in this video. And I'm just lightly adding touches of highlight on to certain spots to make them pop. Maybe just a pure white. And just getting it very carefully, I don't want to blob it on, just wanna get a thin little bit. Although that was a little bit of a blob. But it happens. And if it does, don't worry, you can either add an other details or if it worse and it looks great, then go for it. So it's okay. Alright, so in this video we will be continuing the detailing and I'll focus on different areas. So right now we're working in the hair and just see what happens when I throw in a few of those bright highlights. I would just really makes it come together and pop and look more realistic. Like you can really see the light shining on her hair. Brings you right into the space of where the image was and everything. Up until this part, this part sits. There have been tons of different tips and tricks and things that I've shared about my thought process as we go. And as we continue on, just know that I'll be thinking the same types of ideas as I continue. So remembering to look at my reference image, remembering how I'm holding my brush and what it's doing when I'm picking up paint and when I'm placing it. Understanding the colors, because this, this lesson really is all about color. So we're trying to mix color. And of course, the draw is to learn how to do a portrait, right, is understanding how to accomplish that. But the main in key thing is understanding how to represent what you see in an image onto the canvas. Regardless of what that imagery is, it's learning to look at the shapes and values and display those. Get them in your brain. Get them on the page. How do we translate that and transfer it onto our canvas? So I've moved down to the hand because it was kind of just quickly thrown together with my first step. So now I'm trying to get in more detail so it doesn't look odd. And I want that to have a same level of care and attention than any other part of the painting would have, to some degree, maybe not as much as the eyes and the nose, like the facial expression. But certainly the hand has this circular effect that creates a line that wraps around the image. So the way her arm kind of curves down with the hands in like a cupping. Well help the eye of a viewers looking at the piece. Go through the image like that. So it's really neat. And just when you place some of your highlighting, it's amazing how quickly it can turn from looking okay to wow, Okay, That's really what I want it. Now you'll notice I just put a little bit of light color right on the belly and that was just not right. So I erased it and moved on to another section. And that happens sometimes if I just know that wasn't the right color, but I still wanted to use that color. Then I'll go into a different section and there's a little hair that was kinda flying away. And those are the kind of details that are really great to throw in because hair typically doesn't look perfect when somebody is performing on stage, right? It'll look really nice, but there'll be like a fly away or something if they're really getting into it. So it's nice to make sure you look at those little details and include them because that will make it more realistic. Sometimes I feel like I'm a broken record, but these are the things I want to really drill into your mind so that you can have these tools and feel confident in your work. So if you already know some of these things, That's okay. You can just turn my voice off. Shut it out from your from your mind. Maybe you work in a different way. That's okay. And you just want to look at how I work. That's fine. You can shut this off and listen to music while you watch me do the demonstration. But hopefully, hopefully there is some value from what I'm saying. So just throwing in some of these tones are very kind of a muted white into these different pinks with bits of brown. I'm using for this hair, a little bit of raw sienna, just because with a blonde, That's a really good kind of undertone typically, depending if they have any kind of red undertones or if it's not red undertones, then I would probably choose a different color to put underneath, maybe just a burnt umber type of thing. Raw umber will be more on the red side, so the burnt numbers a little bit away from the reds and can be a really good kinda under base tone. I like mixing burnt umber with some of my colors just to move them away from that. Too bright green or too bright of a blue or whatever. You can use like a little bit of burnt umber to kind of bring that down a little bit. Sorry, now I'm adding some highlights. Wanted to pop. So it's a bit of pinky, bit of that raw sienna with some white. And working into the hand, the fingers a little bit. Some of them have quite a bit of darkness at the tip so you won't see the poll finger. And getting those edges. Just write, haven't really done anything with the chin forbid. So make sure that that's looking snazzy as well. And you just keep layering until, until it's just right into, until you feel right about it. You step back, you're looking at it and it feels right, it feels finished. And yes, I go off a feeling. You might need to go off something else. If you don't go off a feeling, maybe hold the reference image next to it. Look side-by-side and see if there's anything missing. See if anything's sticking out funny. And then fix it. And you can always paint over with acrylic, so it's wonderful. But it can be painful if you've already finished up till this point and then you make what you feel is a major mistake and then you having to fix it. Just try and be patient with yourself and be patient with your work. And sometimes those mistakes turn out to be something better. Maybe you got, maybe you're getting closer to what the image is supposed to look like. So it can be a good thing. I've said this before, but I'll say it again. I do think a lot before I make a mark. Like how bright that highlight was suddenly, clearly, I felt the chin was not at the value it should be. But I'm going to blend that a little bit. One way to blend is just adding a little bit of paint and then taking a clean brush that's a bit damp and pulling that paint into the other area just a little bit. And it affect its effective. It works for me here. And then I just took the aggression. Is it still had a little bit of that paint, just a tiny bit. Brush it over another area. Yeah. I really struggled with around this nose and mouth area just void that shadow was coming down. I was fighting with my brain. My brain said it's supposed to look like this. And then I'm looking at the reference image and thinking, now it looks like this. Inner battles. You guys just watch this and if I have any important tips, I will throw them in the B-roll. Otherwise, enjoy this demonstration and I'll meet up with you at Part 7. Yeah. Hello. Okay. Hi. Hello. Hi. Okay. Hi. Hi. Okay. Okay. Right. Hi. Okay. Hello. Hi. Hi. 14. PART SEVEN: Let's begin Part 7 of this portrait demonstration. All right, I'm continuing with my half-inch angular brush as I'm adding in little detail upon little detail here and there. A little says he can see I'm starting on the upper arm just getting in another layer of highlight and into the forearm and into the belly. These areas we'll address more of the nose and the face today as well in this section. And once you've painted certain areas, you're going to find it challenging to work around those at times as well. That's why it's nice to paint something behind first and then on top. And then hopefully not make too many mistakes when you paint on top of what's already accomplished. So when I'm painting the belly, I have to be careful going around the thumb if I've fully finished the thumb. So just working in this hand area, belly area, this lower end because I'm working a lot on the upper head area before. So we can't forget this bottom part either. I'm just shifting tones and making sure my values make sense. I want you to remember all those tips I've told you as we continue on getting these last details in this part 7, 8, 9, and 10, It's all about finding the areas that haven't been addressed using the techniques I've already told you with your brush, work with the values. And standing back, going in how you're using your brush with the correct amount of pressure, how you're mixing your colors. And hopefully by now, as you're mixing, you're starting to get a better sense of how to make the right colors that you're looking for. And if this is one of your first paintings, then kudos to you because that's a big challenge and it can be scary starting something new so good for you if you are at this point and you're pushing through and you're really working into those areas. Here's a little close-up, so we're going to go in and out a little bit so you can kinda see a bit closer to what I'm actually doing. Hopefully you can kinda see how I'm holding my hand, how the brush is being held. And there's not a lot of paint on my brush when I'm doing these details because I want to use my tool with a lot of accuracy. I'm making sure that I don't have a lot of paint on there so that I can really know what's going to happen. I want to, I don't want to guessing game here. I want to be able to know for sure this is what I'm going to, this is my outcome as I push the paint onto the canvas and maneuver it around as well. So carefully placing it in without disturbing those areas that are good and that don't need whatever color and putting on there as well. So in this particular segment, you're going to see a color shift. It's going to look like a color shift. It's really a lighting shift. So I made the mistake of having at the time I thought it looked just fine. And when you're looking in your camera, it often looks okay. And then you put it onto a computer and the lighting doesn't look as good. But I'm next to a window on my right side. And around the eight minute mark, I think it was the sun was coming into the room and I can't paint like that. So and I knew that that would definitely affects the painting. So I've pulled down the shades are on the eight minute mark and you'll see how different it looks. This is a demonstration also of how much light, like the quality of light affects color. So it's kind of a neat thing that you'll see, I guess maybe it'll help you understand that a little bit too, if you're making your own videos or that kind of thing. So lighting matters for color. And to get an accurate depiction of color that you're, to demonstrate that, you know, for, for a digital, in a digital way. So you can see the shadows and lights within this hand that some are quite subdued at the base. And then these ones on top that are just really brilliant, really bright to show where that lighting is coming from. Where the strength is in that light. Where's that strong light? Maybe there's a spotlight on her that is really brightening her up in certain areas. And my colors. The nice thing about this piece, like I've said before, because it's kind of a monochromatic. I'm not dealing with a lot of different tubes of paint on my palette. And then also, I don't put out all my paint because acrylic paint will dry quickly. So I'll just put out what I need for that session and bring out more colors as I go. I don't do that perfectly. Sometimes I think maybe I'm over ambitious. I think we could get to a certain point or maybe you think I think I'm going to work on a certain area and they don't get there, so I don't do that perfectly, but that's a really good rule to follow. Just put up a little bit of paint at a time in the colors that you're using to mix and then bring up more paint as you go. I can see how people would want to just put out all their colors and just kinda go with the flow. And that's one nice thing I'm sure about oils. I've seen oil painters. They have older colors out and because they're so slow to dry, I don't know. I just maybe I will try oil painting at some point, but for now I'm happy with acrylic painting and I have join it. So and I feel like I'm so not where I want to be yet anyway. So I have a long journey head still with acrylic paint, so I don't feel like starting a new, totally new medium. Especially because I still work in watercolor. And I've got some gouache paints on a play around with as well. So there's plenty to play around with, even just within one medium, just within drawing itself. There's so many mediums for drawing. And so there's plenty to keep me busy with that at the moment. Yeah. So right there you might've seen how I kind of brought my brush to the phone where my reference images and then onto the canvas. So what I was doing there was I was kind of checking where the highlight was in the shape of the nose, kind of the angle of things. So my brush, because this one is a little flat, one, has like basically a little line at the tip of it because it's a square tip. Then I bring that and I can kind of compare it just like I said, with using a ruler. If you have something, even if it's just a small amount, just to see what kind of angle it is. You know, is it a 90 degree angle, so vertical? Or is it 45 degree angle? Like right to the corner? And I want to keep that in mind when I'm putting them in place. See that pinky, you can really see the pinky hold there. Whereas creating stability. My canvas using my pinky and then brushing it, pushing the paint. So have more control. It's about gaining and losing control over the hump. The same time I feel like understanding what you can control and making it happen with those variables. There are certain areas that you can't control. I think. Henry go, this is where that color shift C, it looks like a color shift. I didn't just suddenly change anything except that my lighting source in the room. So I have some warmer lights from above because I still needed some light in my room and closing the blinds so that didn't have the sunlight creating a massive glare on the image because the other one, they didn't know it had bright light from the window, but it wasn't shining onto my painting, so I didn't realize how bright and reflective it was causing the piece to look in the video. So I do, in part I do like that this shows a bit of a difference because this is closer to that. You're seeing the colors of the hair more. You're kinda seeing a better depiction of the painting in this part of the segment. We'll call that a happy accident. And when you have a lighting Shift while you're painting, that can actually really influenced the outcome of your painting, as well as decisions that you start making because suddenly your values are going to look different to you. Some, clearly, I felt it wasn't bright enough. So shifting it and it's okay to play around. You'll see it moving back and forth with my Angular one and my square one just depending on which part I'm working on. Because there's so many kind of triangular shapes within the face. I feel like I like using that Angular one. I have more control with it. Because of that tip. That tip can really give me a little dash ir dot. I feel like I was obsessing with this nose almost. I rework it so many times. But that's okay. You keep working at it until it until it's right, till you're at least until you can accept it. It may not be a 100 percent right. But where's your point where you can accept it? Don't be too accepting. And to the point where, you know, you don't push yourself hard enough. But also don't push yourself so hard that you're not having any joy in your painting either. I was pretty pleased with the outcome and even through the process, I felt pretty happy with how things were moving along and from a distance because this is the far corner of my studio space. When I walk into this room or I have the door open and I can see the piece from a distance. I felt like, wow, that really looks like it. And then I would walk up closer, the closer I got, I thought, okay, I see all my mistakes and you will see all your mistakes. But don't worry, everyone won't. Not everyone will, I should say. There, of course will be some critics as their tend to be. And that's okay. I take it as an opportunity for people to participate in your work. Even if it's not what you want them to say. Right now I'm holding my palette knife and brushing the paint from my palette knife onto the canvas. And when I mix a color with my palette knife, I'll often do this just so there's no waste. Because I like to use a palette that has character to it. I just paint on a wooden pallet. I could put my paint on a wooden pallet and that's where I mix it. And then it just adds layer upon layer and it kinda looks like a chaotic mess, but I feel like it's really beautiful, so I like to have that. But then when I'm trying to brush off some of that, after I've mixed with a palette knife, not all of it comes off. So if I use what I have on the knife with my brush, it's also less distance from my palette knife to my brush than it is from my brush to my palette, which is resting on the easel. There's a certain section of my easel that it kinda rests on. It's not that big of a difference, but it's just a little bit right. And I don't know, I don't want to waste, so increasing the highlight there, just a little bit. Zoom in just a bit to see. Aren't you guys? I'm going to let you enjoy the rest of this demonstration without me yeah, hacking. So yeah, Marine jabbering whatever word you want to use. So I'm going to let you do that. And if there are any other points that I feel I need to mention that I haven't already, then I will include those in the murals. Otherwise, I will see you in Part 8. Thanks so much for watching you guys are awesome. In these problems. Section two. In this lesson. Hi. Hello. Okay. Hi. Hello. Hi. Hi. So as I said, hi. Hi. Okay. In some cases. 15. PART EIGHT: Welcome to Part a of the portrait demonstration. So written real-time. I'm going to show you how I get from the beginning of my painting right to the end. And so just a few more, couple more parts after this one till we get to the finish line. It seems like we're almost done, but there are certain parts that really do need fine tuning that I can see in my work. Now wherever you're at, we've discussed this already, but I'll repeat it again. Wherever you're at, you might get to a point where you feel like, oh, well, I'm feeling finished but I don't know where to go from here. I don't know how to make it better. And that will come with time and practice. But you, some of the methods that I've taught you. So what I'm doing right now as I'm looking at parts that either show color underneath where it shouldn't. So maybe there wasn't enough opacity and maybe the color is a little bit off or the blending structure is a little off. Maybe the brush strokes aren't blending nicely. So I want to kind of either recreate that color or are trying my best to recreate it. And, and that's kinda what I'm doing in the fine tuning. And making sure that my brushstrokes are smooth where they want them to be smooth. The textures are there where I want them to be. The highlights are hitting strong in the parts where my reference image tells me they are. And over all, it feels complete. There's a sense of feeling. You might get to a point where you just feel k, I can't handle anymore. That's it. I'm done. And that's okay. I've been there and I know myself, even. I'll get to a piece and just feel like sometimes I'll finish it and look at it and think I could do this in this to make it better. But I've just kind of moved on and it's just been part of my journey. Okay. These pieces we create are part of our artistic journey and it's not gonna be perfect every single time or even at anytime. So just remembering that you're on a journey as an artist, that really helps me to accept a piece when I really don't know how to make it any better or I just feel ready to move on to something else. That's another thing too. Maybe, maybe you could do more to it, but maybe you just you're happy with where it's at and that's okay. So I want you to be accepting of yourself so that you can continue to find joy in your work. So there'll be times organ zooming out and zooming in. So you can kind of get an overall sense of the piece, but then also bring you in so you can see my work more closely with what I'm doing. So right now I'm kind of going back and forth between two my favorite brushes for detailing. And that's my small square tip one and my Angular one. They're both the same size in width. And maybe you really like around tipped tapered brush. That's fine too. You don't have to use these exact ones. I just really like these for filling in the square ones good for blocking in certain areas that need a little bit more amount of, of highlight. And then the angular one I like for making dots as well as lines. So if I need to make a straight line, I really like that Angular one. Just feel like it gives me good control and I can do a nice varied line. So like thin to thick and thin again, that kind of things which is really good for the hair section. Whereas that square root of 1 will give me a good solid line, are good solid square section to fill in some mass that, you know, this angular one won't do that as well with the level of control I give it. So you can see when I add some colors, sometimes I take away using another brush. So maybe it's not fully erasing it. But you're kinda using that erasing technique to kind of gradually lift some of that paint off. So it doesn't have that stroke of paint that's just creates a solid line. Maybe you wanted to kind of feather away at the end. It's if you've ever done in your makeup, it's similar to doing like eye shadow. So, you know, you have one brush where you apply the eye shadow maybe, and then the other one is to blend it. It's similar thing like that. The blending one has to be clean and usually it's dry. So in this case, it's damp. Not wet, damp, I would say. So dip it in your water, wipe it on the edge and then dab it off before you go onto your Canvas. I don't want to create drips, and especially when I'm working in different sections all throughout my piece, I don't want to suddenly create a drip down a whole section of my canvas that I've just reworked. And if there's any parts that are wet could be affected by that. So definitely want to be careful of that. So going in with that Angular rush to get my edges just right, we're getting that a little bit brighter. And looking back, coming in and making sure that I'm. The way I want it to be, constantly referring to my reference image. Close in a little bit. So this is what paint going onto dry paint, right? So how am I going to get that really right area to blend in with this dry paint because if it was wet, That's one thing. It'll just kinda you can just soften it with another brush or blended in with what's already there. Easy-peasy. But if it's already dry, how do we do that? We're going to show you in just a minute. First, I need to add in some more highlighting here and there within the wrist area. And as I'm doing it, I'm following the lines that and shapes that show where the shadow is as well. So I don't want to go over those sections that if you do, you can take an eraser type of method and pull it, pull it away. Notice the different ways that I use my brush. Right now I'm kind of coming to the edge. Sometimes it's more like drawing a line. Other times it's pulling from the edge in little small movements. Looking at how far does light really come down the arm and making sure that that's how it should be. Sometimes there's many quick strokes other time that's one long stroke. We're brushing back and forth sometimes in just one direction. It just depends on the certain sections. So because I'm using a small brush, I have to brush a little bit more frequently to cover a large area. And sometimes for myself I find if I just do a big sweeping motions, I get a little bit out of control. So I'm kinda doing circular as I'm coming to this more rounded section, I'm using my brush a little bit more on a circular edge and motion to kind of mimic the shape that it's working within. And that's actually a good practice for any section that you're working on. Kind of follow your brush to the shape. And I'm trying to make sure I don't paint over the cable line from the microphone. And at this moment I'm just using the one shade. So I haven't really changed to try to go to something darker. So this is an oval mop brush. It's quite a bit larger than what I was just using. And I'm taking and fanning, blending that edge so it's not a harsh edge. Now what's going to happen is it's going to be picking up some of that paint. So there's going to be times where you might need to either relocate where it's working or an also that as well as brushing it off on a cloth. So I haven't needed to yet at this point. But it's picking up paint. So you do need to keep that in mind because then once you go into another area like I just did now, it's going to brush paint into that area. So if that's what you want them, great, but you have to keep in mind that that's going to happen. I'm using that bit of paint that I have to carefully brush on some highlight in other areas. So I love to use what I have in not just always clean off the Raj, like always, just wash it. I tried to kind of use my materials wisely, I guess. So now you can see how that kind of blended the arm nicely and that was wet on dry. So that's one way you can kind of blend it. Sometimes you might need to use more of a damped brush, but try it out with a mop type of brush. This was an odd inexpensive one. I wouldn't go to inexpensive either. Because you want something really soft for a mop brush. It could even be a makeup brush, one that's used for the cheeks doing blush. That one. Because when you put blush on for those of you who were blush or have in the past or have ever tried it, or have you looked at someone that wears blush? You, it's blended in quite nicely. You don't see the edges like you would have like for eyeliner or something like that, right. So again, continuing to work right into it. So if I've blended it out, but then I need to put some of that highlight back end because it needs a little bit of strength. Because of blending will kind of take away some of the strength. So then I'm kinda neat add to that. So what do you mean strength? I mean strength of tonal value. So maybe it was a really bright, bright white. And then when I blended it, it took away some of that strength, took it down a notch. And I, maybe I want certain parts of it to really pop and really have a bright highlight like in the hand. Those knuckles and that kind of area. There were some really bright spots on there and I really wanted to maintain those so you don't want to just blend it right out. So take a look at your image and see areas where it slowly goes from really bright to dark. In those areas you can use like the mop brush to kind of blend it out. But if it's an area where you see a bright contrast, where it goes from bright to dark without that kind of gradual shift. If it has a gradual shift, use like the mop brush type of idea or blending wet on wet. And then if you're just going from bright to dark, you can kinda leave your, leave it a little more blocky, like the lines kind of stronger because that's what is shown. Such as so when I say the softening from light to dark, maybe more so on that right her right arm. How it's going down and goes it's a soft look, right? It's not a harsh light and dark. And then when it comes to like just around the lip area where that goes from light to dark or even certain parts of the hand, the fingers, they have really bright spots, too dark. And I didn't blend very much in between those because it transitions very quickly. So I hope that makes sense and you can feel free to ask me any questions if you if you need if you need some extra assistance. So just adding a bit of the same process on this left arm of hers, making sure that highlight is really strong in the areas where I see it hit those high notes of tonal value and then letting it blend softly in the other areas so you can see where the shadow on the left part of her left. So when you're looking at it's on the right side but it's her left arm. Right. Because it's flips around backwards. So I'm really making that break because that's where a bright light is shining right on to that and other parts. There's the shadow falling onto the arm. And then as we curve around, those parts are in hitting the light in the same way. So I need to make sure it's softly goes from the light to dark. If you're still watching all these real-time, I am so proud of you like kudos to you. I know it's kind of a long, real-time demo of it, but a painting like this does take a long time, so keep that in mind. Don't let the length of these videos intimidate you. I use it to your advantage to see, okay, it doesn't just happen in half an hour. And look at the pauses that I take, look at the process that it takes. I don't just work on the hand once and then it's done. You know, I kinda block everything out quickly with the tonal values. And then we slowly build, and then we keep building. You keep building, you keep building. And if you've ever seen a house being built, but you see the foundation goes in. Then the framework seems to go up so quickly. It's like boom, framework done. You're like, wow. So this is like ready, but it's not, there's so much inside that needs to happen. And you've got all the electrical, you've got the plumbing you've got, and then you've got to do the fluorine, the walls, the, all these little add-ons, and then it's still not quite ready. You still have to do the tiling and and the mirrors and the fixtures and things like that. So that's kind of this is kinda like building a house, I guess I do like analogies because take something that you know and, and blend it with something that you're learning and it can help you to better understand that thing. So I hope if any of you built houses which I don't, but I loved what renovation shows. So you'll see how much time it takes to do certain certain parts of it. Whereas the house itself seems to go up pretty quickly. You can get an idea of how big it is, all of that and you can tell it to house same or similar thing here. So certain parts of this arm believe have that bright light and then it shifted quite quickly to a shadowed area or two, that radical pink fluorescent, reddish color that really drew me to this picture in the first place. And then if I wanted to kind of blend those two lines together just a little bit even I could take my brush and that mop brush and just softly blend it over a little bit while the paint is wet on one end. And that will kind of soften that line a little bit and see how I'm taking some of that paint, using it to my advantage, I needed a little bit of lightness brought underneath. So I didn't add paint to this brush. I just really well I did, but it was by by smoothing out a blending note, this white paint that was already there. You can even soften the tones within that section. I'm just doing now. Just making sure that the shapes are quite her right when I'm doing that. And trying to get this blend that kinda shows underneath the hand. It's even within the shadow. Sometimes you have bits of highlight that once you put in there, but very lightly, it, it really adds so much to your image. Like now we can see the hand of a better like where it is in space. And notice I'm still using that same brush that I initially rushed, you know, blended with a wet paint and then just used it to my advantage, getting those other areas. So I'm noticing that this section needs some tending to some care. Wasn't quite the right hue at this point. So I'm working on it. And I'm doing it slowly so that they don't throw off my image too quickly because I'm getting close to the finish line here. I don't want to just mess everything up. So I'm doing it very carefully and got my little blender brush, mop brush there to help me out. Soft lazy home, just tickling the canvas and light. Barely sweeping on it, not jabbing onto it, not pressing into it. That's not my style. Now, that could be your style. Go for it. I'm not going to stop you. You don't have to copy my style, but but see how I just use that brush to kind of softly shift those values. I shifted them, but I barely did anything really. But it's a lot of thought that goes before those little actions that make all the difference. So a little more paint in there so I have something to blend with and see how that just brushing that mop brush over that section of where the shadow was on the arm. It really it shifted it so easily. I'm still shifting it a little bit. Just a simple feathered brush stroke. I can really shift it without having to try and recreate a new color and tone. I can just use other colors to them that are already wet and kind of blend them over top with a soft, dry brush and with a mop brush, I tend to not wet it first, you know, I've I've talked about waking up a brush by dipping in and water yp net dabbing in so that it's damp and ready to go. I don't do that with a mop brush because I kind of like it when it's dry because it just when it gets wet, all the bristle seem to kind of congregate together. And when it's dry, it It's fluffier and it works better to kind of give me that nice blend. So I've gone even a step further and said, Okay, look, this is still not the right value. So I'm going in with this almost lavender type color. And I think Violets are great for shadow areas depending on your picture, but I often use violet. And, and now I'm just, you can add some white and some brown to kind of create this kind of lavender type of type of color that still gives it a bit of a shadow. Notice how that left side of arm, it's still is really bright. But by adding this, it kind of makes it more of a gradual shift. And that's what I that's what I actually want. And it just took me a little time to get there. And that's okay. That's what this process is all about. Shifting gradually. At this point anyways, using that same kind of lavender color to create more areas of shadow and interests within the shadow. We could all soft. I use my brush. It's very gentle. And that's how I come out with very I paint very thin and thin layers. I don't glob my paint onto the canvas. Some some are distinct and that's fine. If you want to do that, like if you feel inclined to do that, go for it. That's just not my style. You can see the ways my brushstroke, how that creates this thin, almost, almost looks like I don't have any paint on my canvas because if you look at the side, you don't see mounds of paint in areas. It's just almost like a print. Doesn't seem to have much physical texture to it. But I'm creating texture in my values rather than in actually adding so much paint onto the canvas. So look how we've created a dimension in that hand that wasn't there before and you still have the shadows. But it's also made the other areas that are deeper shadows, more intense and stronger. That's the power of the values. You're creating strength in certain areas by taking strength away from other areas in a way. Let's zoom in here. And I'd love to just sort of taken that color and nom taking it into the shirt as well. And it works for me in this image. Does it work for you in your image? I don't know. I can't see your image. And my feelings are typically, you can use it throughout your piece. So you see how just adding that created a different level of dimension within the chest area, like end because we added this bit of a purply color into it. I don't know. It just makes it more exciting, doesn't it? It's like an adding another flavor. We want it to be flavorful. I want my piece to be intriguing so that when somebody looks at it, there's things that keep looking at. There's draws you in and keeps you looking around, accuse you, intrigued by it. Captivates you look how that looks overall as well. So when I'm pulling it back, it's like stepping back. Okay. How did that affect my overall image? And we're getting too stuck in one section. Be careful of that. Sometimes you can get stuck in a section and just yours zoned in, zoomed in, zoned and could work for both words. I think, like zoomed in, focused in on one area. And sometimes that is negatively affecting your piece. So just make sure you do stand back and look how it is affecting what you're doing for you to get too excited. All right, this is the end of Part eight, round apart name. We're almost finished this piece. I'm so excited to finches with you. Thank you for watching this part. See you in Part nine. 16. PART NINE: Hello everyone and welcome to Part nine of the portrait demonstration. There's only one more part after this. So we're so close. And as you can see, it looks pretty awesome, doesn't it? If I do say so myself, I'm feeling pretty good at this point, but there's still some things that need to be addressed. So again, similar process that we talked about already and continuing this, looking at the reference image, seen what's not quite right and fixing it, is there still some highlighting that needs to be refined or enhanced? So midsection, I'm working on the arm and getting that highlight to the point where I feel like it matches the reference image and that it looks good, that it feels right. So I'm working in the highlight zone. I don't need to blend it yet because it's in a hotspot, I'll call it. So when I say hotspot, I mean a spot that's really intense highlight. So it's almost the lightest tone basically that you can find within your image. So by adding more highlight to that section, I don't really, especially if it's in the center part or if it has a strong line on the side of it, on the left side it does. I don't have to blend that out until they get to the side on the right where it does soften. And that's where I'm going to be more cautious with my brushstrokes and then, and paint paint application. And then use my mop brush to my oval one to really blend it out. I do have another mop brush. You can get ones that are more rounded. That's probably more similar to the makeup brushes that you have. If you wear makeup. And if you don't, don't worry, but maybe you've seen those makeup brushes that I'm talking about. They almost look like the gist. They have lots of bristles on them and they're soft. And think of a mop and that might help. So if you've looked at an, an old-style mop with one of those funny heads. So anyways, I'm still establishing how far that hotspot is to go. And starting to blend some other tones and colors, some other colors into create another tone is what I should say. So the other part is dry. So when you're working into dry, remember there's a few different ways you can kind of address that. One way is to use a soft mop brush to kind of blend it carefully. And one way would be to use a slightly damp brush that kind of slides the color into the other color carefully. And then maybe dabbing up any lines that form because of that. And then another way is to wet with what? So mixing that shadow color again and kind of blending the two in the middle so you can even find mix the color that you think would be in the middle and kind of apply that in that section and that can work to blend as well. So there are multiple ways tested out in your sketchbook and then apply it into, onto your piece. Or if you feel more confident, just go right onto the piece and play around on there as well. And if you work with your paint a bit thinner than it'll dry quicker and it'll be easier to work on top. I find when I work my paint a little thick. And then I want to change things. I don't like seeing the texture that it's created underneath, and that's just my preference. You'll find your own style and your own preferences as you try things. So it's not a matter of just knowing what your style is. Because things are interesting. Thing is it's not necessarily what you're drawn to when it comes to art. Like if I go to a museum or something and art gallery, I might be drawn to certain paintings, but they're not my style. They're not the way that I would paint it. So just because you like a certain style doesn't mean that's going to be the style that you create. So it's a very unique process. I could try to do somebody else's style and not come out with the same type of painting. So I don't think you should try to create a style. I think that it's something that's already within you. And as you practice techniques and just all these things that I've been teaching you. I think that you'll find your style. It'll just come. And I think things such as what is important to you. Are you trying to just get a photorealistic? Just, are you trying to achieve photo realism? Are you just looking to express yourself or you just feeling joy in painting and its therapeutic. All of these different reasons for why you created. Might influence your style as well. So here I'm taking that brush and blending in those colors and it picks up the paint. So you'll notice when I brush into some of those shadows, it's creating a brush line. And I'll have to wipe that brush off and then wipe that line so that it crazy. That magical erasing power while the paint is still wet. So this first section, I'm really just focusing on this arm. And it's okay if you're, you know, sometimes you just work on one section and you get it till it's good. And some people like to paint like that anyways, they like to work in kind of sections on their painting. I kinda do a mixture of both. I set the stage with my groundwork, the foundation of creating all the blocking. And then maybe old start to dive into different areas with the same colors. And then from there, I'll focus and maybe just on the hand or just on the face or right now in just on the arm. So you'll kinda find your way also. I think what is keeping you engaged in it and interested. But know that you will have to push past points of frustration at times. So don't get too frustrated point where you're throwing paint or destroying your Canvas. If you're sitting there, you need to take a break, walk away, and maybe do just a fun project. That's not so frustrating to you. Because when I'm doing this, there are times when I feel frustration, but typically not to the point where I wanted to store my canvas. I think that's a assign. It's time to try a different subject matter. Try different activity, just walk away or just be kind to yourself. You a little more kinds either I'm brushing in, we're making subtle changes here. They're subtle, but in the end, those subtle changes can be what make the painting really stand out or really draw a person and are really give it that look. That's like wow, so many people will look and say, how did you do that? And because of all the layering and everything, it's, it's harder to imagine how you create it. It it's like a magic trick or fooling people. It's like an illusion. And spring that. This next section where we'll I bring it next. You can see my mind thinking almost going to be the forearm. Little bit, fix that line a little nervous. I'm stepping back into the wrist again. This was a really bright section and I really wanted to make sure that the emphasis in that section really was there that I had the correct amount of draw and hot and heat hotspot section there because that's what the reference image was telling me and I wanted to portray that. I try not to get my face in the shot, but sometimes you just can't. With my camera setup with an easel. It's, it's an interesting challenge to paint with the camera. Sometimes in the way while you're painting. Things you might not think about. But I do try not to put my head in the shot. So again, this is just another layer on top, making sure that I'm not wrecking any of the lines but enhancing those highlights. Let's hotspots. Beautiful. It's really, you can really feel the strength of the light coming from the top left, but kinda behind us, right. You can see where the light's coming from. That's a key thing. Let's move in and take a look at what I'm doing here with the hand. Refining these fingers. And they were just a little bit sloppy. So I'm just refining sum bit. There's something beautiful out that I love when I see an artist's work very freely. Just I sometimes work very tight. So when I say that, I mean, kind of when you see brushstrokes in a piece where the color is not fully blended in and areas. I find that really intriguing. But I don't work very loose like that. A little more tight. But I do try to allow some of your brush strokes to just be and to stay. They said what they wanted to say and it was interesting and let's leave it there. It's representing the image well enough in that section. I find in this piece I did that pretty well in the top. I didn't get too fixated on every little detail of my reference image. And I think there's areas where you can do that. So for me, making sure that the face, the hand the hand, that's why the face by the microphone, that that was more true to the image. And then an proportions. And then when I came to this section here, I'm working on the top. I'm still looking at my reference image to make sure that my values are all correct. And that's the key thing. Make sure those values are correct. And then I'm going in and I'm just kinda creating a texture to kind of represent that there was texture on the shirt. It wasn't just a flat shirt. Gives you an idea of what she was wearing. And they're still you can see the areas where there's folds, that kind of thing. And that's because of the values, right? So making sure your values are placed correctly and that's going to be challenged and spread. Now I'm covering my work with the phone. So you'll see what what it isn't just a moment. Sorry about that. And so I'm going to work in the shoulder to bring out the highlights even more within the top. I didn't like how it was looking, but I did feel like a could just get a little bit more in there. This is part of the experimentation process where you're kind of making those tough decisions but have fun with it. And and I did have fun adding these highlights. It's like I said before, it's one of my favorite parts because it just makes all the difference in just a little motion. So it's almost white. And I'm using here maybe just a little bit of the red, tiny, tiny bit. Red is also a pretty strong color. Soon as you mix a little bit with it, with something tries to take over. So if you're making a pink, more white to red, if you're making an orange, tons of yellow. Tons of yellow to red, typically just backing up. So you can kind of see from a distance how things are looking. See how that's just making it come to life. So those little details, right? For me, that's what draws me into a painting too. As you can see, the many layers that an artist created and, and to me that's exciting as well as, I mean, when you see one that doesn't seem to have many layers, but a lot of movement and emotion, I like that as well. But there's something beautiful about ones that have lots of layers to them. And you just think, wow, I can just try and imagine your process. And the journey that you took with this piece was not just a quick in the moment, but something that was part of your life for some time. So you can see how I've him stain with sticking to the lines that I've created in the shadows. And then when I add these highlights with what's kinda fun is there already there? You already know where you're supposed to go. Because well, for the most part, because you have medium types of highlights and low lights, your values are kind of a medium zone. And then you're hitting it up with really bright highlights are really dark low lights. So I think that that's kind of a fun process. And I feel like it help differentiate from some of the other sections of the painting as well. Like the skin tone was quite similar to the shirt. So by adding this texture and this extra bright, it really helps that stand out and differentiate. I just loved those shadowed colors that are kind of maneuvering on the top. Like I just think that's another thing that drew me into this image. Well, it's just the intrigue of that shadow because it kind of picks up on different colors in there and different sections of it that are not. They're unusual, right? Because of where the hand is and creating the strong shadows. So we're going to bring that highlighting in from the shoulder now. And own and do this lighter section. See how I'm moving my brush to inline with the folds. So if the full, there's kind of a fold line. So I'm kinda turning my the length, the long side of the brush into those areas. And then as I come into this more Mass area. I'm moving my rush around a little bit, letting it make larger markings, and flipping my brush around from side to side so that I can get paint from one side to the other side. So you might be brushing and you have paint that's accumulating on the other side, you could flip it around and, and not waste, love that. So I was trying to create some texture, but this part is a little more smooth. Kinda just playing around using quick brush strokes that are in different directions and not overthinking those brushstrokes. Brushstrokes because they're less, It's less important habit in a specific spot. And if you get to thoughtful and this section, you might end up making it look like a stamp or unnatural. So in some cases, there's more thought that needs to go into a mark make like when you're making marks, like in the hands and the face, when you're when it comes to close, that kind of thing. Maybe it's a bit quicker in certain areas, especially in this stage where we're just adding highlights. Maybe earlier on when I'm establishing where the values are, being more thoughtful. But now that I know where they are, I can just be a little bit more free to have fun with it. And I love that you have that underlayer. Was base layers that accumulate history and give it depth. I'm just making sure it blends well. Then I'm getting it. I wanted to look. It's very exciting at this point where you're close to the finish line and you're feeling good about your piece, I hope. And you're just getting these little details and these last details and it's feeling pretty good. This little touches of highlight coming up to that necklace. This little touches, touching some great weight here and there. So a variation in my highlighting, starting to saying, isn't it? I hope your pieces starting to sing too. I can't wait to see your projects. Well, let's continue the rest of this part with just some background music. And because I'm continuing basically the same type of thing. And then we'll get onto part 10. We'll meet up in part 10. So enjoy the rest of this demonstration of Part 9. Hi. Hi. Hi. Okay. Okay. Hi. 17. PART TEN: All right, Welcome to Part ten at the portrait demonstration. This is the last section of the demonstration. We will E signing the painting at the end of this. So 19 minutes and counting. So I'm just finishing off those extra little details to make this piece sing just like my sister singing. So I'm going to work with my, mostly my small angular brush. But through this whole piece, you've noticed I've used about three brushes. So my angled, my half-inch angled brush, I have the flat half-inch brush and then also the mop brush, the oval mop brush, which is about one inch, I believe. So all of these brushes created this piece. So working in on the thumb, getting those highlights just extra bright in certain spots. Just adding that little bit of highlight. You know, when you see a painting of an I and there's that little glare. And once you get that little glare highlight in there, suddenly the whole thing looks right. That's kind of like adding these highlights and you're getting that last little bit that we might not think about. And by getting it in there, it really completes the piece and just makes it look that much more realistic. When I add in these highlights, I often stick with a similar color and then just add maybe a bit of white or something to make it brighter. So if I add just white, sometimes that will mute the color like the chroma of the piece too much. So let's say I want to keep it really vibrant and I don't want to lose that color because when we add white, we almost go into those pastel type colors. So if I want to keep a relief fluorescent looking pinky red, maybe I'd take my red and I add fluorescent pink to it. And then that will give me a more vibrant color. But then maybe if I've already got the fluorescent pink and I want to add highlight on top of that. I'll just add fluorescent or try, try something else. Try adding maybe a bit of yellow to it if you want to give it something warm, but not taking away from it by adding white. So I did add some white to mind because it worked for my piece and that worked. I didn't need to add it a warm tone to it. At least that's not how I felt. But you certainly could give it a try, try it out in your sketch book first. See how that builds up with that color there. So let's zoom in and fix up the hues and values in the middle section. So it just felt like they weren't quite right. So I'm really just adding a layer that's going to shift that quite a bit. And here, oh no, here I'm using a different brush. Okay. So maybe four brushes but I could've used still my small one, but I did I do like the fact that I used this medium-size one because it, it allowed me to create symbol brushstrokes without too many times going across. If I use that small one, I would have had to go across multiple times. But this one has less control. So I'm going to fill in the areas that are large first with this. And then I'm not going to be able to get around them very easily. So you might want to have those other brushes on hand ready to go around those areas to fix them up with details so you don't just paint over the thumbs and fingers and other parts that are already looking good. But I just want to get that color in there and kind of create a smooth look. So by using a larger brush, I can create a smoother look. Because I'm not using as many brushstrokes, if that makes sense. It's like if you've ever tried to color something in with a marker, and then if you used a small marker, you'd have to go back and forth tons of times. But then if you used kinda one of those chisel markers, those bigger ones, you can really cover it quickly and the lines aren't as prominent either. So that's kinda my gold layer. So now I'm going back in with a smaller one and getting those areas that that bigger brush just couldn't get to. It tried. So yeah, you don't have to have tons of brushes every kind to really complete a painting. There's been many times where I've just done a whole painting with just a flat tipped brush. Because you can cover quite a bit of space with it. I can make a line with it. You know, maybe that's better for a landscape. But when you're working on something that has a lot of variation like this piece, it is good to have a few different ones and tools that can help you. Especially avoid those pitfalls of frustration that we get into. So remember to step back and take a look at, as you're going to make sure that things are going in the right direction. So, you know, once I painted them Endrew F. Okay. Is that the right? Did I switch it up in the correct direction? Do I need to change that up? And we'll zoom in again. And we'll work on the face a little bit more. There were just some areas within it that didn't feel quite resolved with the highlighting. And so that's what I'm working on right here. You can see on her eyes at this point because we're zoomed in that there's something underneath her eyes now that's not a strange mascara or anything. That's just a really cool makeup that she did. So I'm just painted these lines. She had these cool like diamond type of I draw shapes under her eyes that were part of her makeup. So just thought I'd throw that in there. So you're not kinda wondering if I did some weird mascara job on there something. Or why create if I created a weird shadow? Just getting that highlight, just right so that I can look at the piece and feel good about it. Sure, the highlights are in the right direction and the right amount. Lots of things to consider as you're finishing off the furrowed brow. Cantilever. Finally, at the last part of this, I hope you guys have been enjoying watching me create this piece from start to finish. Hope that it's helping you make yours and get through those areas of challenge that you might have come across. Maybe it's just helping you up your game. Make your pieces more refined. Think your color mixing more enjoyable. Okay, I'm going to let you guys just watch the next bit and then come back to you at the end. So please enjoy the next stage in this section. What's up, guys? Thank you. Okay. Hello. Hello. Okay. Hello. All right. So we just have a few minutes left in the last few minutes, I want to say a few things. I know I have the conclusion coming out, but just wanted to thank you guys for watching this if you've gone through this whole demonstration. Thank you so much, I hope that it helped you a lot. And I look forward to creating more classes for you in regards to finishing this piece. So you're gonna see me sign the piece. So a signature is totally your own thing. A couple of things I would suggest is to keep it not too bold. You don't want it to take away from your piece. So I usually choose a color within the piece that follows the color scheme. I like to personally do my initial, so I do my KM with a little 0. The reason I do that is because my maiden names O'Brian. And so it's kind of a way of keeping the o in there, like where I came from, my roots, as well as Moyers, my last name. So M0, it kinda works out anyways, but I keep it a little o. So that's how I do it. I know there you can look up other artists, see how they create. There's, you can do your first initial and then your full last name. Practice it in your sketchbook. Definitely use a fine liner type of brush or you can use, I like to use because the style of mine, my angle brush tool and I'm currently using because it makes a nice lines and the style that I view mine in, it works well with it. Or you could just use a liner brush, do a little signature, but I do suggest practicing that in your sketchbook until you find one that you like and put it in a place that won't take away from something else. I feel like there's always a little spot that it works best in and I usually choose the bottom left or the bottom right. I don't usually ever put it in the top. I think it makes most sense in the bottom. So I choose the bottom left or bottom right, depending on the way my subject is faced, how it will look in the image. Maybe it will help create some balance as well. So I want to consider that when I put it, I actually know somebody that also likes to hide it within their image. So it's kinda like a treasure hunt, like a where's Waldo trying to find it after it's finished. Now, this is acrylic paints, so we don't have to wait that long before we can varnish it. If you've used low quality paints, definitely use a spray varnish. Definitely. I like using a spray varnish anyways, but there are some really good brush on garnishes you can use. So find something that works for you. You can varnish the piece. You don't have to, but it helps protect the colors and just the quality of it. So there's the finished piece. Thank you so much. And up next we have the conclusion. So enjoy. 18. Conclusion video: Well, you've made it to the end. Congratulations. I hope you had fun and I hope you're proud of the work that you did. Don't worry if your picture didn't turn out exactly as he wanted. This is something that takes a lot of practice. You have to keep working at it. It's not going to happen in just one class, but I suggest that you keep working on whatever aspect of it is most challenging for you. If you've got the colors right, That's great. That's what we focused on today's class. So I'm really proud of you. Maybe you struggle with getting the actual accuracy in drawing. And so let's work on our drawing skills and do more drawing classes. Keep following me because I'm going to have more drawing classes, more painting class. So make sure you're following me so you know, when my classes are going to come out, I'll send you a message, let you know what's happening. And if you want to see what I'm doing on the daily basis, then check on my social media channels like Instagram and YouTube to see what else is cooking up with a classroom. Well, thank you so much. If you had fun, would you please take a quick moment to give me some feedback and let me know how I did. I appreciate you so much. I'll see you next time.