Palette Knife Portraits: Loosen Up & Paint with Freedom

1. Palette Knife Portraits: Loosen Up & Paint with Freedom: You, me, and a palette knife. We are going on a little date. Together, we will spend a little time in our day to create quick and loose little portraits. We're going to let them be wonky as usual, and we're just going to have some fun with it. If you don't know me yet, my name is Journey Marisa. I am a Dutch art teacher living in Antwerp with a background in art therapy. I use my knowledge to convince you guys that art making is not as scary as you might think. I'm a huge fan of quick and fun exercises. That focus on very specific art goal so that it won't be too intimidating or overwhelming, just going to have some fun. And this class is no different. In this class, you will learn how to work more loosely just by giving up a bit of your control. That's what this little thing is for. If you don't have a palette knife and you still want to join in, I applaud you and you can just use your finger, because it's big and stumpy and you won't be able to go into details. This class is perfect for any artist who is willing to go on little adventure and experiment with new ways of creating. So if that sounds good, then let's go. 2. Art Supplies and Substitutions: For this class, you don't need much. This is very handy to have. So black mixed media paper. If you don't have that, you can paint your paper black, but this is easier. Less time consuming. Of course, some gesso, regular white gesso. One of my favorite art supplies. I use this rather than acritic paint because this is cheaper. If you don't have gesso or you would like a thicker consistency, you can use heavy body acrylics. This one is way more liquid. That's it, then you're good to go. Like I said, if you don't have this, then use your finger. Going to do a quick surprise demonstration. Just put in a forehead of some sort and a bridge of the nose and there It's a very ghostly vibe that you're getting. I really like doing it as well. There. Okay, but enough of that, let's take our palette knife and go to town. Okay. 3. How to Create Palette Knife Portraits: Let's work on this guy. This is an old mugshot and I thought it was interesting. I'm starting with his forehead right here. Something like this. Then I'm going to try to get his nose in there, something like this. There. Maybe a little bit longer going around those eye sockets. Let's see if we can give him a bit of a background because that helps as well. We're going to scraping in those negative shapes. Again, it's not about getting it absolutely right. If you're looking at your quickie port and thinking, Oh my God, this is going nowhere, keep going. Just keep going. It will come together. It will be interesting. You will find the beauty of imperfection, something like this, maybe. This will teach you about working loosely. And we need to mess around for a bit, you know? And when we can do it in these little ones where there's no pressure, eventually, we will do it on our journal pages or the canvas. There. I'm going to let me see. What can I do? Because the eyes will be a little bit tricky, maybe I can try them. You can always close your eyes if you want to. But I'm going to try and put those whites of the eye in there. Something like this. You have to not mind that they're going to look a little bit funny. Because we're working with a palette knife here. This is good for me. Maybe he has a little bit of highlight right here. Just a tiny bit. There. That's cool, right? And anyone can do this. Just try a couple of them in a row, you know, because you have to find your groove to keep going. 4. Give Yourself Time to Learn: Before we begin, let's have a little chat about allowing yourself to take the time to learn because I think I speak for a lot of us, you're truly included that we are very harsh on ourselves. And if we do something that we don't like, we're going to make that very personal. We're going to tell ourselves that we are not an artist, that we can't do anything. And that's just Nonsense. Let's leave it at that. Um So, yeah, especially when you are choosing a new and kind of complicated reference photo, just do your best to catch the essence and only try to observe the lights in the darks, and that's it, you know? You don't even have to get it right. Just take the time to practice, and that is just the first attempt in a little series, you know. We tend to get better at observing overtime. So, let's take our time. And more importantly, be kind to yourself. Now, let's get back to business. Let's see. This one is challenging. Um, but we're going to do it anyway. Okay. So something like this, we're tackling the forehead, trying to get in those angles. I'm going start with a bridge of the nose because that will allow me to kind of start to see the rest of his face. It's a little bit longer than in the reference photo. Maybe I can just bring this down a little bit there. There. Okay, let's see. So there is a little bit of white next to his eyes. There's something like that. Put in a little bit too much of the light, but we're not going to worry about that. If you think this reference photo is interesting, you can try it a second time or a third time. It can be his own person. Something like this. Okay. Observe space around the figure. Then you will catch his body language. Let's see. Something like that. So it's nothing like a reference photo, and it's still pretty cool, right? There. Yeah, I like him. Let's try him again, and then I'll show you how different they can turn out. 5. Give Yourself Permission to Go Rogue: Here I am again. This time, I want to talk to you a little bit about giving yourself permission to go rope. A lot of frustration comes from trying to get it right, get stuck in our perfectionism. So why not make a deal with ourselves that we can just take the reference photo as an inspiration and we can change up anything that we want to, you know? There's freedom in that. So Let's keep that in mind as we are taking another shot at that same reference photo. Let's try this again. I'm going to put him off a little bit more towards the left because I want to get his shoulder in there. Okay. Et's see. We're going to put in a nose. Their something like that. Okay. A little bit more forehead. Sometimes you can see it after you put in the noes, you know, that you need a little bit more. Okay. Now, a little bit too much. That's okay. Okay. Because we're still trying to understand this face. It's going to become a really different face this time, and that is okay, you know? Let's make him a little bit goodish. Why not? And I can show you that even though it's not looking anything like the reference photo, and it's so imperfect, it's still going to be pretty cool. Because I really want to convince you guys to give this a try. Just wing it like I'm winging it. There. Now I'm going to put in a shoulder. Cool. You can go around that figure. M him disappear into the background a little bit. Whatever, you know? Whatever it takes to get something that's fun and free. I. The shoulder is a little bit higher. Something like that. You can really get rid of that. If you think that head was too weird, you can just get rid of the black entirely. You can try to just scratch into the paint if you can still do it there. It's a little bit too thin maybe, but you can go over it again. Maybe something like this. You can still just look at your portrait and see what it might need. No. Maybe I want this to be a little bit more. I think this is a pretty cool quick portrait. Even though I messed up about everything. If you're looking for realism or likeness, then I did a pretty bad job, if that was the goal, but it wasn't because we just want to do quick little portraits, have some fun with our palette knife, and learn about painting loose, we can intensify the white in the background. It also has an impact on on the portrait. You know, experiment. And the ones you like, put them up in your studio so you can see them often. There. Well, I had fun. I hope you will join me and just do a whole bunch of these. You'll learn so much, I promise you. And take a look at these two. They are wildly different from each other. Even when we use the same reference photo. So go ahead, take your reference photo and do about three or four portraits from the same one and see how many different portraits you can create and you can pick your favorite one, and maybe you can use that for either a whole new project or you can do some mixed media on top of it, have some little bit more fun with them. You know, keep playing. 6. Your Turn! Let's Play Hard!: I hope you enjoy that. For the class project, I just want you to play and have fun, you know, exactly as I did or maybe in your own way. And if you feel really adventurous, then you can try to pick a couple of colors and just layer them on top of each other while you are observing your reference photo and see where that takes you. And if you want to, you can watch me create this colorful portrait from start to finish. I will put the link in the PDF you can find in your class resources. And if you would like to go on another little art adventure, then check out my other classes. And don't forget to follow me because that's the way you will get an email whenever I publish a new class. Yeah, that's about it. And thank you guys for the reviews. It really helps me. I creating.