Transcripts
1. Introduction: Hi, my name is Martin. I'm a Colombian artist and in this class, I wanted to show you how to simplify landscapes. You've seen a ballad knife. Simple paintings are very attractive because they can express a lot using very little the ability to make the viewer understand that there is a forest where we hardly find a few broad strokes is indeed a complex matter, especially for those profession is this who feel that their works are never complete. That is why a painting knife is the ideal tool to create images and to learn to express ourselves without us seeing many details. To do these, I will walk you through all the materials you need and the basic techniques to use a palette knife, because this isn't just a tool for mixing paint on your palette. You can actually use a painting knife to create some pretty stunning effects in your paintings, which are not possible with a brush. Then I'll show you how to create three different paintings. They starting from the conception, simplifying shapes, choosing colors, and the painting process itself. So I hope that you'll join me in this class and I'm looking forward to see your projects.
2. Materials: And the materials we need for this class are paintings. You can use oils or acrylics for the technique that we'll use today, there is no much difference. So you can use the ones you prefer. We simply need a thick paint that allows us to create an imbecile and that doesn't crack when it dries. Another supply additional to the paintings is the Lucan impasto. This is a medium that speeds up the drying process of the old paintings. And it gives the bait very thick so you can get a better finished. This is very useful when you are planning to work with a lot of texture or where you are working on layers, or you don't want to wait many days for your brain to dry. You don't have to use it if you don't want it. Indeed, I am not using this today. I just want you to know that it exists and it can be very useful. Next, we need some bike knives. When you bite some, look for a flexible but start the blade, a comfortable handle and a longest straight edge. There are many different types of knives to create different textures, but these are the basics. And to be honest, I seldom use all of them. These ones are my favorites, and I use them all the time. We also need a ballot. I made these a couple of years ago with a piece of plastic that I cut to the shape of a bullet. When we work with a knife, it's very important to use a smooth surface like this. With a time. Beings can accumulate on the surface of the ballot, and that generates this type of situation. It's very difficult to work with a painting knife or rough surfaces. So tried to always keep your ballot clean, especially when you're working with a painting knife. What I do is that I stick a self-adhesive paper on the ballot and in case the ballot is too dirty or I don't have any time to clean it, I simply remove the paper and leave you with a clean surface to continue painting. Obviously, we need a surface to work on. I'm going to use some small canvas like this, bad. It can be wood or even worried color paper have in mind that you can paint with oils on paper for practice, but never use paper for a professional BCE, because the material won't last for a long time. We also need some water-based paintings to prepare the surface because I want to show you how to use negative space when using a ballad knife. And finally, we are using paper towels, pencil, eraser, and paper.
3. Basic palette knife techniques: The first thing you have to learn is how to mix paint and pick it up with a palette knife. Is spread the paint and don't be afraid to bend the knife. Because this is why it's important to use a flexible blade to take the paint cut diagonally with the ballot. You will see that with this type of movement are more uniform, amount of paint is obtained in the knife. Knowing how to control pressure, essential the hi Gary, the pressure you apply, the least amount of beta will remain on the canvas. We usually start by adding a little paint, because if r B is has several layers and we start with a lot of impasto. The final result could be excessive. Also, note that when a layer of paint is applied over another that is still with, we may end up lifting the first layer. For this reason, it is necessary to have control over the pressure. Because sometimes when we apply paint with a knife, we only need to gently Dodge to surface. I recommend you to practice different levels of pressure before you start painting. This will help you to save time and materials. Palette knives are useful for a blind claimed batches of color onto blank canvas. The blade allows you to swipe a layer of color onto the Canvas in a motion that recalled, a baker is moving frosting over a cake with a ballad knife. You don't need to dilute your bank with medium as you would with a brush. As a result, the color that you applied with a palette knife looks more vibrant. To create some effect, you can use a background color instead of applying new collar. Solve over a wet surface, use the pointy part of the ballad knife to remove the paint on top and expose the background colour. Try you seeing different angles to get different results. You can even use other things, lie to fork, to create different textures in your artwork. If you load just the edge of the blade with paint, draw it across the canvas. You can make curious parallel, straight lines. This technique is helpful for the victim my mind, objects like fence posts or buildings, by modulating the pressure and angle of the knife stroke. You can turn this lines into fun shapes, zigzags and seniors, curves. Edges in a painting are the places where two shapes are colors meet their expressive places. Can I reveal what the artist wants to emphasize and the base at which they want the viewer to x and y and work for a crisp edge. Load the palette knife with band and then laid flat onto the canvas. As soft edge is made by lowering the pain together at the intersection of two colors for is the ballad knife onto the boundary and move it back and forth to work the batches of wet band into each other. To create the gradient makes the colors that you are going to use first, for example, I want to go from red to yellow. So I will make Stay intermediate color, which is orange. Apply stripes of each color together as the video shows, and then clean the blade and mix the colors a bit using very low pressure on the paint. This technique is especially useful for skies and other things that look soft. But remember that the idea of this class is to learn to simplify things. Saw You'll have to achieve perfect gradients, which is one the colors to come together a little bit. And the observer size will do the rest of the work. If you already have two shapes that create the hard edge, but you want to make it softer to, for example, create the illusion of atmospheric perspective. Use the edge of our clean painting knife, held that a 45-degree angle from the surface of the board and connect the two areas by gently scraping the surface of the board to expose some of the early under painting and blend the beat of the two areas. This is a good way to change the edge without altering the rest of the shape. Marbled texture is very thirsty because of the veins with House and with a palette knife, we can create something similar very easily because two or more colors and mix them. But don't mix them well. Because what we need is to be able to be different colors. At the same time. Saw applied the paint in one pass, creating a thick stroke. Broken color. You can use a stunning effect if you use properly these technique and one of its main uses is to give interest to a flat surface. You can create the filling of a short brushstroke by adding paint with the deep of the palette knife, the amount of impasto you'll get depends on how much space they take. This technique is very useful for creating flowers and sparkles in the water. You can let the background color show or feel and diarrhea with dots of the same color to create texture instead of shapes. And the last You need to know is just removing paint. If you are not happy with the results, just take a palette knife and remove everything you did before. Make sure you don't mix all the colors. That way. You'll be able to use them again. Art supplies can be expensive, but this is something that might help you to avoid wasting pains. And of course, with money. During the project lessons, I'll show you how these techniques can be applied to an artwork.
4. Project: For the class project and going to paint three different landscapes as seascape and mangrove forest and a desert. You can paint alongside with me to create your own paintings and then upload a picture of e to the tragic section so everyone can see it. And now let's get started.
5. Break it down to simple shapes: The first you have to do to simplify an image is to break it down to simple shapes. In this lesson, I will create a thumbnails from which l work the paintings. Let's start with the seascape, which is actually the simplest. Ask yourself what elements make up the landscape, which elements you can remove, and which ones you can suggest. In this case, the most fundamental part is the horizon line. Only with this one, we could say that we already have a marina, but I'm going to add other things. I want this to be our rocky shore. And if you have seen these types of formations, you know that they usually have a lot of texture and complex shapes. But I will only draw simple shapes. I draw a mass of rocks in the background and another one in the front. And making a line to divide the c and the sad, mad when I painted, I didn't want it to be a hard edge. He just wanted to blur. Okay, I think that's all for now. For the second image, I will make a mangrove forest. I chose this type of forest because it is quite complex. Mangroves growing the ocean shore and half into date a real roots which are difficulty when paintings because they are curved lines. And remember that we will be painting with a straight tool. Paintings. I complete mangrove forests with all those roots and leaves would be the opposite of simplification. So what I will do is to suggest the forest. And for this, I, you only need a few trees and a Fauci broke ground. The main characteristic of mangroves are they are Uriel roots. So I will remove the lives completely. Because just by drawing the roots, the viewer can recognize the type of tree painting. The leaves would only add more elements to the painting. So when you're doing your sketch, ask yourself, what is the essence of the object? What makes this tree, this flower? These mountains especial, once you capture the essence of the object, the rest is unnecessary. The reason I'm only using three mangroves and not two or four, is because according to composition theory, even numbers reflect order and formality, while odd numbers are more natural and casual, and therefore, they are a very choice when painting something like the forest. And the reason why I don't use more than three is because I want to keep the composition as simple as possible, especially because I'm painting on a very small area. You can also add light and shadows to define your values. These will serve as a guide. We, you do not have a well-defined reference. When I do this type of exercise of simplification, I like to look for various references and then make my own interpretation of the landscape. It may be a bit difficult at first, but it will help you to grow as an artist as you develop your own eye to composition. And now as you can see, and live in the lighter tones in the background and the darker ones in the foreground. I'm imagining the landscape as if the ocean is in the background, while the dense forest is right here in the front. And therefore, the light tones will be behind. The last foam Nao Is the desert. For this, I'm going to be inspired by these photographs of New Mexico. I come from a very mountainous region located on the end is mountain range. And no matter where the loops that are always mountains around me. When I went to the desert for the first time, I was shocked of not being able to see any mountains or only seen some fuzzy shapes on the horizon. So when I think of the desert, what comes to my mind is the sense of remoteness that those distant mountains produce. Saw in this painting. I wanted to convey that feeling. I draw the horizon line on the upper third. This is a composition tip. If you want to create an image with less open filling, give more space to the land and less to the sky. Okay? And finally, I draw those mountains that attract my attention so much. And that's all. I don't need more to make a desert. There are so many things that I could add, but for now, I want to keep it simple and lead the color did the rest. Maybe when I'm painting, I might add some plants. Bad. That will be later. Now that we have drawn are thumbnails, it is time to decide what colors will use. So see you in the next lesson.
6. Selecting colors: I believe that balance is the key to simplification. The basis to compose an art work is the right use of the visual elements, which are color, tone, value, lines, shapes, and texture. If you simplify all of them, you might end up with adult piece. But if you balance the visual elements, you can get something simple and yet interesting. Let's just talk about the most important elements for this technique, which are shape, color, and texture. If you use complex shapes, tried to use a simple color palette and texture. If you use simple shapes at more colors and textures to your painting. In this image, we can see some color combinations. These are very useful to maintain a cohesive color palette. When choosing colors for a painting. Tried to play with the color wheel and consciously choose a combination. Sometimes we just want to use one color because we like it, but it's much more important. Think if that color will work with the whole composition, cures a tip to choose colors, choose the pallet, and then also choose the dominant color. It's very important that a painting doesn't have the same amount of each color as that would make the colors look confusing. For example, if you're going to use a combination of green and red, the amount of color that you apply should not be 50-50, but let say 20% green, 80% red. Now that we know that, we are going to define what colors to use for each of the business, for the seascape, I want to make a very pale sunset. So I will use a split complimentary composition using cobalt blue, vermilion red, and cadmium yellow. I'm going to mix these colors with a bit of black and white. Saw date don't look too bright since I chose such a simple shapes, I want to create reflections of different colors on the water and rocks to make it look more interesting. In the case of the mangrove forest, I planned to use something much simpler. I really loved the shape of this trees and I want the shape to be the protagonist saw, I chose an analogous combination for which I will use Thaler blue, viridian green, and some Aaker yellow. Also, the true center of attention, will be only the green. Finally, is the desert. For this painting, I will use a different technique as I want to use the negative space, which will be a bright orange color, as in the seascape. The shapes in this painting are quite simple, and therefore, I want to allow a greater contrast in colors. So I will use vermilion read, cadmium yellow, and cobalt blue. These are the only colors that I'm using today, apart from black and white, which doesn't really count as colors. So I think that we are finally ready to start painting.
7. Painting a seascape: I start by putting a background color on my canvas. This canvas was already prepared. So the only thing I want to do now is to give it a different tone to the wide. In case I leave some areas without veined, no white patches are seen. As you can see. I don't care if the surface is not completely even because in this case, the bag round does not have much relevance. I chose purple because of the colors that I'm going to work with. Iqs are of also use some kind of blue. But I had this color Hunt and I think it will look pretty good. Once the paint is dry, I put the colors on the palette. These are cold balloon, titanium white, vermilion red, and cadmium yellow. The yellow is a little loud, so I will move it so you can see it. Well, I'm going to start with the sky. I want to paint a bail sunset. So I'm mostly using blast hillshades for these. I mix white with a little colored blue and a bunch of black. I put the black outside the area. Since this color, it's very invasive. A little bit of black can ruin an entire batch of color. So I don't want to raise cabinet in such a small world carrier. This guy will have several colors. And the first one is a grayish blue. Apply the color on the upper part. Being careful not to overdo it. Seeds, you have to leave room for the other colors. If you don't like how it's looking, just lift the color and do it again. The second color will be a light blue. I'm not going to mix black with it because I wanted to look brighter. Anytime you change of color. Remember to clean your blade from both sides. Sometimes we only cleaned it from the bottom and we forget that there may be traces of paint on the top. Ok. But the new color near the old one. And avoid the line on the horizon sees we will reserve that for our skillset. For the orange color, I'm going to use cadmium yellow, vermilion wrath, and of course, white. I mix this here with a bit of blue, the one that I used earlier for the sky. As I want to make the color look even less bright. And blue is the opposite of orange. It is the ideal combination to mute the colour, the colour over the lower part of the sky. Being careful not to mix it with the pain that I put on earlier. You will see me preparing the same color over and over again. Because I prefer to mix the color little by little scenes when working with oils and acrylics. The last thing we want is to have leftover banned because that is generally lost faint, unless of course, you have one of those pods that hold moisture longer. I've been thinking of making one very soon. For now, I preferred to make it the same color many times, instead of leaving any excess, I add the color on the horizon line, creating a hard edge. If you see a batch without band in the center of this guy, it's because I could not decide whether to make it blue or orange. To make the colors less boring. I'm going to add more shades by mixing more red to the orange. Only in some parts. The area where the Sony's should be brighter. So I'll put more yellow in it. Whenever you see me taking the ballot out of the screen is usually because I'm cleaning need on a tissue paper that I have nearby. I am not a huge fan of bustle colors and lack of dark tones. Dramatic lining, very much in the style of the Baroque period. But today, I decided to try something different. A think that in addition to looking pretty good, it does its job. Creating a very calm environment, which is just the one I was looking for. I finally decided what color the batch without pain should be. So I need more light blue area. Hints of a Mars saturated uhm, hold very different places in the sky. Come on. I add white point, which is the Sonya. Will these, I think we are done with the sky. The water should follow the opaque palette that I worked on in the sky. That way, it will seeing that all the elements of the painting coexist in the same world and are those that same light? So I makes cobbled blue with white and a bit of black. For this color, I use less wide than I used for this guy. I created a hard edge on the horizon line and live the parts that correspond to the rocks without paint. Apply different amounts of paint on the surface, DAD away, you will create more textures. If you put a thick layer of paid over an entire area, the end result will be smooth. And one of the main goals with this technique is to create different textures. Near the coast. The color is light and by the foam of the sea. And in the area where he there flexion of the sun is in the water. I leave the space on painting. Sees there I will use warmer colors and I don't want them to mix. Okay. For the rocks, I want to use a brown hue. But instead of UC I brown color that comes straight from the tube. I'm going to mix it up using oversight, the columns, in this case, blue and orange. I applied the stone under rocks in the background. Bad for the rugs in the foreground. I want there to be a graded contrast. Therefore, I mix a pinch of black to the Brown a had already prepared and add the shadows. For the light. I use the same color of orange that I applied in the sky. Then I dig the same color and apply reflections in the sea. Light is a unifying element. You can make the light the same cue in the sky, the water, rocks on the sand, even though the rest of the color of each thing is different. And this creates a more dramatic effect. In addition to joining all the parts of the same building. You will see that building this type of work is quite simple. Just try not to go crazy with the color unless your intention is to create a very stringent painting. For this first piece, I prefer to use an opaque palate to show you the effect that can be generated with desaturated colors. And the seascape reflects our very calmly. Without looking sad. For the third baby, I will use very similar colors, cobalt blue, orange, and yellow. Bad, in that case, I want to handle a very saturated pallet. So be aware of the grain difference that the use of wide makes mixtures. Make sure to follow. After you are finished working will DRY. Almost towards less. Nice five by scraping the dry by the way, with a razor. But sometimes this is just not worth the hassle. John, good to regular with your palette knife strokes, tried to mix things up in terms of stroke length, color, or texture. The palette knife can scrape away paint just as easily as it can apply paint. But be careful because if the paint is already dry, you might end up damaging your tool. The palette knife comes at the sacrifice of accuracy and into kate brushwork. So try to make up for read with a stunning use of color. I made the sun with white and brown, which I placed almost does Alan Watts reflections. Remember to use very little pressure. You will avoid the list in the previous layers of paint. At this point. Adjusts values. Using yellow and white. Lighten the rocks. Saw De Zhong blamed with Skype. Yeah. I didn't paint foam to the rock mass at the back. And the reason why is simply because it is too far away. This is a piece with very little detail. So there is no reason to clarify elements that are not nearby. I think that this is a common mistake. And that is why the palette knife is such an interesting tool because it doesn't allow us to work at a level of detail unless we work as surface that is very large. That is why I think that when we are going to start simplifying landscapes or any other subject, it is advisable to work on a small canvas. Or if you want to make much larger pieces, then the ideal is to work with a medium or large pallet knife. This will force you to make figures with little detail and to use few strokes to define the different objects of your landscape. That's great. As you can see. You don't need all the unusual palette knife shapes. You just need a few sizes of stars that are shaped by knives. For this small piece, I only used one because it is so easy to clean a palette knife. You just need to clean it with a cloth or a paper towel and all the paint is gone. This is a huge advantage over brushes, which require much more care. It is important that the line between sea and land is not very clear. So tried to blurrier and NADPH farm in the parts where the sea collides with another element. I could keep working and working on this piece. But I think it's fine now. Sometimes it is difficult to know when a painting is finish, especially when we work with this type of technique or when we are used to beating realism. If we look at the picture closely, we can notice that there are some spaces without veins in which we can see that purple background. And that in general, no one would notice those spot since the color I chose for the background blends quite well with the rest of the painting. If they were white, I assure you that day would be a lot more visible. That is why God initial step of painting the background is important. Like how things went with this little painting. It has somewhat Impressionistic style and the texture looks quite good. I also like that the horizon line is blurred and yet we still know it is done.
8. Painting a mangrove forest: As with the seascape, the canvas that I'm going to use who was previously preferred. And the background color will only serve to avoid white patches showing through the band. Since the main color of these PDI is viridian green, I chose the same shade for the background. Once the acrylic paint was dry, I did the sketch on the canvas as a guide, even though a large part will be covered when I start to paint, and I want to be able to see the drawing for so long. As you can see, I'm going to work this image vertically. Scenes. I will only bank three threes. So in this case, it is very to follow the natural shape of the figures. I put the colors that I'm using on the ballot which are tightening. Why'd they look blue, yellow, ochre, and vary the green? I'm going to start with the background and then I'll paint each of the mangroves from back to front. The background is divided into two halves. Declares part, that would be the sky and the water at the bottom. For the top part, I mix white, viridian, green, and yellow ocher, tried to keep the color very light and add more light if needed. At this color to the background, you can follow the sketch may differ, living the areas of the branches without color, or you can apply it over the entire background if you feel like you don't need any guidance to trace the trees later. I prefer to do it piece by piece and adjust to keep a beat of the sketch. But because I don't want to have a thick layer of paint to work on later. Keep in mind that the background is very light by the trees will be dark. So if you apply dark green light tone, you will probably end up with a much dollar tone of green. Those who work with acrylic, those who work with acrylics will have the advantage in this case, since you just have to wait a while for the background being too dry, or use a hairdryer to make the process faster. Very quickly, you'll be able to work with on drives. Okay, I'm going to use a darker shade to make a gradient that will go from very light on top to a dark blue on the bottom. However, I don't want these gradient to be perfect. And you'll see later that I'm interested in having a smooth edge between the water and the surface to create the idea of a forest. And going to add more trees to the clothing in the background to make them. I'm using the same background color, but several shades darker. And this way I draw some diffuse figures, don't take too much effort here. The important thing is to suggest that there are more trees in addition to the ones that we can see well defined. It's time to bring the water for this makes fail of blue, white, a little occur and some green. When you are happy with the color added, just like you did with the job. And add some hints of green and blue to make it more interesting. This tree is grown water and in some areas, and that is why they have such strange roots, which also serve as a refuge for all kinds of fish, molluscs, crustaceans. Amongst other. They are very interesting places that are full of life everywhere. Despite the fact that many people consider that they emanate and bullies and others, and that they are a source of mosquitoes. When we paint with a brush. There is a big difference between using oils and acrylics. The main thing is the drying time, but there are also other things that differentiate them, such as the softness of the brush strokes that can be easily achieved with oils, but not with acrylics. However, when we paint with a palette knife, these two mediums are not different. As long as you use acrylics without consistency, similar to Oil's. Well, in craft stores, they sell acrylic paints with a very liquid consistency that doesn't serve to create impasto. So we can use it with this technique. And that is one of the things that makes this technique. So versatile. Sees it basically needs thick paint that doesn't crack when dry. And that is why, even though I'm working with oils today, this class is aimed at people who use both oils and acrylics. Because the process with both media is almost the same. I would even say that it drying time is no longer relevant when working on small areas because since the layers of paint are so thick, there is not enough time for it to dry while we're painting. Finally, I must say that there are also certain differences in terms of the final polish. But this also depends on the quality of the pains and brand we are using. Remember to create a smooth edge between the top and bottom of background. This is a resource that is used when we don't want to give too many details of what is happening in the distance. Maintaining our burly defined horizon helps to create the sensation of remoteness. And in this case, this will make it the observer feel like there is a whole mangrove forests where the view cannot reach. If you're interested in knowing more about this topic, I recommend you to check the atmospheric perspective theory. It is a very old Dan's useful technique not only to beta realism, but to make impressionistic type landscape or even something more abstract. Sex, sex, sex. Right? These trees will be entirely green because I wanted to transmit that jungle spirit that characterizes these ecosystems. If you have ever visited a mangrove forests, you will understand that despite the moth and there, the color green is the most representative of all. Furthermore, avoiding using different colors for the same element is a very important strategy to create simpler compositions. So we don't have to define different colors for bark, branches, leaves, etc. For reached three. And we're seeing different colors. For the background, I mixed viridian green, white, and a little ochre yellow. And the middle one is a viridian green, is straight from the tube. And the one in the foreground is made of viridian green with a bit of blue to make it look darker. One of the advantages of working with a palette knife is that the color looks the same when mixed as when applied to the canvas. Because there are pigments that are very transparent when a thin layers of those colors are applied, the change completely. I assure you that when I apply these viridian green with a brush, it looks absolutely different. It seems unimportant, but I have met some people who have trouble mixing the colors for this reason. They don't know what the color would look like when applied to the canvas. So for these types of people, using a blade can be very helpful. As you can see, I trace the branches and routes without caring too much about creating perfect lines. In fact, I like how I regular lines look because they make everything look much more organic. Creating curved lines with a straight tool like a pallet knife can be tricky. However, the advantages must be found among the difficulties rather than fighting the current to have perfect lines, it is very to admit imperfect as part of the painting style and paint without worrying too much. I am one of those who believes that if you get stressed or angry while you paint, then there is probably something you are doing wrong because in general is not about that. If you're wondering where their assisted by a plastic palette knife, more expensive middle one. I will not hesitate. Get the metal pallet knife. Yes. I know that it causes more bad. It's like a 100 times better. The plastic palette knives are not sharp enough to scoop paint off your palate. They live pain behind Western debate. So in essence, they end up costing you more money in the long run. Besides a plastic valid life is super frustrating to use, is a tool for children to keep them safe. But if you want to work more professionally by metal pallet knife, you don't have to buy a whole set. One or two is okay to start by this middle palette knife, and you'll never regret it. If you use a plastic tube, paint will adhere to its very easy, especially if you're working with acrylics and then you will spend a long time trying to clean it up back. It won't be the same. Another thing is that plastic lives are terrible to create lines. They aren't as thin as the metal knives saw. You'll only get thick lines. I think that now the painting is looking better. We have several well-defined planes. So what remains is to polish the details and adjust the values at more branches are roots. If you feel it looks to empty our removed the heart edges. I want everything in this forest to look very Fauci, saw. I'll be using this candling technique quite a bit. I'm also lightening the upper part of the branches because as the objects are against the light, it looks much more natural this way. Of the three paintings that I did for this class, this is the one that took me the longest. It was exactly 52 minutes. When I paint these types of landscapes, I like to set a time limit that helped me to avoid doing too many details and overdo things. I gave myself 30 minutes for this escape, as well as the desert and 40 minutes for the mangrove forest. Because I knew it would take longer. I only spend more time than planned with this one, but I'm okay with 12 extra minutes is not that much. And you don't have to check exactly what you set out to do. It is just a way of becoming aware of time. Tried to limit yourself according to your own base and according to the size of what you are doing. The larger your painting, the more time you need. There are some people who build these type of working just ten or 15 minutes. But I prefer to take a little more time to enjoy each stroke. So it is completely up to you. Hello. The reason why I decided to paint a mangrove forest and not a pine or afer forest, is because you can find paintings of pine forest everywhere. But it's very rare to find a painting of mangrove forest. It is nice to do something different. Explore a known landscapes and ecosystems and make a difference in what you do. In fact, I think it's something we should all do for if you paint the same thing over and over again, it will become a mechanical process and then you will stop learning from what you do. For example, if you learn to paint, buying trees and you make paintings with minimal variations over and over again, you will acquire a lot of skill for that specific subject. And that is very useful if your intention is to sell a lot of works. Because you will need to be fast and paint almost automatically to make money. Surely, you will learn a lot at the beginning, but after a while, painting, buying trees will no longer make you grow as an artist. And that is when you should start experimenting with other things. It is not like disease alone. But in my opinion, it is necessary to practice all kinds of things to truly improve. So being encouraged to try different techniques, color palettes, shapes, styles, and subjects. Something I like to do is paint in small spaces. And I mean, even smaller formats that the one I'm working with now, Cause gathered allows me to explore all kinds of things quickly and without spending many money. And if I find something that catches my eye, then I can bring it to a much larger surface. The roots of the trees should appear submerged in the water. So with failable uhm, I go very that area creating horizontal lines. I don't recommend adding sea foam. This painting as mangrove forests are usually very quiet areas and the way in which the water breaks against the trees is very different from what we see in other areas, such as the rocks from the previous painting. I have seen a lot of paintings that have phone anywhere, the COGS, an object as if painting form was our requirement when painting water. But to be honest, I think that we must first ask ourselves how water behaves in certain place at a certain moment. Sometimes a lot of foam forms. Other times, we can't see finer lines of straight line reflecting off. Sometimes we can't make out where the water starts and where the object starts, because everything looks dark. And sometimes the water, it's so wonderful, crystal clear. It almost seems like it's not there. In journal. I really like how it turned out a lacked the cold colors, day illuminated background, the texture and the simplicity. That if I could change something, I think I will make the trees in the background a little darker because they are not very noticeable in contrast to the rest.
9. Painting a desert: The background color of this painting is going to have a different use than the other two. Because here I'm going to use the negative space as part of the painting. I chose an orange color because that will be the main color of this piece. And scenes I'm going to actively use the background color is important. Apply a thicker layer than the ones that I put in the seascape and the forest. In addition to that, it should be applied evenly on the surface. I already have the colors on the palette. These are coupled blue, vermilion read, cadmium yellow, and titanium white. The rest of what you can see on the screen are just a few leftovers from the last painting. As always, I started from the back to the front. So first and making the sky with a very light blue an applied in patches on top. I reserved the bars close to the horizon line, as I will paint a sunset and lowest part who have an orangey color. The next color is a very pale orange. I assure you that this landscape will be very bright. But that does not mean that all the colors that you put should be right. And the key is to find a point of balance. And for these, the bright colors must be complemented with very light and very direct domes of the same hue. Okay? The next stripe of color will be a bright orange. I want the light to come from behind the mountains. So over the horizon, a very thin layer of yellow with white. And then. I run the clean blade or vary the sky to blend the colors and create a gradient. The colors should not be perfectly centered. In fact, if you look closely, you will see that I intentionally left some areas where you can see the orange background to paint the mountains. The first thing you need to do is to clean the yellow Being Dad was left on them without clean palette knife, lift the residues to get a clean edge. You can even use paper towels to remove with snapped and avoid unwanted mixes. Since the mountains are so far away, there will be a light blue color Similar to the blue we used for this guy. You can add a little darker blue on top to give them mortgage, tourist. Or you can make them directly using several colors at the same time to create a broken color effect with the technique that I showed you before. What remains will be, there will be no plants, no roads, nothing else. Just soils of differentiates. The first color I will add will be a mix of red and cobalt blue. Color combination is terrible for mixing a purple color, but it's perfect for creating an earthy tone. That goes really well with my chosen palette. I apply some stripes of color to help me create a sense of perspective. The background will be darker than the front. So the distance between the stripes will be graded as we get closer to the observer's point of view. When we paint an image with very few elements, it can be difficult to create perspective because we have almost nothing to make us into it, the size of things. So in this way, simplicity can get very complex. And what I will do to avoid that is to insinuate different planes. Through different tones. After this color, I'm going to put the different hues of orange. Some areas will be rather and others will be more jello wish named Barton thing here is to follow that trend of horizontal stripes. Sees we are beating a very flat landscape. So some of the things that I love about a palette knife is that it can be cheap and depending on the quality you need and the amount of usage you are planning to give it. It is great for building up our thick texture and creating a broken Clery effect. Something really useful for when you are just starting is that you don't need to buy a whole set of knives to work. You can use only one or two because it is super easy to switch from one color to another. I mean, cleaning Nava palette knife is not as hard as clean Napa brush. Especially when you are using oils. You can use the edge of a pallet knife to create sharp straight lines. Saw, it is great if you don't have a good Paul's. Another thing is that you can use both benzene knife and the brush because the bold strokes created by the palette knife can be complement to the more delicate strokes created by the brush. Because the bold strokes created by the followed knife can complement the more delicate strokes created by the brush. And also, you can paint on top of wet layers without having to worry about the blending like it does when you use a brush. Okay. Two valence the colors. I want to add some of the same blue of the sky and the mountains above the ground. This blue doesn't represent anything in particular. It is exactly what it looks like a batch of paint. And it's only Barbosa is to create a balance of colors between the upper bar and the lower. Now, I think it is not very not subtle in the video, but not all the RAS half-baked. In fact, I endangered, I left several areas where the background-color is visible. And you can see that orange coming through the next colors. As this is one way to use negative space in our paintings. And doing this. And help us create more texture. Because on one hand, we have the texture of the canvas. And on the other hand, we have the texture of the OLS or acrylics. It is also useful to reduce the cost of painting. Sees we will need less material to cover the surface. And if we want to generate more contrast, we could use another background color. For this case, a light blue could work to give the painting more interest. From now on, I will only dedicate myself to adjusting values and improving what I have already done. I add more blue in the mountains. I give more lands to the ground, and I add more impasto and so on. A final step that seems important to me is to eliminate that hard edge between the mountains and the ground. Because a more diffused line will support the idea that the mountains are far away from the observer. Remember to clean the blade. Will you go from one color to another? And that way you will keep the colors clean and bright. As it is also a good idea to use several paper towels as it will not do us any good to try to clean the buyed in a dirty towel. I usually use paper towel for this task, as is very cheap and works perfectly scenes when working with thick paint, a dowel that can absorb a lot of liquid is not required. Something that I love about these paintings is that if you look at it in detail, you will notice two things. The first one, that in fact it is not as orange as it seems. It's got a lot of brown, red, and yellow, but somehow it looks mostly orange. The second thing is that seen up close, it is nothing more than a bunch of colourful spots and patches without any meaning. And that's precisely the idea of this technique. Doing simple things that seen from a distance can seem something more interesting. None of these paintings are meant to be luke dot closely. And if you do, you are likely to be disappointed. As I said before, our objective should be to insinuate d elements off the landscape and lead the eyes of the observer do the rest of the work. Okay. It took me 28 minutes to make this painting. So I was just on time. I must say dire lack the end result much more than I expected, because I generally prefer to use less bright colors. And I have never painted a similar landscape in my life. Of the three paintings, This is the simplest and the one that looks the most abstract. But in the end, I think it served the purpose 12. I used practically the same colors as indices cape. But changing the saturation, as you can see, makes a huge difference between the ambiance of both of the images. Sometimes we focus too much on the shapes. But you have to remember that there are more visual elements. And that the key to simplification is knowing how to balance them properly. She's.
10. Outro: In this class, we learned some basic techniques for using a ballad knife. And then we applied them to three very different landscapes that we created by simplifying shapes and colors. I hope you have a nice time painting does landscapes, because I certainly did. Please upload your projects and I'll be happy to review them. If you enjoyed this class, please live good feedback. If you did enjoy it, leaves some feedback anyway to help me improve my next lesson. That's all for now and have a nice day.
Martin Jaramillo, Artist
