The Best Acrylic Class For Beginners

1. Introduction: Welcome to acrylic painting for beginners, what you need to know without all the fluff. Hello, my name is Robert joiner and I created this course with a lot of passion and love for acrylic painting. I created for those of you that want a clear, concise, beginner course without all that extra stuff, your acrylic painting journey begins with brushwork mechanics. You will learn the brush anatomy, the four common grips, the best tips for application, how to cut in basic shapes, and then painting curves. Once you understand the basic mechanics, then we will look at application skills. You will learn some good mixing techniques, a variety of gradations, and the only two strokes you can make, which are lines and dots. This will help you ease into acrylic painting and starts you learn how the medium reacts when applying it to a surface. Once we are finished with that, we will look at color basics, how to mix paint. We will look at a split primary chart. You will learn how to tent and shade Hughes, we will explore chroma, saturation and intensity, and then discuss color harmony, palettes and color combinations that work. Then there's value in tone. Getting beyond the basics, understanding how to see value, learning how to mix gray and create a phi value scale. We will discuss the power of value and how to turn basic shapes into three-dimensional forms. We will also discuss warm and cool hues and how to push a color in either direction. Then you will put your color mixing and value skills to the test by painting some basic geometric forms. Great way to experiment with color. To also dive into positive and negative spaces and asserting to tap into the wonderful world of layering. The course will end with a section on light, on form. Diving deep into understanding how light impacts your subjects, colors and values. We will discuss separating light and shadow, understanding complex light on a complex forms. We will do color block demonstrations. I will share tips on how to work smart to get the most out of your studio efforts and then close the course with some final thoughts. Together, we will start from the very beginning of understanding acrylic paint, and we will move through these ideas one by one. So if you're ready to start your journey than let's get going right now. Who will start with the materials I use in this class? 2. How To Use The Platform: In this video, I just wanted to go over the Skillshare platform. I know some of you know how to use it, but I know there are many others that simply don't understand how to create a project. How to add more photos, text, and things like that. What I will do now is pull up one of my classes on Skillshare. This may not be the class you are learning, but it does have everything we need to cover what I wanted to share with you in this video. This is my watercolor workout basics and beyond class. And you've got the main video here. Obviously. If you wanted to make that video bigger, you can click that and the top right hand corner, and that will enlarge the video if you want to reduce that size again, come up here to the top right-hand corner, click it. And that's going to bring up your navigation menu on the right-hand side. Now if I hover over the video with my mouse down here on the lower left, you have play speed. For some reason you wanted to slow things down or speed things up. You can always change the speed. Keep in mind if you do change, it just makes sure you go back and set it to normal if you want to, in fact, see at a normal speed, you can also rewind things 15 seconds. If you're watching something you wanted to see what happened within 15 seconds together, you can click that and then I'll take you back. And now 1515 second increments. You can click it three or four times and go back 45 seconds a minute, whatever you want to do. If you want to make a note of the video, you can click this little pen That's going to bring up your note. And that's a good way to remind yourself if something interesting happen there. And you just wanted to sort of jot something down that sort of clicked in your mind. This is your volume. So if it's CBC, this slash like I have now lets you need to unmute it so you're not going to be able to see the sound. If I click that now, I can now hear the video if it were playing, this would be subtitles. So if you wanted to have a subtitle and the various languages here, you can do that. You may not like having subtitles. You can put subtitles off on the top of that. So if you don't want to see them, That's how you get rid of them. Again, we can go full screen with that feature in the lower right-hand corner. So if you wanted to see this and this largest possible resolution, that is going to be the option to do it. Okay, So again, that's that one. So that tells you a little bit about how to navigate some of the options on the video. Over here on the right. So long as you're in this mode, we can scroll down and see the different videos. All videos that you have watched all the way through should have a checkmark. If you want to again, get rid of that, you use this button in the top right-hand corner, you can get rid of it. And then here we see it. Now down here, we have some tabs. We have the About tab. So that's going to be the class description that I added. I will often add other classes that you may be interested in. So throughout the course, I may say if you want to learn more about how to plan watercolor art, be shorter, checkout the link in the class description, and that's gonna be right here in the About tab. So if we scroll down, we can see all of these are links to different classes I have. So that's a little bit about the about page. Reviews are where you can see how awesome reviews that the students left on the class. Here, our discussions, discussions are very important because that's how I'm going to notify you about each new lesson of when they're available. You will see, if you scroll down, you'll see discussions, you'll see where there's some different things going on. This is important too. So if you have questions about the class or a lesson you watched, then you can use this discussions to get in touch with me and I'll try to respond to you as soon as possible. You can also share links and the discussions too. So if you have something you want to show me, you can always link it up and I'll be able to see it. Here. You see I can start a conversation, I can ask a question up and share project and so on. Speaking up projects, if I go right here, this tells you a little bit about the project. So here you'll see each lesson has a project well almost, but the point is to get involved and started doing the demos and projects shared in this class. And here you can scroll down and see all the students that are posting projects that there's one do you want to explore? You can click on that and just see what an awesome job the students are doing, getting these different projects and things done. Of course, you can comment on these two. So over here on the right-hand side, you can click on that. You can share a little feedbacks and encouragement, whatever you want to do. If you look at my project right here, you're going to see that I've got a detailed breakdown of all my lessons here. So each time I post new lessons in a class or a demo, I always break it down and give you a really good description of what's going on. Now you may want to create a project. Now, since I already have one, are you going to see that I don't have the option to make another one. But here is a class that I don't have a project. You will see this green button on the right-hand side. To create a project, all you have to do is click on that. And that's going to bring up your project option. Now the first thing you'll see is a cover image. If you want to add a cover image, just click on that and then navigate to your image. So I'll just select one here. So I'll select this one. And then that's going to upload the image. Once it's uploaded. I have the option here on this slider right there to enlarge it and then sort of move it around, however I want that to be seen. And once it's done, click Submit. Again, this is just the cover image. You can go ahead and add a title and I'll say, awesome class by Robert. If I can spell that right, that would certainly help. Description. Hey, took a three-week class and here's what I did. Now if I hit Enter, That's going to bring the cursor down here below. And then I can add an image. You see down here, you can see, you can have three options to add more content. So if I click on image, I can add another image, so I can click on that and then you have to give it a second. And then that's going to upload the image. Now I can click Enter and you see I can write more content. I'm like, This is my cool fish painting. Now, if I wanted to add a video or link and maybe you're like, Hey, did you happen to see this picture, whatever. You can double-click on a word and then you have a link option here, and you can paste the link in there. Just make sure you hit the Check button to make it active. And now I can hit enter again and then add more images. That's how you can make your project. If you don't want anyone to see your project, you can click this button here to make it private. But once you're done, very, very important, scroll back to the top and hit Publish. And as soon as you publish your project, that's going to be visible for everyone to see. So that's publishing right now. I'm just going to give it a moment, alright, and then there it is, right there. So I just added my projects. So let's say you want to edit your project, you click on that again. And now you come up here to the top right-hand corner. You can click Edit, and now you can scroll down. Make sure you put the cursor where you want it. So if I want the next image or the next video or whatever to be below the fish. I can come down here and click on the end of the sentence, hit Enter. And now again, pull in my images or wherever it is that I want to do. Again, make sure you hit published when you're done. And then that's going to save it. You just have to be patient and let Skill Share save it. Another thing you may want to do is share your project on social media. So you have this Copy Project link. You can copy that and share that wherever you wish. Over here on the right-hand side, you can hard thing. So if someone did a project that you really like, you can give it a heart. You can share a comment and say, those fish are amazing, and then hit posts and that's going to share your comments with whoever it is you're talking about. So again, just good stuff to know. And I think if you learn how to use the projects is very useful. And teachers can often see them and hopefully they do and they can give you some feedback on what you're doing. The last thing I want to share with you is right here under the again, we've got about reviews, discussions, and then project and resources. These resources are downloadable. If the class has images, resource images, whatever the case may be, you can click on the link and that's going to download it to your device. So I hope this video helps you out and that you understand a little bit more about how to navigate the Skillshare platform. And then of course, the courses that are taught there. 3. Quick Start Material Supplies: Materials. This is your quick start guide. This video will cover all of the painting supplies that I will be using in this course. This list of supplies is affordable, minimalistic, and suited for beginners. And it just so happens that the supplies are exactly what I use every time I acrylic paint. Let's get started with painting surfaces. For the majority of my exercises and demonstrations, I will be using watercolor paper. This is 140 pound cold press paper and measures nine by 12 inches. This paper is student grade, but is wonderful for acrylic painting. The main reason I recommend paper for you is that it's cost effective. So you will not have to spend a fortune on a bunch of canvases. Watercolor paper comes in several textures from hot press, too rough press. And again, I will be using cold press, which is right in the middle of hot and rough. I do feel that this is the ideal surface to learn on. Next up will be my paint boards. These are firm Canvas boards suited for more finished work. This particular pain board is 12 by 12 inches with a three-quarter inch depth, which should fit nicely into any generic frame. Once you paint your first masterpiece, you can also use regular stretched canvas on stretcher bars. But I do prefer the boards. I liked the firm surface and the quality is perfect for the type of painting we will be doing. So I would recommend having about 25 sheets of nine by 12 inch watercolor paper, student grade. And maybe three or 412 by 12 inch canvas is for the finished artwork. Now let's go over Drawing supplies. For that. I will be using student grade drawing paper. This is by Fabriano. Again, it's nine by 12 inches, the same exact size as the watercolor paper I showed you before. Even though this is an acrylic painting course, I will be going over some skills that require drawing. So having any sort of drawing paper is fine. Feel free to use print paper, the back of an envelope or anything you can get your hands on. And I will be using a 2B graphite pencil and this class, now if we're going to paint, we need a palette. I recommend a paper palette is disposable, is affordable, works just fine. As you can see, this one is made by Strathmore. There are 40 sheets and as 12 by 16 inches, what I like about palette paper is that it's nice and smooth, making it easy to mix paint on. If you do not want to fork out the extra cash for a palette, just use some paper plates. Now it's time for the good stuff. Paint. And I recommend, no, I highly recommend artist grade paint is very important that you use quality paint. This is by Utrecht, loaded with quality pigment. And again, this is heavy body, making it ideal. Put on thick buttery strokes, and then also you can dilute it with water. Should you prefer a more fluid consistency? Now that you know the type of pain I recommend, let's go over the colors I will be using. And there are only 74 blues I am using ultra marine and Cerulean Blue for my reds. I'm using Alizarin crimson and cadmium red light for my yellows, I'm using hands a yellow light and yellow ochre. And lastly, titanium white. And those are the seven colors I will be using in this course. Now let's talk about brushes. I am using two. I have a large flat, which is made by roiling nickel. This brush will be fine for painting large areas and maybe even a few details. So this size brush is perfect for the size painting we will be doing. And again, this is my largest one. And just on top of that one is my smaller brush, which is also a flat roiling Nicole. These are the Zen series, ZEN Z 43 AF the bristles are semi firm, which is well suited for acrylic painting. Coming up soon as another fabulous lesson on the anatomy of the brush. But for now, that's all you need to know about my brushes. Let's go to Miscellaneous supplies. And first up will be my palette knife. I will use this to mix paint. This particular model is metal as nice and thin, so it can easily scraped the paint back and forth on the paper palette. I will also be using some water reservoirs. This is just a simple one core plastic container. I do recommend having to. I recommend two because one will be used to remove the paint off of your brush. And then you once you have one reserved for just clean water, I find one court to be the perfect size. Avoid reservoirs that are too small, like a coffee cup because they don't hold enough water. Next thing up will be my masking tape. This is artist grade tape. Should be fine for taping down the edges of my paper. Should I need it? I will use that once in awhile. And last on the list will be a towel. Feel free to use paper towels, But it's handy to have one of these around. I primarily use it to WIP and clean my brush. And that is a wrap for supplies. So as you can see as minimalistic, pretty much everything is cost effective. The only supply that would recommend splurging on now would be the artist grade paint. 4. Acrylic Facts: Acrylic facts, things you need to know. We will talk about the beginning, how it's made water-soluble work. So most surfaces dries fast and darker. And famous acrylic artists. This kick things off with the beginning. Meet auto Rome. He had been in the acrylic resin in 1934. Among other things he's famous for is the invention of plexiglass. But it wasn't until the 19 fifties that acrylic paint became commercially available. And these fellows, having just heard the news, are jumping for joy, came blame them. Here's a watered-down version of how it's made. There are three key ingredients to acrylic paint. One is the acrylic polymer, which of course contains the acrylic resin and Binet BAD Mr. Rome water and then pigments. And these earth pigments are what give the paint color. And because acrylic paint has water in it, it makes it water soluble. And that means you can thin your paints out with water, which we will talk about quite a bit in this course. And clean up is a sense so long as you clean it while it's still wet, once it dries, that's a totally different ball game. We'll talk about that later on. And did you know acrylic paint works on most surfaces? Check this out. It works on paper. Of course you want that paper to be fairly sturdy, not too thin. Of course Canvas is ideal, is great on wood, metal, windows and fabrics. Pretty versatile If you ask me, and because this water soluble, it dries fast and darker. But as I mentioned earlier, acrylic dries fast because it's water based. And that can be a good thing or a bad thing depending on your approach to painting. If you're someone that doesn't want to wait around and watch oil paint dry for several days, then you're going to love working with acrylics because most paintings are created with multiple layers, It's usually good practice to allow the first layer to dry before adding another layer. And when you paint with acrylics, you can do this quickly. We're talking ten or 15 minutes and even faster if you have a hairdryer, I mentioned it dries darker as kind of a bad thing. When you put your paint down, it will look bright and cheery. And when you come back an hour later when it is fully dry, the colors just don't seem the same. It's not uncommon to do something you're like, yeah, that's nice, I love it. You come back and you're like what the, Here are some famous acrylic artists. You know this one don't, yeah, Andy Warhol, the Campbell Soup guy. He use acrylics quite often for his silkscreen printing. Pop artists. Roy Lichtenstein mixed oil with Magna magnum was an early form of acrylic paint. Many of his popular works were created using the two mediums. Popular female artists, Helen Frankin Thaler, also use acrylic paint quite often. And her work, she is best known for her large abstracts. And then there's British artist David Hockney. In 2018, he sold the most expensive painting for any living artist. The painting pictured here, Portrait of an Artist also known as pool with two figures, sold at the Christie's auction for $90 million. What the so perhaps now you know, a few more acrylic facts. Some of these facts can be used in the studio, while others can be shared around the dinner table. 90 milli still can't get over that. 5. Setting Up Workspace: Workspace, preparing to paint. I just wanna give you a quick overview of my workspace and how I laid things out on the table. This gives me the best workflow possible setup overview. This is how I laid things out when I'm preparing to paint. Pictured in the top left, would be my resource images. That may be a photograph, it could be my iPad. Then of course I have my painting surface and then my palette off to the right of it, my two reservoirs, which are placed near my towel, and I keep all my brushes right there on the towel along with my paint knife. I'm right handed. So it makes sense to have that on the right-hand side. That way I don't have to reach over my artwork when I need to mix paint or clean my brushes. And that makes the workflow very efficient and a little bit safer. Off to the right. I have my paints, so let's have a look at those. You can see the brushes and then off to the right, I have them all laid out nice and organized. And then I also have my pencil and eraser in case I need it, keeping things grouped together. So the yellows, the reds, and the blues as also an efficient way to find the color I need. When I need it. I thought would be helpful to show you my workspace and how I prepared a paint. So you got a quick overview and you know, now this gives me the best possible workflow so that can put paint down quicker and do it more efficiently. 6. Brush Anatomy: What you need to know about Brush anatomy. In this lesson, we will talk about the bristles, the feral, and the handle, the three main parts. We will also look at the bristles and detail and in the best bristles for acrylic painting. And we will end with the feral in detail. Now it's important that you understand the parts of the brush so that we're on the same page. This began with Brussels. The bristles will do most of the heavy lifting for you. And obviously, this is where you will load your paint. And now we come to the feral. Feral is the metal piece, sometimes plastic, then attaches the bristles to the handle. So that brings us to the third and final part, the handle. The handle is where you will often hold your brush. And they typically are wood but sometimes metal and plastic. Now let's look at the bristles in detail. There are three parts you need to know. You had the tip, which is also referred to as the tow, which is the end. And then you had the side, so the Lean or thin side of the bristles, and lastly the belly, which you will occasionally use to apply paint. So as you know, the tip of the brush is the most commonly used. But as I'm demonstrating here, good to use the side. And of course, I will show you throughout this course how you can use the belly as well. And now let's talk about the best bristles for acrylic painting. You want them to be semi firm bristles, but not too firm. So avoid oil brushes, synthetic bristles work best. Avoid soft bristle brushes. So I would not use watercolor brushes. And you do not need to spend a lot of money to get a good quality acrylic brush. And last up is the feral in detail. There are two areas of the Pharaoh that you need to know about, and they are the cramps. So you had a crimp that will attach the handle to the feral and then another crimp that will attach the bristles to the feral. So that should put us on the same page for the anatomy of the brush. So we discuss the bristles that Pharrell and the handle. You now know where they are on the brush. We looked at the bristles and detail. I also gave you tips on finding the best bristles. And then we took a little bit closer look at the feral. 7. Four Common Brush Grips: The four main grips, different holds for different strokes. We will look at the detailed grip, the standard grip, the long grip, and then the overhand grip. And then I will discuss a relaxed tripod hold. Now the great thing is you already understand the anatomy of the brush, so we can go ahead and jump right into what a detail grip is. So when you're painting smaller details, my best advice is to come down towards the feral. This will give you maximum control. You can combine the detail grip with using the side of the bristles or the tip, whatever you see fit. Now let's look at the standard grip. The most common hold for most situations. For that you're going to back off the feral and find that sweet spot near the middle. Two things happen when you hold the brush here. If fuels very balance, plus, and probably more importantly, it gives you a good range of movement, making it easy to create short and long strokes. And speaking of long strokes, let's look at that long grip. So we want to go bold, loose and expressive. Back off of that sweet spot hold to the end of the handle. From there, you can really create some expressive brush work. Now, I will tell you, you will have less control over your strokes. So if you are a detail oriented person, this may not be an optimal grip for you. That brings us to the last grip, which is the overhand grip. To achieve the overhand grip is probably pretty obvious. You're going to simply put your hand on top of the brush. And this is a great way to paint with the belly of the Brussels, which is a good way to get a lot of paint down quickly. I happen to like this sort of technique and grip when I'm painting skies and clouds. Or if I'm in the mood to change it up a little bit. And lastly, I want to talk about having a relaxed grip. So when you holding the brush is very similar to holding a pencil. So you're not going to hold your pencil with a very tight grip that's going to lock your wrist up and just feel very tense. So the next time you're putting paint down on the paper or Canvas, just take note of how much stress intention is in that grip. So that will bring us to the end of this fantastic and formative lesson. So the four main grips, the detail grip, the good old standard all around grip, and then the long grip for those expressive strokes. I also gave you an alternative grip with the overhand. I recommended a relaxed hold and of course that's for tripod and the overhand grip as well. 8. How To Prepare & Apply Paint: Prepping paint, How to get the best results. In this lesson, we will discuss waterworks, how to avoid excess water. Why you should use a towel, how to soften the pain, how to create fluid brushstrokes, and then a recommended exercise. For this demo, I will be using only ultramarine blue. So that's the only color you see? My palate. So when it's your turn to give it a shot, just use one hue, which brings us to waterworks. How important is water to acrylic painting? Very, very important. I recommend always dipping your brush and water. Before you start painting. You want those bristles to be wet. Now you want to avoid excess water. So having too much water can be a bad thing. So if I were to wet the bristles here, you will see that the excess water will start to pull up on the palate. Eventually, my paints will be swimming. That is not a good thing. This is exactly why I had the towel right near my water reservoir. So a better option is to use the towel. And I will show you exactly how to do that. So I will dip the brush and water and then give it a little tap, tap. So that leaves moisture and water on the brush, but not too much. If I had too much, again, you will see it basically dripping off of the bristles. So a little bit of water, but not too much. Now let's talk about how to soften and paint. Now, I want to remind you them using heavy body acrylics. Those heavy body acrylics, our very thick. So to get the best results, never apply them to your surface without preparing them. So let's talk about how to create fluid brushstrokes. I will first show you a bad way. I will start with a dry brush. So no water and their bristles and dry paint. No water in the paint. And as you will see, the results aren't that great. There's a lot of artifacts and going on in that brushstroke as very, very choppy and inconsistent. So not the ideal stroke that you're going to want to put down, there is a better way. So having clean my brush, I will now dip it in water and give it a little tap. That little bit of excess water and their bristles will help me loosen up and prepare that paint. Now what soft? Now I have wet bristles and I can apply paint with more success. Will there still be some artifact being? Yes, but it's a much smoother stroke because the paint will glide off the bristles much better. So this, to me is an ideal brushstroke. Now it's time to continue that idea. So prepping my brush, prepping the paint, getting it nice and soft, I will load the brush and create another stroke, left to right. Now that you have a better idea how to get the best brushstroke, I'll create a few more left to right. Know that all the while I'm prepping the brush and prepping the paint the same way. Now, I've only work left to right and that's because I'm right-handed, but it's good practice to try it the opposite way. So as I prepped the paint here and the brush, I'm going to work right to left and then come back left to write. A great way to practice some brushwork skills while getting into the habit of letting your brush and paint. And yes, there's still some artifact in going on. But I am painting on textured paper. If you're painting on smooth paper like hot press, then you will probably have a lot less artifact thing going on. Even though this is a very easy concept, I find beginners have a hard time making this a habit. You are recommended exercise is to grab a blank piece of paper, a brush, some water M1 color paint, and fill it up with beautiful flowing brush strokes. For a recap, I showed you how to prep paint to get the best results. We whenever waterworks, why you should avoid excess water? The importance of having a towel there, how to soften the paint with water. I showed you how to create fluid brushstrokes. And then of course you have your recommended exercise, go paint. 9. Exploring Brushstroke Mechanics: Let's look at some mechanics using different parts of the body and my body, I mean hand and arm. So we will look at the wrist action, some elbow action, and why both of those work great with most grips. And then of course, the recommended exercise, armed with my number eight flat, we will begin with wrist action. When you are a painting from the wrist, you are basically using a pivot point that is fairly short. So I can only move my hand so much from that point. This would be the ideal area to paint from if you're painting short, choppy strokes. So imagine if our trying to paint a very large area and working from my wrist, how inefficient that would be. But for small areas and details, this is the ideal grip. So now you know more about the mechanics of painting from the wrist. Let's look at the elbow. And as you probably know already, painting from the elbow will give you a much broader range of movement. And you can see that as I sweep my forearm and hand left and right, compare that to you working from the wrist. I will prepare a little paint here and then demonstrate a few strokes working from the elbow. Watch how fast and easy I can cover this area. And I'm doing this all with one brush stroke. And again, you simply can't be that efficient if you're only working from the wrist. Now you can also paint from the shoulder and of course you can even paint from using your back buffer. Now, since we're painting only smaller works in this course, these are the two main mechanics you will need to know. And this concept should work with most grips. So if we look at this long handled grip, you can see I can easily work from the elbow. I can even use my detail grip and paint a broad stroke coming from the elbow. But truthfully, if our painting a broad area, although probably backoff to that long grip or use my standard grip. It's a great time to explore these ideas. Grab a brush, some paint, and a piece of paper, and start experimenting with brushwork mechanics. So that was your introduction to mechanics using different parts of the body. I showed you the wrist action, a little action and how these work with other grips. And now you have a recommended exercise to get your feet wet. 10. Painting Mechanics: In this lesson, we will talk more about brushwork mechanics, how to handle blindspots. I will show you what a blind spot is, how its you lean and tilt the handle. We will look at downward strokes, rotating the surface, seeing the future yep. Upwards strokes and then a recommended exercise. But before you paint, I will lay out six squares. Using my pencil, I will draw a series of four horizontal lines. These do not have to be perfect. But if you simply want beautiful squares, feel free to use a t-square or any straight edge. I like it a little bit rough around the edges. So this should do just fine for me. So the first lesson is, What is a blind spot? A blind spot is basically when you're applying a stroke, you get to a point. We simply can't see where you're going anymore. So as I move the brush to the right, I cannot see that corner. So if I were to continue to paint without seeing it, it will be very easy to overpayment the corner of that square. And that my friends is a blind spot and we have to acknowledge that they exist. Since I'm right handed, if I paint a line from left to right, I will get to a point where I simply can't see because the brush is in the way. Notice how I start from the corner and I drag that brush over to the right and then I'll stop near that blind spot. So what do we do now? The best thing you can do is to lean or tilt the handle of the brush. And in this case, I can tilt the top of that brush away from me and that will give me all the visibility I need to paint that corner. I can now paint from the top right-hand corner down and stop close to that corner because I already know I've painted it and ditto that for the top of the square. So I can start and that left corner and come over to the right and just stop that stroke somewhere near the corner. In this same working top to bottom. But now let's have a closer look at downward strokes. For this example, I will start in the top left-hand corner and create a stroke coming down towards that bottom left-hand corner. Again, starting nice and tight in that corner, I'll come down. And then of course I have that blind spot. I stopped near that corner and then tilted the top of the brush to the right to finish that corner off. When you have a blind spot is best to stop your stroke close to the corner. And that should keep you from over painting it. Here I'll do another example. But instead of rotating the brush, I'm going to rotate the surface. So I've showed you how you can rotate until it your brush. But we can also rotate the surface. So in this case, that may be a better option. So I'll will rotate that so I can get into their corner. Nice and clean adult feel awkward. And now that edge is finished. There will be situations where rotating the surface will make more sense, then leaning or tilting the brush. Now, I will teach you how to see the future. So instead of painting yourself into a corner, I'm going to look at what I'm about to do. I can see that corner is going to be a problem. So instead of painting up to that corner, I will pre-payment that corner. That way. When I paint the bottom. I know that corner is already done. Anticipating those blind spots is a great way to work. What about this next stroke I'm going to make, it's going to be an upward stroke to that top left hand corner. Upward strokes are always a problem because the bristles are in the way. We now have some options to handle that corner. I will go ahead and pre paint. Once I had that corner nice and neat, that upward stroke is a breeze, I will anticipate their problem as I paint left to right here, which means I'm going to pre-paid that corner, which means I can easily finish it off by creating a left-to-right stroke. And then of course that downward stroke is already done because that corner is painted, your recommended exercise is to draw a series of three squares. Practice understanding and acknowledging that blind spots exist. And then use the techniques I shared in this lesson to navigate them. How to handle blindspots. We are moving through brushwork mechanics. So in this lesson, I showed you what a blind spot is, how to lean until the handle of the brush to navigate them. I showed you how to deal with downward strokes. I also told you you can rotate your surface. You now know how to see the future. And you know now that upward strokes are always problematic with blind spots and you have a recommended exercise. So there are no excuses to ever over paint your corners unless of course, you just want to. 11. Cutting-In Brushwork Mechanics: Cutting in, working smart and efficient. And this lesson we will go over without cutting in. I will show you an example of width cutting in, adding the Fill Color and combining mechanics. And then of course, a recommended exercise so that you can master these techniques. And here's the thing. In the previous lesson, I kinda already showed you how to cut in. So in those examples, I basically painted the edges, the contour of those shapes. So in this lesson, I will show you an example of without cutting in. And then of course I will do an example with cutting in. We will begin without cutting in. So as you will see, I will get my loaded brush here and just start painting the shape instead of painting the edges first, which would have been a lot easier. I just start adding the fill color. You can get the job done like this. But it just isn't the efficient. Plus you're taking a chance and painting over the edges. Painting over the edges, maybe something you prefer to do. But what I'm trying to get you to do is think more about the mechanics of it. My goal is to give a good fundamentals and later on, you can decide to paint in any style you wish. I will paint the same exact shape, but this time with cutting in, I'm also anticipating my blind spots. So I am paying those corners like a pro. So this is allowing me to paint these edges quickly and cleanly. And since you already know how to do this, we will speed through it a little bit quicker so that we can start to add the fill. And adding the fill will be a piece of cake. My edges are nice and crisp. Now I can load my brush and put that blew down super-fast. So now I will paint this last square using all of the mechanics I've shared with you. So basically using good technique to navigate my blind spots, cutting in those edges razor-sharp. And then of course I'm also working from the elbow and different areas of my arm so that can get these strokes down quickly so I can get to lunch. My stomach is growling. You're recommended exercise is to use the other three squares and apply the cutting and technique. Also think about working from the elbow and the wrist when needed. And don't forget to try a bad version where you do not cut in just so you can compare the two. And that was cutting in, working smart and efficient. I showed you without cutting in. I showed you with cutting in and how easy it is to add that Phil wants the corners and edges are nice and crisp. We can combine all of those mechanics and to one nice, neat little package. And you have a recommended exercise to practice. Now go paint. 12. Brushwork Mechanics For Curved Shapes: And just when you thought you were done with brush mechanics, we've got curved shapes. And this lesson, I will teach you how to handle circles and curves. It will start with a little reminder. I'll be would talk about how to angle the brush starting near the edge, navigate blindspots. They're curved stroke. And then the recommended exercise. To this point, you've had the easy road. We've only had to paint vertical and horizontal lines. Now we have to navigate our way through circles and curves, which presents their own set of issues. And of course, we need certain skills to paint them effectively. So heres a little reminder. It will be the last time I mentioned this, what your brush and always tap it off. Be sure to prep your paint so that you can create a lovely fluid strokes, which is what we're getting ready to do. The great thing about circles, as we don't have those nasty little corners to deal with. And we cannot use the vertical and horizontal brush strokes to paint the edges because they're curved, The first tip will be angle the brush. This will give you better visibility to the edge. So from my perspective right now, I already have a blind spot, but if I angle the handle to my right, then my visibility is no longer blocked by my hand. Now we can talk about starting near the edge. Look how that brush is not at the edge. So I'm backed away from it ever so slightly. And the ideal starting point, then I can move it to the edge, which is what I'm doing now. And then around that curve, this is a good technique because sometimes the bristles will flare out a little bit when they touched the paper. And this will help compensate that extra width of the bristles. Of course, you can use this technique, painting any shape, not just curves with a loaded brush. I'll go near the edge and then go up to it. As I start to paint, I will paint as far as I can go until eventually I will get, you guessed it, a blind spot. So let's talk about how to navigate those blind spots. Now, I will re-enact this little stroke here. And I got down to about that point before I simply couldn't see anymore. A little trick you already know. And that is we're going to rotate the surface. And then of course I will get near the edge, not on it like that and then paint over it, but near it. And then yz Assad of my bristles over to that edge and then curve it right around until I meet the other line. If you're curious about the origin of that stroke, I would say I'm working more from the elbow and probably a little bit from the shoulder as well. As I alluded to earlier. You cannot really paint these edges cleanly using straight strokes like I did right there. That's why you have to have a curved stroke. The curved stroke will obviously track a little bit differently than vertical and horizontal lines, as I indicated there with my pencil for a circle, the size, I'll have probably had to do a series of three curved lines that should get me around the circle. Obviously, smaller circles, maybe a little less, and larger circles, maybe a little bit more. As you watch me paint this circle, notice how I will lean the handle of my brush away from me so that I can get maximum visibility and hopefully a better chance at being successful. I will speed through these last few strokes because by now you should understand the process. Obviously as soon as the edge is cut in is very easy to add the fill. I will paint one more using the same techniques just to reiterate some of the things we've talked about. So again, getting that brush near the edge and then ease it up to it. And then getting the maximum stroke possible. Rotating the paper so that you get good visibility. The edges are done. You can add the fill and everything is peachy. That brings us to the recommended exercise with a blank sheet of paper. Draw out three to four circles, and then use the techniques I shared with you this demo to paint them. And I have just shared with you everything I know about painting curve shapes and circles. I also gave you a little reminder about using the water, but I promise I will not nag you anymore about that. I showed you how to angle with a brush so that you don't put yourself in a blind spot starting near the edge, but not at the edge. A quick look at the direction of a curved stroke and then the recommended exercise. So good luck having fun painting curved shapes. 13. Two Common Mixing Methods: Mixing methods, the two most common techniques, one will be the palette knife method. I will go over placing Hughes and near one another. I will teach you to mix gradually the importance of keeping it clean. I will also show you the paintbrush method and then the recommended exercise. Let's start mixing. I present to you to mixing methods, the paintbrush and the palette knife. Again, we will start with the palette knife. This is a would handle palette knife with a metal blade on it and works flawlessly. I will begin with a little bit of blue on my palette. Pretty easy stuff, right? But here's the thing. I know I'm going to mix a yellow with it. So where should I place the yellow? And that brings up the next chapter, and that is placing Hughes and near one another, I will get into my yellow here. But instead of placing the yellow on top of the blue, I will go just below it. And there's your answer by placing the Hughes near one another and not one on top of the other, will allow you drumroll, please. Mix gradually, which gives you much more control over the mixing. As I move forward, I will put a little bit of that blue into the yellow at a time. And should I need more blue or yellow? I can always add a small increment versus being committed because I place the colors one on top of the other. And of course, now I have a dirty palette knife. So let's talk about keeping it clean. Remember the good old towel, it actually has several jobs to do, not just absorbed water. So with all of that paint on the knife, obviously, we can use it to clean it. I know this is common sense, but believe me, if I didn't add it in there, someone out there would have given me a one-star review because I didn't tell him that clean their palette knife. Let's look at the second method, which is the paintbrush method. And we're going to use the exact same ideas. So we will put paint near one another, just like we did with a pallet knife and gradually mix one with the other. And when it's time for a new color, clean the brush and I will go into the white and add that near the Green, which gives me all the control I need to mix them gradually. Those are two options for mixing paint. And in case you're curious, I prefer the brush method. Your recommended exercise is to grab three Hughes and mix them, create good habits so that you don't have to break bad ones. Later on in this informative and action-packed lesson, you learn to mixing methods, the palette knife and the paintbrush. I giving you my best advice why you want to place Hughes near one another and to mix them gradually. Always keep your brush and pallet knife clean when you need new pigments. And you'd have a recommended exercise that you can go master and you are one step closer to becoming the next acrylic superstar. 14. Blended Gradation: Welcome to the wonderful world of gradations. And this lesson we will cover a blended gradation, so we will create a smooth color transition. I will start by drawing some squares. We will cover pre-mixed hues, which you already know about. I will also define what a blended gradation is. I would demonstrate what blending Hughes is. And then of course, the recommended exercise, I will begin by drawing some squares. I will use my ruler this time to create some good, clean edges. And as I mentioned before, these squares do not have to be perfect. Just eyeball them. Get them as close to perfect as you can. So if you have a few squares that are a little bit bigger or smaller than the other ones is really not a big deal. You can still do this exercise and we're going to have a lot of fun exploring these blended gradations. Now that my squares are complete, I'm ready to paint. Let me first go over what's going to happen. I will have a gradation that we'll start with a blue and then come down to a yellow. And that means the middle will be green. And I will remind you, this is going to be a blended gradation, so as smooth as you can possibly get from one color. The next, speaking of color, I will start with my civilian blue. And I will create a few strokes across the top. And since I really want to impress you with his blended gradation, I'm going to go over this blue a few times to make these strokes nice and smooth. And I know you're sitting there right now thinking those are some Smooth blue strokes. For this gradation, i'm going to premix my hues and I will also use my paintbrush. I told you that's my preferred method for mixing paint. And before I get ahead of myself here, let me be clear on what a blended gradation is. So as I mentioned earlier, a blended gradation is when you have two or more colors that flow seamlessly from one to the other, which is what you're starting to see from that blue to green. Now let's talk about blending the hues. As you can imagine. If you're going to blend, then you're going to need a paintbrush or a paint knife or something to smooth the transitions out. Here I'm doing a series of horizontal strokes, but this can be applied in any direction. Again, I will premix green, which will be lighter than the green that are just used. And of course I'm using the paintbrush to do it because I am transitioning to a yellow at the bottom. I am just adding a little bit of yellow to that green as I go down the gradation. And of course I'm using that paintbrush to smooth out those strokes. I'm going to speed up a little bit here because you already should understand the process. So with the mixing, a little more yellow as I go down, and of course, using that paintbrush as a work horse to spread the paint for me. And then ultimately I will get down to my yellow. And then of course I'll go back over this and this blend out these transitions. And that's everything I know about blended gradations. So for your recommended exercise, you can draw a square or draw a series of six squares like I did at the beginning of this video and paint some blended gradations. This is a wonderful technique that we will revisit as this course moves forward. So in this lesson, we talked about a blended gradation creating smooth color transitions. It all started with the six squares. And for this example, I use pre-mixed hues with my paintbrush and not the palette knife. I explained in the best possible way what a blended gradation is. And we talked about how to blend the hues. And now you have a recommended exercise. So start painting some blended gradations and feel free to explore different color combinations than what you've seen here. 15. Non Blended Gradation: There are many ways to create a gradation, and this one I will show you a non blended gradation. So creating chunky color transition, I will start using my pre-mixed cuz of course, using my paintbrush, I would tell you what a non blended gradation is. I will apply paint and then leave it alone. That's the secret, and then give you the recommended exercise. Let's begin with the pre-mixed hughes. So I will prepare my paint on the palate as I did in the blended example so that my paints are ready to go. Now I want to tell you what a non blended gradation is in case you don't want already know. So the goal here is to use the premix paint and we don't want to over blend. So the end result is a transition from one color to the other. That's not as smooth as our friend over here on the left. I will begin with that same surly in blue and the top left hand corner. And then give you this little reminder about seeing the future. See how a painting that corner, and now I can run that brushstroke right over with confidence. So I will put a few strokes of that blew down. We can see already I'm not over blending, which brings us to the next point. And that is apply paint and leave it alone, which sounds easy to do. But the most common problem for artists to do, especially beginners, is to overwork the paint. So again, I will put this green down and just watch me walk away, not a care in the world. I am perfectly fine with leaving that just the way it is now. It's just a matter of repeating that process until I get down to the yellow. And even now you can look at them being side-by-side here and compare the difference. So one has a little bit rougher look to it, but we're still getting a gradation. So we were still getting a color that starts with blue and then transitions to yellow. And that is my take on a non blended gradation. Both gradations had their place and art, which we will cover in more detail as we move forward. You're recommended exercise, as you probably know, is to create some squares and then paint some non blended gradations. I started with informing you that I'm using pre-mixed hues with my paintbrush. Define what a non blended gradation is. And again, you, once you apply paint and leave it alone, you had a great recommended exercise. So please, please go paint some non blended gradations. Because if you don't, you're going to get to the end of this course and you will still not have a clue about how to acrylic paint. So get involved. Now, bye-bye. 16. Blended On Paper Gradation: Here's another gradation where we will blend on the paper. I will begin by defining what blending on the paper means, and I will do this without remixing the paint. The end result is similar to a non blended gradation. Of course, we're going to clean and between hues, which is kind of a reminder. And then I will cover at a second human blend which don't really remember why I put that in. And then the recommended exercise, let me first define what blending on the paper means. Up to this point, we've pretty much only blended our paint on the palette, but there is an alternative technique where we can blend on the paper. So instead of remixing or hughes on the palette, we will do it on the surface. And in addition to that, we will not premix are Hughes. And that's because all of the mixing is done on the paper. And again, not the pallet. As I move forward, I'm pretty sure this will start to make sense because we're applying and mixing our paint and this method, it will have a similar finish as the non blended method. Finally, Here we go on adding the blew through the swatch there. And before I get into the yellow because I don't want to premix, I'm going to clean my brush. So now that my brush as nice and clean and here's the evidence there you go, front and back and side, no paint hidden there and any corners. I can now add these second hue, which again will be the yellow. I will generously load up my paintbrush with the yellow and start at the bottom and work my way up towards the blue. Again, my brushes nice and clean. I'll, we'll get into the blue and apply that to the paper. And of course I'm working that now into the yellow. So this is a little bit different approach than pre mixing your paint on the palette, basically your canvas in this case, paper is my palate. Obviously this is a more spontaneous way to work because you don't really get to test your color is before you apply them. Some artists really like this because the end result is not soul predictable. My goal as a teacher is to not just gave you one way or two ways to do something. I tried to give you as many as possible and let u be the ultimate decision-maker on what works best for you. Your recommended exercise is to try this gradation out. You can try any color combination that you think would be interesting to work with, but the key is to get involved. So a slightly different gradation where we blend and mix on the paper, I defined what that means. And again, we did this without pre mixing on the palate. The end result is, you can see is a little bit chunky like the non blended version. And let's be honest, life would just be plain boring without a little bit of chunky in there. Have fun with your recommended exercise, and I will see you in the next lesson. 17. Lines And Dots: Now we're going to take a little pause. Now I'm going to explain this little theory about making art. And that's lines and dots are the only two marks you can make mind-blowing stuff. I will cover. I've only painted lines. What's a dot, dot, add texture, how to create a variety of dots. And then the recommended exercise. And I am sure you can feel the excitement and anticipation and my voice because I just can't wait to share this with you. Up to this point, I've only painted lines. So let me explain. A line is basically you load your brush up, you put it to the surface and then you drag it across and any direction, that's a line. A pencil works the same way. He put it to the paper and you drag it across the surface. That means every brush stroke you make as a line. Now, what's a dot? That's when you load your brush up and you touch the paper. So you do not drag it across the surface. And believe it or not, those are the only two marks you can possibly make. A line and a dot. Every piece of art that's been created. Going way back to the cave drawings, we're all made with lines and dots. Now, dots add texture. So if you start to explore this idea of making, there's a place for it. And art, impressionistic painters used it quite a bit. And in my opinion, every good painting has a combination of lines and dots. You can create a variety of dots. If you remember the anatomy of the brush, you've got the side of the brush. We've got the tip of the brush, you've got the belly of the brush. So we can use all three parts of the brush. So explore using the belly of the brush, which will fan out and give you a bigger dot. Obviously, we can use the side of the brush to create these little small specs. And lastly, the tip of the brush, each brush size will give you a different size dot as well. We can press hard into the surface, we can press light into the surface. So as I mentioned, there are a variety of ways you can explore creating dots. But remember the only two marks you can possibly make, our lines and dots, you're recommended exercise is to explore this awesome idea. I would recommend just using a piece of scrap paper or an old junk painting you don't care about. And just make some lines and dots and do spend a little bit of extra time exploring those dots because I have generously shared so many different ways you can create them. In this lesson, I told you your mind will be blown. So lines and dots, the only two marks you can make. And this lesson I've shared, I've only painted lines. I cover what a dot is. I share the dots can add texture. I've giving you different ways to create dots and you had an exercise to get going. Now go paint dots people. 18. Done Gradation With Blended Dots: And now that you know what a dot is, we're going to explore blended dots, exploring dot making techniques. So I will cover blended dots. I will do that using pre-mixed Hughes. And I will show you non blended dots and I will mix them on the paper just so we have some options. Again, we're going to keep it chunky and you'll have an exercise when you're done to explore these dot gradation techniques. A little trip down memory lane shows you that the first creation we created was a blended gradation. We're going to use a similar technique. So let's discuss what blended dots are. So blended dots are where we will put a series of dots down. And we will just keep on dotting until they start to look blended. And in this version, I'm going to use pre-mixed Hughes. Since I'm working blue to green, I'll go ahead and use pure, Sir William blue and put that down towards the top of my swatch. Then I will premix my next hugh by adding a little bit of yellow just below that main blue pile. And then I will apply that to my spots. And notice how I'm working it back and forth using a series of dots which will ultimately blend it. This is a lot of fun to explore because it really adds that texture to the finish. To finish this swatch, I will just repeat the process. So pre remixing a Green to go just below the other one. And then once I put that down, I will work that into the gradation, again using a series of dots trying to avoid using any sort of line. We will use this technique later on in this course for one of our projects. Now notice here in the middle, there's an area that shifts a little bit bland, so I think we need to mix a little bit of green end of that. I can easily fix that by just getting a premix green and is working that back and forth, or should I say, up and down into those dots. And then there's the non blended dots. You may remember we had that non blended gradation. We did several lessons ago. This one we'll start the same way. I will use only surly and blue and create a series of dots along the top. Now on this version, we're going to mix on the paper and not the palette. That means I will just grab this yellow and apply it to the bottom of the swatch area. And I will continue this process of working. The blew down towards the yellow and the yellow up towards the green until they finally merge. Now, for this version, we do not want to over blend it. The idea is that we want to keep it chunky. So when we look at the blended dots here and we compare that to the non blended. We should see a little more texture with the non blended version. And that brings us to the recommended exercise. Draw some squares and explore blended dots. Be sure to experiment with both versions and don't neglect it because you will see these later on, as I mentioned earlier, blended dots explore dot making techniques. So you understand a little bit more about the blended dots using pre-mixed cuz I showed you a non blended dots version where I mix on the paper. Remember to keep that a little bit chunky. And you have a recommended exercise. That's all for now, but I will see you in the next one. 19. Palette Hues & Management: Welcome to pellet management. What you need to know about the mixing area, Hugh placement, mixing area options, and then my preferred method for managing the color all my palette. I will begin by showing you my paper palette. I share this with you in the Quickstart material guide. Now it was time to define the mixing area. The middle of the palate is typically reserved for mixing Hughes. And since there will be a lot of mixing going on, It makes this valuable real estate, which means we have to be wise about Hugh, placement around the edges is where you want to place your paint. So as I put my paint down on the palette here, notice how I'll go near the edges, protecting that middle mixing area. You can also note that I am keeping the Hughes together. So I have my two blues group next to each other. Ditto that for the yellows and of course, the reds. And I tend to put the white away from those hues. That way it doesn't mingle with the actual Hughes on the palette, which I will talk about a little more in detail as this course moves forward. Now let's look at mixing area options. So remember, we have the mixing area, which is basically the bulk of the palate, as long as the hues are placed near the edges, the key is to subdivide that area into spaces. For example, you can have one area dedicated for blues, won't for yellows, reds, and then neutrals are whites. Perhaps another option is to think more vertically coming down the pallet, which works well. And then of course we can think horizontally. Now my method to think more vertically. So, uh, having my paints up at the top of the palate, then I can dedicate this area for blues. And then here, of course, I will dedicate that area for yellows and ditto that for the reds and the right-hand side for whites and neutrals, dedicating mixing zones for certain Hughes will help you work more efficiently and help keep your colors organized. If I'm mixing shades of blue, then obviously I will keep that in the blue zone. Ditto that for yellow and red. But occasionally you have secondaries. So if I'm mixing green, a Went to come in between blue and yellow, there may be a mixed like violet where I need blue and red which aren't beside each other. In that case, I pick an area, either blue or red to mix that secondary whew, I happen to use a lot of grays and neutral, so the area on the right is dedicated to that. So that is a look at pallet management. What you need to know about the mixing area. Here, placements, which I recommend is near the edges of the palette. I've given you some mixing area options to think about dedicating zones for your Hughes. And then I also showed you my preferred mixing method. 20. Color Mixing Basics: Color mixing basics, the seven Hugh system. I will cover warm and cool Hughes. I will create a split primary color chart. We will go over the six primary Hughes. I will cover secondary Hughes and then finally tertiary Hughes. And then a recommended exercise. Let's go over a warm and cool hues and why they matter. Here you will see a chart I'll laid out on top, I have the yellow on the left hand side of that circle. It will be a cool yellow, leaving the right for my warm yellow. I will go around to the red and do the same thing. The cool will be towards the bottom and the warm will be up top. I won't go over this in detail in a moment, but just bear with me. That leaves the cool blew up top and finally the warm blue towards the bottom. And now it's time to introduce the split primary color chart. We'll begin with the yellows and work clockwise. I will first apply the cad yellow light to the left-hand side of that circle. That happens to be my cool yellow hue. And that's because the yellow ochre is my warm yellow and is born because it has more red in it than the cad yellow light. And those are my two yellows. So again, a warm yellow and a cool yellow out of the tube. The yellow ochre isn't touched dark. To tint that Hugh, I will add a little bit of white and then repaint my spots. The yellows are done. Now let's go to the reds. Because the warm red will be facing the warm yellow. I will start with my cad Red Light, which happens to be the warm red on my palate. So again, i will only paint half of that circle with my warm red. Once that is done, I can turn my attention to my cool red, which is Alizarin crimson. Alizarin crimson has a little bit of blue in it, which will also make a lovely violet. Later on, I added a touch of white cue that as I did the yellow ochre, just to get that Hugh, and that brings us to the blues. The warm blue will be towards the bottom. And all my palette. I have ultra Marine, which happens to be a blue with a little bit of red in it. So I will paint that half of the circle with my ultramarine blue, which will eventually mix with the Alizarin crimson to make an amazing violet. Forgive me for painting so slow and meticulously here, but I want to make sure I set a good example about how important color mixing as the warm blue is finished. Now I can apply a cool blue. Happens to be spirulina and that too is a little bit dark for my liking. I will do the same thing to ten it by adding a little bit of the titanium white. This will complete the first step of making the chart. And these are also your six primary Hughes. Each u is strategically placed in order to make the next round of colors that brings us to the secondary Hughes. And there will be three of them. So we will have an orange and between the yellow and red, a violet, and then lastly a green. I will start with the orange. And because we have a warm red and a warm yellow, it's going to give us the best orange possible. Let's see how that works. So using a little bit of the CAD red light, I will clean my brush and grab a little bit of the yellow ochre. So mixing that together with my brush, which is my preferred method, as you know, that gives us a pretty nice hue to begin with. If it looks a little bit to read which it did, I can just simply add a little bit of yellow ochre to that. And to test that color, I will add a little bit of white to it, which tells me is a little bit on the pink side. To push that to an orange, I still need a little bit of that warm yellow, so I will mix that into it and that should give us a pretty good orange to work with. So I'll, we'll apply that to my orange circle. Still looks a little red. So again, you know, now you can push that away from red by adding the yellow. I'm going to be a little bit fussy here and add a little bit of white to that orange, because I still think it needs to be a little bit lighter. Finally done. Now let's go to our violet. As you know, we had the ultramarine blue towards the bottom. We will mix that with our Alizarin crimson, which is our cool red. The dilemma is where do I mix it? I could go over here to the red column, or I could decide to use the blue column. It doesn't really matter, just pick one. So for this case, I'm going to grab the ultra marine and take it towards the blue column and then snag a little bit of Alizarin crimson there and mix it up. At this point, it may be difficult to tell it that violet is too blue or too red. I will add a little bit of white to it, which will help reveal its color bias. Basically, does it lean more red or does it lean more blue? I will add more crimp sin because I happen to think it's a touch to blue. And the theme right now is to keep heading a touch a white. So apparently my mindset is you paint a finished masterpiece here. So bear with me as I repaint this swatch. And then I think we can move on to green, which is our last secondary. I will go and between the blue and yellow using the cool blue and then the cool yellow. Because green is considered a cool whew as best to mix it with cooler. Colors such as my cad yellow light, and my server Liam blue. This will give me the optimal green to work with. And from there you can always push it to a warmer or cooler green depending on what you need for your painting. And that completes our secondary Hughes. Let's turn our attention to the tertiary hues. So as we look at the color wheel, we're going to create a hue in between the primary hue and the secondary. Here I have a yellow orange, which I made by adding a little bit of yellow ochre to that base, orange. Occasionally you will need a red orange. And for that, I will simply add a little bit of the cat red light to my base, Orange, a touch of white just to lighten it up. And that should complete all of my tertiary orange hues. Now that gets us to our violets. So we have a base violet already on the palate. To get a red violet or a magenta, I will mix a little bit of the Alizarin crimson, which is my cool red, ended that violet. And that should work perfectly for creating a red violet hue. To make a blue violet, I will use ultra Marine, which happens to be our warm blue. Mixing a little bit of that into the violet should certainly do the job. It may come off a little bit dark since we're adding that dark blue. In this case it did. I added a little bit of white to complete my tertiary violence. I'm confident you know how this works now. But just to walk you through it, I'll use my Sir William blue with a little bit of white, which was my base, cool blue. And then work that in to my green mixture. The end result will be a green that has a blue bias to it. You can think of it as a cool green. And there it is. Boop. Last up is our line, green or yellow green, which I can mix using the cad yellow light into that secondary green mixture. And once I get something that I think looks absolutely stunning, I can finally paint our last swatch. So there it is, ladies and gentlemen, the Perfect split primary color chart. By using the six primary Hughes and placing them correctly towards one another. We were able to mix the proper secondary hues. So not every red and blue will make a good violet. Just like not every blue and yellow will make a perfect Green. And ditto that for orange. Now, I highly recommend you do this exercise. So follow the ideas I shared with you in this video and create your split primary chart. If you can master color mixing, your paintings will thank you. Later on. Color mixing basics, the seven Hugh system, we went over warm and cool hues, the split primary color chart, how to place the six primary hues in the right place so that we can mix the best secondary Hughes. And of course, the tertiary Hughes will almost paint themselves if you get the first steps right, and that's a wrap. So I'll see you in the next one. 21. How To Tint Hues Using White: Tensing Hughes, introduction two tones. I will go over how value and tone are similar. How to use white to tint a hue which will of course, lightened the color. But it also reduces and intensity. And then there's a recommended exercise. Value and tone are similar. Value is basically the relative lightness and darkness of a hue and tone is basically the same thing. However, you can use tone to refer to how warm or cool a colour is. So perhaps you're looking at a color. He may say, hm, that color is a little bit too dark, which could be translated as The value is too dark. And also you can say that tone is too dark, but tone does have that added dimension where you can use it to refer to the overall temperature of a color, making value and tone similar because they can both referred to the lightness and darkness of a hue. But you really wouldn't want to use value if you're talking about the temperature of the color. And that's the difference between the two terms. That's my breakdown. Now we're going to use white in this first example, and we will explore three hues, starting with blue. So taking a little bit of the ultra marine, we'll paint the perfect swatch to begin with. Q lighten or tent that color. I'm going to add a little bit of the titanium white. And a little bit of white will go a long way, so don't overdo it. We just need a subtle change in the hue. And that is an easy method to lighten or tent a color. I will add a little more white to that and repeat the process again, just a little bit of white so that you can start practicing getting these subtle shifts between Hughes, rinse and repeat that. The yellow, starting with a pure swatch of yellow ochre, I will add a small increment of white to that. And of course do the same thing for the third swatch, ending up with a very light tan HW. Now I have read, but let's take a pause right here because I want you to know something. This will not only Ted the color, but it reduces the intensity. So the Hughes I started with, which were the ultra marine and the yellow ochre start to look washed out. And if you complete a whole painting like this, then the painting would just look a little bit dull. So we have to think things sparingly. Do notice how that Alizarin crimson makes a lovely pink just by adding a little bit of white to it. These are fabulous exercises to really understand and learn the personality of your colors. Your recommended exercise is to grab your Hughes and start tinting with white. Remember just a little bit at a time, get to know your colors better. Tent cuz this is your introduction to tones. I went over how value and tone are similar. How to use white to lighten the color, but then also know it reduces intensity. And now you have a recommended exercise. So go tent some Hughes. 22. How To Tint Hues Within Color Family: Then use an alternative method. This time, we will use a family Hugh works best with dark tones, why it's more vibrant. And then the recommended exercise, I will begin by adding a dark blue swatch as I did before. So the same exact color. Now remember, we're going to use a family hue. So I will take some Cerulean, which happens to be a little bit lighter value. We're tone then the ultra marine, and mix a touch of white into it. So the goal is to get a light blue but somewhat dark, and then mix that with the ultra marine. So by not mixing a pure white and just simply mixing a lighter blue into it, we end up with a color that has a little more intensity to it. It doesn't appear as washed out as the first method. And this is a great way to lighten darker hues. And again, this works best with dark tones. Instead of using a yellow ochre here, I will premix a red orange That's darker and value. Then the first yellow that I used. And let's say I wanted to tint that Hugh, instead of adding white, I could go and grab a little bit of my cad yellow light. Yeah, that's gonna push it to an orange, but it's also going to lighten that value because the cad yellow light is a lighter value than the original color that I started with. I'm using a lighter family hue as opposed to white to lighten the color. I can do the same thing here by getting another mixture of yellow ochre and cad yellow light, mix it to a lighter value and then put my swatch in. So as you can see, I'm getting a lighter hue each time I do that. I will try one more time with my Alizarin crimson. Remember this works best with darker values, making Alizarin crimson a perfect candidate. So now I can take the CAD red light, which is a lighter value. Then the Alizarin crimson mix the two of them together. And I should have a lighter value read that has a touch of that Alizarin crimson in it, making it a good option to lighten that value instead of using just white. There you go. Easy stuff. I will do one more swatch, but this time I have a little bit of orange there on the palette. And I can just add some of that because that orange is lighter than the CAD red light. So each time I do this, I'm picking something within the hue family to make the change. So we end up with more vibrant Hughes. I am not saying this is the way you should do it, but there are times it works just fine and perhaps even better than adding white. You're recommended exercise. You probably already know it is two tenths some Hughes, but stay within the family. And remember that blue that I tented, I used a light blue. So it's okay to use a hue that's premix like a light blue to darken it. But just avoid gone pure white for our recap, lead tented hues with the alternative method which was using a family Hugh. Remember this works best with dark tones. The end result is a more vibrant mixture, and then I gave you a recommended exercise. So I hope you enjoyed it and I'll see you in the next one. 23. How To Shade Hues: We've tented Hughes and now it's time to shade Hughes. So how to dark and colors? We will revisit the color chart. I will use a complimentary Hugh. We will discuss neutralizing Hughes and then the recommended exercise. Let's revisit the color chart. So for a complimentary color that say yellow, of course that would be violet. So we can use a violet to darken a yellow, we can use a Green to darken a red orange. We can also dark and lime green by using a red violet. Using complimentary Hughes is a great way to shade colors. I will start with my blue. And of course we will follow the same system. So we will work blue, yellow than red, because we are mixing colors darker. I'm going to begin with a lighter blue. If we go across the wheel, you will see orange. Is this complimentary, Hugh, you will only need a very small amount of this complimentary color. I even added a touch, a White to that. And if we compare light blue to blue, I just mixed with the orange, you will see the value is getting darker. We will take that a shade darker by adding a little more orange to that blue mixture. And as you see, it's certainly getting darker in value. That was so awesome. We're gonna do it again, but this time with a yellow and now I'll put a small amount of that orange into it. And before we go any further, let's talk about neutralize hughes. When you add a colours complement to it, is going to start to gray it out. And that's not always a bad thing as I mix this violet here. Just have a quick look at that blue shade I did. The first swatch didn't have any complimentary color into it. But the second, third did. And you can see how they're already starting to look gray. And also note that orange has yellow. So that blue and that touch of yellow is starting to push it to a green gray. Interesting stuff, and we can see that happening here with the violet. So violet has a little bit of blue in it. And when you mix yellow and blue, you're going to get a green ish, whew. So that grey in that yellow is more of a green gray. So you're getting a good education here on mixing color. That last watch was a little bit light, so I'll put a little more violent into it to finish off our yellow. We have one more to go. I'll start with my cat red light and a little bit of titanium white. And once we have our base smushed down, let's have a look at the color wheel one more time. If we go across that, we can see that green is the optimal choice to darken that, Hugh, I just so happen to have a little bit of green on my palette from when I did the color wheel. So that should do just fine. But look what I did. I added too much green. So the shift from one value to the next was a little bit off. This is a lot better because we can still see some of that red in that second swatch. I use up all of my red, so I'm going to premix a little bit more and then go back to our green. Obviously, I want this swatch to be a little bit darker. And of course it's going to get farther and farther away from red. And that is how you shade Hughes using this complimentary color. Your recommended exercise is to do a chart similar to what I did here. So start with a base, Hugh. Remember it needs to be a little bit lighter and value so that you have an opportunity to make it a little bit darker. Any color will do. I recommend using the same hues that you tried in the tent version. And that way you can start to build a relationship with some of these colors. Shade Hughes, how to darken colors? We revisited the color chart. I talked about how to use complementary hues, too dark in a color. You also know that using a complementary hue will start to neutralize the color and then the recommended exercise so you can start mastering how to shade Hughes. 24. How To Shade Hues Using Hue Family: Shade Hughes alternative method. Now we're going to use a family hue to darken a color. This will work best with lighter tones and also maintains more of his true color. And then of course, the one thing you love, a recommended exercise. I will start by PR remixing a light blue. So a touch of my titanium white and to the mixture I already have will do absolutely fine. Instead of a complimentary color, we're going to use Hue families. In this case, violet, green. Any of these colors should do fine, so long as it's darker in value, then the light blue I started with. So I'll just use a little bit of spirulina and blue ended that mixture. And you can see Lala, I've got a darker hue than what I started with. And also notice is not as green. So if you're trying to mix a darker hue and you don't want to push it to a green or neutralize it, this is a great option. And for that third swatch here, I just put a little bit of ultramarine blue into that. And of course we get a darker blue because that ultramarine is dark and value anyway, you can just look at it on the palate and see that it's going to do the job. This works best with lighter tones. So obviously I wouldn't try to do this with ultramarine blue. I'll start with my yellow since that's next up. And put a little bit of yellow ochre into that. That will give me a nice warm yellow, which is a perfect starting point. For this technique. To make this a little bit darker, I can use yellow ochre. We can look at that color wheel and see that yellow ochre or any of those yellow, oranges, oranges or Reds would be just fine. Again, just a little bit, should do the job. I think I got it right this time. You can probably see a hue family maintains more of its true color. So I didn't go all the way down to a red and I should do just fine. Now that's going to push it towards an orange. Because obviously, if you mix red and yellow, you're going to get an orange. But you're also going to get a slightly darker value, which may do just fine for their project or painting that you're creating, as opposed to using a complimentary color that's going to start to neutralize it, pushing it to that gray. For this last watch, I'm going to use CAD red light with a little bit of titanium white. And to make that a little bit darker, I can simply add more cad Red to that. That's going to saturate it. But it's also going to make it darker than the Hue I started with. To make that even darker. You probably already guessed it. Alizarin crimson. You can see how dark that Hugh is. All my palette. And you have just improved your color mixing knowledge. Great stuff on. No, you're impressed. A little recap. We can Ted Hughes by using only white, just know as going to wash that color out a little bit to maintain more of its original color. We can mix within the hue family so long as we're starting with a darker hue, we can shade Hughes using its complimentary color, which again will neutralize it, turning it more towards a gray. And I just demonstrated how to say within that Hugh family to shade colors again, starting with a lighter value, that's when it works best. Your recommended exercise is to learn how to shade Hughes, staying within the colour family. Recap time, shade Hughes the alternative method. So we use the hue family. Again, it works best with light tones, but know that it's going to maintain some of its original color, family and intensity. And they recommended exercise. Now people go mics, go paint. These are major blocks in your foundation. So don't let this opportunity pass you by. You are in it to win it. Now, go get it done. 25. Chroma, Saturation & Intensity: Welcome to it's all the same. Of course, I'm referring to chroma, saturation and intensity. So what is chroma? Why is it all the same? I will show you how to reduce chroma but retained the tone. I will test my skills by matching tone and value and then show you how I did and then he recommended exercise. So what is chroma? Chroma is the purity or intensity of a color, basically how free it is from white or gray. And to illustrate how this works, I put down a swatch of CAD red light, and I did not mix that color with anything else. It's all the same. So when we talk about chroma, saturation and intensity, they basically all referred to how pure that color is. And because I did not mix this cad Red light with any other Whew. It's high chroma. It's also highly saturated. And that means it's also as intense as it ever will be. So that in a nutshell is chroma. So how do you reduce chroma but retaining the tone and or value? That's the question we need to answer. I'll want to reduce the chroma in this CAD red light, but keep its value. So whatever whew I mix into, it needs to be of equal value to that red. I know that sounds a little bit confusing, but I promise you, as we move through, it's going to make sense. Just to be clear, I have two goals. I not only want to reduce the intensity of this red, but I want to end up with a red or another color that's of equal value. So let's talk about how to match tone and value. This is a bit of a challenge. I'm sure you remember the five value scale. So for this example, I'm going to use grey to reduce the chroma of that red. And what I'm trying to do is mix up a gray that's of equal value to the red swatch I've already put down. And I do not want the grey to have a warm or cool bias to it. So I'm basically mixing a neutral gray that's right in the middle. I'll put my first swatch down and now I can judge how I did. So when I look at that gray, I think it's a little bit too dark. So I'm going to test that with a touch of white and then re-evaluate. And I'm thinking it's still a little bit too dark. So a little more white ended that mixture. I will put my smudge down. And then again, take a moment to see how I did. That's pretty close. I think I'm starting to get an equal value of that red. And I will tell you that gauging the value of colors can be very difficult. Some colors are obviously dark summer light, but the ones in the middle are bit challenging. So let's look how I did as I grayscale that image. You will see I'm pretty close. Maybe that gray is a little bit too light on the right, but I'm certainly in the ballpark that gray will represent the complete desaturation of that cad Red Light. And all I have to do now to complete this scale is to mix some of that pure high chroma red with that gray. I wanted to take a little bit at a time and get us swatch in the middle. So as we turn our attention to the original CAD red light and compare that to the swatch and the middle, you will see that that color is no longer a high chroma is no longer intense. And since I started with a gray that was of equal value, that swatch and the middle should also be a similar value as the one I started with. Kinda cool, but also kind of complicated. I am now adding more gray to that red and working my way into a hue that's completely desaturated and it has lost its chroma. Now I'm putting more red, that base gray. So I want to create a swatch that has more red in it and less gray. So you can see the scale is starting to make sense. One of the most challenging things for an artist to learn is mixing color, but also understanding chroma and intensity. And then how to manipulate colors. There will be times when you're painting where you like the color, but it's simply too intense. The value looks perfect, so you don't want to lose its value. You only want to reduce the intensity of the color. And the method I just showed you here will do exactly that. And I hope you are understanding how important Great is to your painting. Your recommended exercise is to start with a swatch. Remember, you want that color to be high, chroma straight out of the tube, then premix a gray that's of equal value at that point. Take your two swatches out and good daylight and take a picture of it, then you can desaturated or remove all the color as I did in this lesson and see how well you did. So test your skills. And now you know that chroma, saturation and intensity mean the same thing I taught you what chroma is, which means you also understand saturation and intensity. I showed you why they're all the same and I dropped some major knowledge on you, showing you how you can reduce chroma but maintain a colours original value. I showed you how well I did Watchmen, not too bad. And now you have a recommended exercise. Take your time here. Don't rush through this lesson. Embrace the challenge because these are the fundamentals that will make a huge impact on your art. Hope you enjoyed this lesson and I'll see you in the next one. 26. Use Complimentary To Desaturate Hues: There's another way. Remove chroma alternative. A little trip down memory lane. We will mix a complimentary hue which you are already familiar with. We will match tone. I will show you how I did and hate. Watch your tone. And then the recommended exercise, we will go back in time a little bit here and revisit our colour wheel and the complimentary color to red, which you may already know, but some of you may still be putting the pieces together. But that Hugh is green. But before I start mixing, I'm going to set the table here by putting down the same cad Red Light swatch. And I've drawn the blank swatch on the right, which needs to be of equal value. I will start mixing my green using the surly and blue and the cadmium yellow light. So I will work that mixture back and forth with my brush until I feel I have a really good base green. I will put that Swatch down and right now is too dark. So as you know, we can use white to tent. So I will mix a little bit of the titanium white into that base green until I feel I have something of equal value to that read, the goal is to match a value or tone however you want to look at it. So there is my base read. I've mixed that base green and now we'll see how did I do. In order to find that out, I will desaturate the image, revealing the true value of both colors. What do you think that I do? Okay, I think I did pretty good. Let's move on to mixing some of that green into the red. And because they are complimentary colors, is going to start to gray it out or neutralize it. Here I'm going to blend everything nice and smooth. So we can see that transition from a high chroma red on the left to the grayed out green on the right. So I have completely removed the chroma from that cad Red light. Another cog in the color wheel. Your recommended exercise is to do exactly what you witness in this video. Put a high chroma hew down, use your color chart and pick that complimentary color. Remember to tenant if you need to, so that you don't lose its original value. If it shifts a little bit, then that's okay, we can let that go. There's another way to remove chroma using a complementary hue. A little trip down memory lane reminded you of the color wheel, which is so important. We use the complimentary hue and then white to tenant, and their goal was to match the value of the red with that green. I showed you how I did and hey, you've got to watch those tones. If you don't want to alter the value of the color that you're desaturating. If you complete the recommended exercise, you should have no problem mastering this basic color mixing skill. Since I know most of you have smartphones, remember to put your high chroma swatch down and then mix up a complimentary hue that you think is equal value and stop. Take a photograph of it and good light and then desaturated to see how you did. That will tell you how well you see the true value and a color. This is not an easy thing to do. It does take a little bit of practice, but I know you can do it. 27. Color Harmony Basics: Welcome to color combinations. Explore palette and color options. We will cover what you already know. Analogous Colors, split complementary colors, and guess blood. So much more. Let's get started with what you already know. And we'll kick it off with the primaries. We have six of them, but let's just consolidate to three. So you're primary colors would be yellow, blue, and red. And this is a wonderful combination to work with. Next up is the secondaries. To secondaries are easily m6 using the primaries and again, using the secondaries as a palate option. A great choice that brings us to the tertiary colors, and this combination would certainly make a wonderful palette. You can explore using all of them or course you can pick three or four. And then there are complimentary colors. As you know, these are huge located across from each other on the color wheel. So the blue and the orange would be wonderful. Red and green as you can see here. So you can pick two and have fun painting with complimentary colors. How about some analogous colors? These are colors located next to each other on the color wheel. As you can see, these blues and greens will work fine. Course you can mix in a little yellow as well. And then we have the blues with the violence. Again, we can even toss in a little bit of red, cool red, warm red. Those would be perfect for analogous color combinations. Then we have the warmer Hughes up here again, feel free to mix and mingle analogous color combinations. Hughes next to each other on the color wheel, split complimentary colors. You know what complimentary colors are. So you would take orange, which is the complement of blue, and then add a color beside it. Here I chose yellow. So that will be a split complimentary color combination. Here I use green and red into Austin some violet. I really enjoy working with split complementary color combinations, triadic. So we're talking about a triangle. So colors that form a triangle on the color wheel. So here we have violet, green, and orange, which are also the secondary colors. But we can also try line green. We can try red, orange. We can try the blue violet. Again, these are wonderful combinations to explore. What about to tragic combinations? This would be a rectangle on the color wheel. So any of these four colors here, I have lime, green, yellow, orange, red, violet, and then blue violet. Another example would be yellow, blue, green, violet, and then the red orange. And you can make it a super-simple by using monochromatic. That would mean picking one color such as blue and using tenths of that blue, of course, we can use a light blue and you shades of that blue. We can also use a color and use shades by using gray of that one colour. So again, monochromatic is one color and using tents and shades of that Hugh, you can also just try shades. This works well by picking a light value. So such as the light blue, light yellow, light red, and just using shades of that primary color. So you would get away from adding white to the palette. But you can certainly start with a lighter value color that has white pre-mixed in it and then shade from there. The opposite of that would be tenths. So you could take a darker value, the, say, the dark blue on the top left, and use white into that. Of course, you can use any other color, or you can use a combination of two or three colors that work well together, but using tense as a way to harmonize your palate works fine. How about a warm pallet? This would obviously be colors located in the warm area on the color chart. So using these warm reds, yellows, and oranges would have worked wonderful. Of course we can go to the opposite and do a cool pallet. So using blues and greens together to create a cool temperature painting works fine. There are many other ideas and techniques that work well. But we did cover some popular color combinations, starting with what you already know about the colour wheel. So we went into analogous split, complimentary and so on. So I encourage you to explore some of these pallet combinations for your next painting. Just remember, when you look at your inspiration, image or the subject you are about to paint, you don't have to be stuck to the colors that are there in real life. As an artist, you have the freedom to change colour whenever you wish. And these color combinations are a great way to explore that idea. 28. Seeing Value: Before we dive too deep into value, this talk about seeing value. And the idea here is to eliminate color. We will explore photos. We will convert them to grayscale, locate lightest light and dark as dark. We will talk briefly about plane changes and then plane change facts. Let's get started by exploring some photos. The most challenging thing about painting in general, for me was seeing the value of a colour. So the best way I learned to do this was to convert my image to a gray scale by eliminating the color and the image. I could read the value more clearly, which helped me do a number of things. One of those is locate the lightest light and I'm talking about the lightest value. So when I look at this coffee cup and YouTube, where do you see the lightest value? If you set it where the highlights on the cup, then you're right. But this is an easy one, and sometimes the lightest light is more obvious and so is the darkest dark. So you can look at an image and scan it quickly, even in color, and begin to see where that dark is value is. When you convert it to a gray scale like this, I began to see the pattern of that dark value and how it moves within the subject. For example, the left-hand side of the stem is where that dark value begins. It moves up into the leaves and then into the pedals. On the left-hand side, you can even see a few of the dark values in the center of the rows. Let's have another look at a bowl with oranges. Clearly, the background is the darkest value. But when we convert this to a gray scale, localise some of those dark values mingle with the oranges. Again, it's about training the eye to see through color and only the value of the hue. Let's talk about plane changes. As we look at this little alleyway here, there are several planes to consider. We had the vertical planes of the walls, both the left-hand wall and the wall that's in sunlight. And then we have the ground plane. There's also planes that are more angular like on the roof. So with each plane change, there is a change and value. You can see the light on the ground plane is much lighter than these sunlit wall on the right hand side. When you are choosing a color for the sunlit alli there, then you wouldn't want that color to be lighter and value. Then the color that you pick for the vertical wall that is sunlit. And again, this is just one example. Some forums like this example is more boxy and geometric because it's human-made, but other forms are more organic. If you were to dissect this image into all the different planes, there will be lots of them. Some of those forms are man-made, some are more round, some are more oval, and so on. With objects that are more boxy and less round, the plane change seems to be more obvious. While objects that are more round and curved, let's say like the apple or pair, the plane changes are more gradual. So there's a smooth transition from a light value to a dark value. Now this is just an example of seeing value. We are only scratching the surface of what this means for your acrylic painting. And the main purpose and goal for this lesson was to introduce the idea to you. And that is to see value through color. The easiest thing for me to do was to take an image and gray scale it like I've shown you here for your recommended exercise. Grab some images. It could be of a vacation. It could be of objects around your house and bring them up in your photo editor, whether it be on your iphone, smart phone or computer, and convert it to a grayscale or simply desaturate the image of all its color, then you'll begin to see value, go through the checklist, locating the lightest light, the dark as dark, and then just observe plane changes, acknowledged that these things exist. And I think that would be a good starting point for seeing value. And of course, we will discuss this in more detail as we move forward. 29. How To Mix Gray: It's that time to mix Gray, a whew, you will grow to love. We will use the three primaries. I will use white 2-10, which you already know about. What is a color bias, changing color bias, and then a recommended exercise. We will begin with using the three primaries, which will mix a lovely gray. Notice the right-hand side of my palette. How neglected is that? I have nothing to show up to this point. We've really only worked with the colors on the color wheel. Let's go ahead and take a nice little chunk of that white and put it down in the mixing area. Now for our three primaries, blue, yellow, and red will take a little bit of each. It doesn't really matter. So I'll scoop a little bit of both of those blues. I will Didot that for the yellow. So you can see I'm getting a little bit of each. And then of course both reds. Once I had that down, the fun begins. I finally get to put that palette knife to work. That thing sits around collecting dust way too often. So you will see, I am smearing that paint around on the palate, working it back and forth. I will scoop it all up, put it back down, and repeat it until I feel everything is mixed evenly. I will take a little bit of that paint and make my swatch. But now I'm going to add white to it to tenant. And that's going to tell me a lot about that gray. So I don't really know if it's to blue, to yellow or to read. So I'll put a little bit of white end of that base gray, which will reveal the true temperature of that mixture. Meaning, is it to cool blue or too warm red? And honestly, that looks pretty good. But this talk about what is color bias. I'm going to take a little bit of ultramarine blue and add it to that gray. And what that's going to do is push that gray to a cool grey. So we could say that gray has a blue bias to it. So our base grey, you can see here, which was pretty dead on, because when I added a little bit of white to that, you can't really say that it's warm or cool as pretty much in the middle, I nailed it. Obviously adding the blue to the third swatch On the right brings him more to a cooler gray. So how did we change color bias? I will use that cool gray as an example. If I want to warm that up, I can use a yellow or I can use a red. I use both. But yellow ochre or a cad yellow light. Alizarin crimson or CAD red light would do just fine. So I added to the mixture and then a little bit of white just to bring out that bias in it. And you will see that gray is now leaning more towards a red. So we compare that last swatch I did to the cooler one beside it, you can see a difference. Your recommended exercise is to do exactly what I demonstrated in this video. Get accustomed to mixing a base grey that is neutral. Remember to use that white to help you out if you want to push it cooler or warmer, you know how to do it. Recap. Mixed Gray, a whew, you will grow to love. I showed you how to use the three primaries to mix a lovely gray, how to use white through tenet. I explained what a colour bias was. And not only that, how to change a color bias that works with not only graze but any color. And then you have a recommended exercise so you can grow to love mixing, graze. 30. Five Value Scale: I can't begin to tell you how excited I am to share five value scale. We will cover what is a five value scale using white to tent, gradual shift and values and the recommended exercise. What is a phi value scale you ask is a set of grades that will work from light to dark. And we will begin mixing that. But of course, we will need to use our white to do that. We already have our bass grey down. So I can start with a nice dark value, but I do not want pitch black, so I added a little bit of white to that. What should do? Just fine. Now as you probably have guessed, I will add a little bit of white to that mixture and get the next value in line. That didn't quite do it. There wasn't enough shift there. So I will use a little bit of white and then that should do it just fine. So you can see the values are starting to get lighter. A little bit of weight, maybe not enough. And that will give us our third value. So three down, two to go a little more white end to that base mixture. Of course I didn't put enough widen it. That seems to be the theme here. So I'll add a touch more. And that gives us four. So one more to go, as you know now, adding more white to that mixture, working that mixture down a little bit as I go on the palette. And there you have it. So gradual shift in value. So as you create your value scale, makes sure the shift between one to the other isn't too drastic. So over this phi value scale, you can see we go from dark to light and has done just a little bit at a time. Your recommended exercise is to create a five value scale. Get used to mixing grays and using white to it. And remember that gradual shift from one value to the next phi value scale, your best friend, I showed you what a five value scale is, how to use white to tenant. And then of course, a gradual shift in value from one to the next. And your recommended exercise values will come up quite a bit in this course. So don't neglect it. 31. How To Use Gray To Shade: Here's a confession. I've been totally sand bagging on you. Remember when we were learning how to shade Hughes? Well, guess what? You can do it with grey. Now that you understand how to mix Gray, I can show you how to use it. Shade with gray and alternative mixing method. We will revisit shades, use slightly darker values, a fantastic shade option, and then the recommended exercise, let's go way back every visit, shades. So remember we use a complimentary hue, and then we also use a hue family. And then there's a gray, which I am a huge fan of. Let's start with a little bit of cad yellow light, some yellow ochre, and a touch of white. And that should give us a lovely yellow to begin our lesson. So there it is. Now be sure to use a slightly darker value. For example, the yellow I'm using MI swatch is a very light value. Yellow, I would want to use a gray that's only slightly darker than that. So I wouldn't want to go to my darkest gray on the value scale. When you get a right, there should only be a subtle shift from one value to the next. Obviously, if you kept mixing a little bit of gray into that, eventually, you will get to a color that's all gray. And the yellow will completely disappear, which is exactly what happened. And this last swatch as we go down the line here, marvel at this subtle shift from one to the other. Pretty nice. This try one more color. So a little bit of cilium blue with some titanium white because I am teaching you how to shade Hughes, I want to start with a good light blue. So there's our swatch and we can work with that. As you know now, I want a gray that's similar value but slightly darker. If I add that to the blue in theory is should make it darker. And that's because that gray is a darker value than the blue that I started with. Now that you understand that concept, I will speed through these last few swatches and you now have another reason to use grays, and this is a fantastic shade option. This happens to be one of my favorite ways to shade a hue. But of course, I use all three methods when I'm painting. So that brings us to you. Got it, the recommended exercise, grab your palate, grab some paper, and mix up some lighter value Hughes, and then use your grays to shave them. It's best to use a gray that slightly darker than the color you're trying to shade. Shade with gray and alternative mixing method. We revisited shades. I showed you how to use a slightly darker value, grey. And I raved about what a fantastic shade option. This is. You have a recommended exercise. Now go paint. 32. The Power Of Value: The amazing power of value, there is no better teacher. We will use the value scale and turn a 2D object into a 3D object by adding the light source and then placing values accordingly. And then the recommended exercise, we will start with the value scale. As you remember, we created this phi value scale from dark to light. And now we're going to use it to turn a simple square into a cube. So a square is only a shape, so it has no other sides Other than the four around the perimeter. We want to turn that into something that has form from a 2D to a 3D. When we look at the square, it only has a front. We want to put a side and a top on that, making it into a queue. And we need to add a light source to do that effectively. For this example, the light will be coming from the top left hand side. Now, we will place values accordingly. And that means I will need a lighter value for the top of that cube. And that's because it's receiving that light source more so than the front and the right-hand side of the cube, which I haven't painted, get my first pass on the top of that cube. A little bit dark. So I mixed a little bit lighter value, and now I can feel the light hitting the top of that cube. Now the front of that cube needs to be a little bit lighter as well. So I will mix a value, maybe somewhere in that three range. That leaves the right-hand side. The right-hand side, of course, will be the darkest side. And that's because it's completely turned away from the light source coming from the top left hand side. And that is how you turn a 2D square into a three-dimensional cube using values. But we still have a cast shadow. You want the cast shadow to be a little bit lighter than the right hand side of the cube. And that's just good value hierarchy, which we will talk about more later on in this amazing acrylic course. And that is how you turn a shape into a form. A shape is flat and forms have volume. For your recommended exercise, I want you to paint a cube. Feel free to use the same light source as I did in this video. And then try a few more with the light source coming from different directions. So that is the power of value. And there is no better teacher than value. We use the phi value scale to turn a 2D shape, which was a square, and turned it into a 3D cube. In order to do that, we have to have a light source which will add a particular value to a certain side of that form. And then you simply place values accordingly. You also have a recommended exercise. So stop looking at your computer screen and go feel the power of value. 33. Shapes And Forms: Shapes and forms value in action. I will give you a quick recap of what we've learned from values. We will talk about the four basic shapes. We will use value to create forms. We will discuss value hierarchy and then a recommended exercise. Let's go ahead and have a quick recap of what we've learned so far. We started with mixing our graze using the three primaries to get a base neutral. And then we use blues and reds to make are cooler and warmer. Hughes. And we looked at color bias. I showed you the trick of using a little bit of white mixed into a color to see if it's warmer or cooler. And then adjusted accordingly, we created the five value scale. And then we looked at how to shade Hughes using our graze. Remember, I recommended that you premix a grey that is slightly darker than the color you want to shade. And then we learned the power of value, turning that boring o square into a 3D form. And that brings us to the four basic shapes. Now there are more, but these four shapes should help us quite a bit as we move forward. So the shapes will be a circle, a square, a triangle, and then a rectangle. Now, I will draw out the same shapes using my pencil to the right of that. It's that time where we use value to create forms. I will begin by putting a base value on the circle. That value could be light or dark. I'm going to start with something roughly in the middle. So that was a little bit too light. So I put a little bit of darker gray into that. And now we have something that's roughly, I would say in that three value range. So array in there somewhere. I will now add a darker value. So our light source is still coming from the top left hand side. So using a little white into my dark gray, which should work just fine. So already that circle is coming to life, starting to look like a bowling ball. We can now move into our third value, which will be our lighter value. So a, since the light source is coming from the top left, we know that area of the sphere would need to be a little bit later. And that's starting to look really good. I'll blend that just a little bit. So basically blending the lighter values on the top left with the values towards the bottom right. A little highlight, and there you go. There's our lovely Bolden ball, all created with the power of values. And now I will paint the square and then turn that into a cube, which I know I already did in the previous lesson. And that's why I'm speeding this part of the video up because you already understand how this cube works. So lighter value on top, medium in the front, dark to the right, that brings us to the triangle. So I will paint the base color for the side that's hitting light, and then a slightly darker value for the side that is away from the light. I just turn a triangle into a pyramid right before your eyes. Let's talk about value hierarchy. And that is, we want to place the correct value in the correct area of our form or subject. For example, as I turn this rectangle into a tube, I have to make decisions on where to place my values. Here I'm placing a light value on the side of that tube that's close to the light source. And that means the top of that tube should be receiving more light. Therefore, the value hierarchy would be, the top of the tube, would be lighter and value than the left-hand side, leaving the right-hand side of the tube, the darkest value. And that's the gist of value hierarchy. And we will discuss this a lot more later on. For now, you're recommended exercise is to paint for basic shapes and then turn those into forms by placing the right value and the correct area, which also happens to be value hierarchy. So there you have it shapes and forms value in action. I gave you a quick recap of how far we have come with value. We discussed the four basic shapes and we use value to create forms. I talked about value hierarchy, which again, we're going to discuss a lot more later on in a recommended exercise. So go get it done. 34. Cool Gray Cube Demo: And just when you thought you were done with color, we're going to do some exercises to strengthen your skills, and this one, we will do a cool gray q. So value and color mixing drills is what we're talking about here. I will give you a cool gray reminder. I will premix my base cool gray. We will talk about value hierarchy once again. And then the recommended exercise, this section should move quickly. So long as you have done your homework, I'm going to divide the paper vertically and then horizontally given me four sections to work with. And they quickly draw out my first cube. And now I will give you a cool gray. Remind her, looking at the chart where we learn how to mix our graze, I did a cool gray Swatch where I pushed it to a blue biased. And that's what I'll do when I premix my base, cool gray. I still have plenty of that gray on the palette. I will put a swatch down and show you. That's not very cool. So there goes my Cerulean and ultra marine. I will mix that into the gray. And now we have something I can work with. And since it's pretty dark and value, I will put that on the right-hand side of the cube. I'm keeping my light source coming from the top left hand side. So that will put the dark value on the right. And then of course the light value on top, leaving a value in the middle for the side that's facing us. And I have to apologize. I did a lousy job cutting in that side of the Q. That was lousy technique, shame AMI. Let's go on to value hierarchy. As you know, values have to be placed in the right area of your subject. So for this example, I want a two on top, a three on the front, and then a four on the right. And those numbers are probably very random to you because I really haven't explained it. I will pause the demo right here so I can explain what's going on. So a one would be a very light value, a to slightly darker. And then of course a five would be my darkest value on the five value scale. And now I guess we're painting by numbers, which means I'm mixing a three for the front of that queue. And of course, that mixture is a nice cool gray. I'm adding my value swatches up top here so you can have a reference for your studies. And now I only have to clean up this one side here. And this part of the cube will be done, and that leaves R2 value and that will be placed on top. I know these cubes sometimes seem very simple, but it's so important as a beginner and even an advanced artists to simplify the process. So if you're trying to master color, you don't really need a complex subject. When we make things too difficult, then is so easy to become overwhelmed. So keep it simple. At this point, the only thing left is my shadow. And I'll want that shadow to be in between a 34. It shouldn't be as dark as the right-hand side of that cube, which is facing away from the light source value hierarchy 101. Your recommended exercise is to grab your sunglasses and your favorite leather jacket and paint a cool whew. Use the ideas I shared with you in this video and the ones you already know from the previous exercises to get it done. So the first value and color mixing drill is done. We did a cool gray reminder. I showed you again how to premix that base cool gray. We talked about value hierarchy and of course, the recommended exercise, that's a wrap. 35. Warm Gray Cube Demo: Here is a value and color mixing drill where we will paint a warm gray hue and we will rinse and repeat the same steps we use to create the cool gray substituting a warm hue, of course, for a cool whew. And in the end you will have your recommended exercise. So rents and repeat, I'll start out with the same q drawn to the right of my original one. And I will put the spots down. You can see is a neutral swatch so it doesn't lean warm or cool. But adding that cad Red light will certainly warm up the temperature of that gray. Of course, I can use yellow, ochre, yellow and even Alizarin crimson if I wanted to, because all of those are relatively warm hues, especially if you compare it to blue. So there's my warm based gray, which will be placed on the right-hand side of this cube because that's going to be the darkest value. So in all of these demos, I'm going to keep the light source coming from the top left hand side. So there it is. And now I'm ready to add a little bit of white. I add yellow or yellow ochre to it to lighten it. Yes, but I wanna make sure this cube is more of a warm gray. If I start adding other colors besides read, then it's easy to turn this cube more into a color study. And I wanted to be more of a gray scale study. I am using the same exact value hierarchy as I did and the blue cube. So I have a four value to the right, a three on the front face of that cube. And now I'm mixing a two value for the top. And even though I thought I had the right value for the top of that cube, it wasn't correct. And oftentimes this happens. It will look good on the palette. But once you place it on the art, it just seems a little bit off. So don't get frustrated if you have two remixed things several times to get it right. Last up will be the cast shadow, which as you know, should be lighter than the four on the right-hand side of the cube, but slightly darker than perhaps the front of that cube. So a 3.5. I will complete it by adding my swatches to the top. And that brings us to the recommended exercise. Paint, a warm value cube. So I mixed CAD red light to create my warm gray. But feel free to use any of the warm hues that you have on your palate. So that was part two of value and color mixing drills. We use the same process that we did creating the cool cube. And then you have a recommended exercise so you can get used to painting M, mixing warm grey hues and values. 36. Low Key Demo: Yet another value demo, a low-key demo at that. So manipulating value, I would tell you what a low key is. Locating darkest, dark, locating lightest light. We will apply values accordingly to our low key scale and then a recommended exercise. So what is a low key painting? To explain that, I have a value scale along the bottom of my demo. And when we do a low key demo, we're going to work within the range towards the left-hand side of that scale. The lightest light here, and then the black for the dark as dark, a low key painting, then we will only use values within that range. So we will not apply values that are located towards the right third of the scale, but we still need to apply values accordingly. I will use a one to represent the background, which will also be the lightest value in this painting. But note that it will not be white, it will only be the lightest value. You can see I have my to my three and then my darkest value, my darkest value will be this little dark shadow right there. I have my graze mixed up. I'm going to use the same techniques we've already talked about when mixing graze To do this looky painting, my scale will help guide me. So as I create a value that I think is correct for a particular area. So in this case, the one, I will just put a swatch down below that scale just to see where I'm at, mixing on the palette will trick you. You will often think the value or color as correct, but it's only until you compare it to something else. So in this case, the scale that I realize is See there are two light to dark to blue, to warm, to cool, and so on. Now I feel this value is a little bit too dark. I'm going to add a little bit of white into that, which should give me the value that I need. Also, remember that acrylic paint will dry slightly darker than when you applied it. So I'm trying to also compensate for that characteristic of the medium. I will mix by values and apply it using the same techniques we've talked about throughout this course. I'm going to speed things up. I will eliminate some of the mixing because you already know how that works. Once I have all of the values correct, it's only then that I will judge the final piece. Remember when I said earlier, don't judge the values. And so everything is painted in. A low key scale could be useful for a nocturnal painting to project a certain mood, a lighting condition, and so on. Your recommended exercise, as you paint a simple geometric shape using a low key scale, feel free to use a vertical block as I did here. And that is a low key demo, manipulating value to create a mostly dark painting. And this can be done with any color, blue-green, read a doesn't matter. I define when a low key painting is why you need to still locate the darkest dark and the lightest light. Apply values accordingly to the loci scale. And you have a recommended exercise to explore low key value painting. 37. High Key Demo: High key demo, manipulating value. What is high key? Again, we will locate the darkest and lightest values, apply values accordingly. And then a recommended exercise. Let's start with what is a Heikki painting? So if a low key painting as very dark values than a Heikki painting are very light values. So you would want to work towards the right-hand side of the scale. So your darkest dark would be that medium value. And then your life is like could even be pure white. Now let's number each area of the painting. So we will apply values according to the number, not the chart. So one would be the lightest value. We know where the two is based on the previous demo. So our lighting source will be coming from the top left are 3s and r four. So I've already located the lightest light, which is where I will begin. But should you decide to start with your darkest dark or somewhere in the middle, that's fine too. It just so happens. I'm starting with the lightest light, but I can easily start with the darkest dark. You already know how the rest of this works. Cutting in using water to soften my paint, to prep it. Pre mixing my values Dawn the old spot test to make sure that value is correct. All of those things we've discussed many times over. So I am going to start speeding through some of these things that are repetitious and can become a little monotonous. My biggest advice is to remember things dry a little bit darker with acrylic. And to always start with a scale like I have at the bottom there. When you begin learning these different value painting techniques, as good to have that there so that you can spot test your values. I've been painting for over 20 years and I always have a value scale close by now that this painting is done and we can compare the low and high key demos. Each has its own mood and affect, but both are very good at capturing light and shadow. You are recommended exercise is to paint a Heikki block. Again, feel free to use a vertical block as I did in this demo. But be sure to follow through. All of these are wonderful tools to have at your disposal by physically doing the exercise, you're able to tap into that resource whenever you need to. That is your high key demo manipulating value. I told you what Heikki is. We had to locate the darkest dark and the lightest light and apply those values according to the Heikki scale, you have a recommended exercise for those of you that are here to really learn to master acrylic painting. I will see you in the next one. 38. High Chroma Cube Demo: For this value and color mixing drill, I will focus only high chromo cube. So using a high chroma blue and then a little bit of white to tent the hues. And then of course, the recommended exercise. Let's start with using a high chroma blue. Now we will bend the rules just a little bit. So just because it's a high chroma painting, it doesn't mean that there can be a little bit of gray or a little bit of white and those colors. So in this example, I'm starting with spirulina in blue and adding a little bit of white into that. And that's going to give me the value I need for the front of that queue. And by the way, the next example I give you will be a low chroma blue. And that's when you're going to see that even though I use white in this high chroma demo, when you compare it to the low chroma that I will do, you will certainly see a big difference. So if for some reason you really want to paint a high chroma painting, it's ok to use a little bit of white and of course a little bit of gray. It's just that the majority of the painting should be done with high chroma Hughes, while perhaps some of the other areas may be a little less saturated. I have to assume at this point that you're starting to get the hang of this. So I'm going to bump the speed up a little more on the rest of this demo. For my dark value, my number four, I'm going to use Cerulean Blue and ultra marine. That's going to give me a very high chroma dark side for the Q. And by adding a little bit of white and to that dark blue, I have my shadow. And now you have your recommended exercise. Feel free to use blue, yellow, red, violet. It doesn't matter. Star with a nice high chromatic mixture at a little bit of white accordingly, and then use a high chroma hue for that shadow side. So high chroma cube value and color mixing drills, we created a high chroma blue. We also use whites. And now you have a recommended exercise to practice these color mixing theories. 39. Low Chroma Cube Demo: And now we have the opposite of our high chroma cube. With the low chroma cube, I will use grey as opposed to the complimentary color to D saturate. And then you will have a recommended exercise. Because I want something good to compare to that high chroma blue. I will use the exact same, surly and blue. So I will premix my base color and then start using gray 2D saturate it. For those of you that remember the chroma saturation and intensity lesson, I could also opt to use a complimentary color, and it just so happens that I want to use grey on this one as I've been chatting with you here, I've been pre mixing a gray and I've mixed that grey with the base surly and blue hue that I have in the lower left-hand corner of the palette. I think that reads a little bit to gray and perhaps a little bit too dark and value. My thinking here is I will use a little bit of white and then a little more blue into that mixture. And that gives me a color I'm a little bit happier with. We can call this r three value and place that on the front of the cube using some good technique here, I'm going to go around the edges, cutting in. And as you can see two, I have my standard grip. As we move forward in this demo, I have to assume again that you understand these color mixing ideas. So I'm going to bump this video to a two times real-life speed. So taking a little more blue and then a little more grey end to that base mixture should give me a low chroma blue for that shadow side. Again cutting in, then I can add the fill. So all this is working well, I am going to adjust that color just a little bit and I think that's working just fine. That leaves only the top of the cube. So I will premix a gray off to the right side of that palette and then bring it into the blues on the lower left hand corner. And we'll work back and forth until I have the right value for the top. I'll remind you that oftentimes when you're mixing Hughes on your palate, they look spot on, but it's really hard to tell until you add it to your artwork. So again, don't become frustrated. This is par for the course. Your recommended exercise is to paint a low chroma blue cube. And when you're done, be sure to compare it to the high chroma blue. Q. Just so you start to get a feel for how colors work and how some of these color mixing techniques impact the artwork. In this lesson, you learned to paint a low chroma blue cube using good value and color mixing skills. I use grey to desaturate the blue. And now you have a recommended exercise to give it a go on your own. Good luck and have fun painting a low chroma cube. 40. Circle To Sphere: It's time to turn our attention to painting spheres. For this demo, I will use a high chroma green. I will remind you of how to paint a curved shape. We will work with N, the hue family. And then you will have a recommended exercise to crush this sphere. So curved shape reminder. So remember this lesson, this blue circle we painted a long, long, long time ago. And in that lesson, I gave you some pointers on using those curved strokes. We're going to do the same exact thing when painting this sphere, but we also need to discuss value. And remember this quick little demo I did when I turn shapes into forms using value hierarchy then, well, we've got our work cut out for us, but I know we can do it. I divided my space vertically down the middle and then added two lines horizontally. So for those of you keeping score, that's going to give us six spaces to work with. And now I'm way behind the demo, so let me catch you up to speed. I am painting a green sphere. So I premix my green using cad yellow light and my spirulina in blue. And the green I mixed is somewhere in the middle. So it doesn't represent the darkest dark or the lightest light. Think of that three value we used in previous demos. I'm adding the light source now, which is the top left-hand side, meaning this part of the sphere should be catching light. We are going to work within the hue family. So to create a lighter value, I use cadmium yellow into that base, green. Again, I want to keep this as saturated as possible since we're doing a high chroma version of this sphere. So remember the color wheel, there's are green and then there's that little blue just below it. I'm going to use that blue to shade my hue. So I'll, we'll go up here to these Cerulean and the ultra marine and mix a little bit of that into my base green hue. That should give me a darker value, which I can use for the shadow in the sphere. Once these darker values are applied, I'm going to come back into it with a clean brush and smooth out some of those brushstrokes. And that's going to make it nice and pretty. To finish it off, we just need a little cash shadow, which will help sell the light source coming from the top left hand side. And there is our high chromosphere using cues within the colour family. Okay, we get it. You're recommended exercise is to paint a high chroma sphere. This is not only about color mixing, but this is about turning shapes, N2 forms using value hierarchy for your friendly re-cap, we painted a sphere using high chroma greens. I gave you a curved shape reminder. We worked within the hue family and you have a recommended exercise to go paint some green spheres. 41. Sphere With Low Chroma Green: Now it's time to paint a sphere. But using a gray 2D saturated, I will also mix within the hue family and then give you a recommended exercise. We will kick it off with using gray 2D saturate. If you remember back to our value lessons, I snuck in an optional way to shade your Hughes, and that is using gray. And that's what's going to happen right here before your very eyes. So again, a low chroma, green sphere. So that we can compare that to the high chroma version on the left. Mixing my base green will give me a good starting point. And because that green is a little bit on the dark side, I'm going to premix a light grey. Now I will create a second swatch that has a little more green into it and perhaps slightly darker. Now this gives me a really good starting point for my greens. I will fill in the sphere with a hue or value in the middle. So it's not going to represent the darkest dark, and it's not going to represent the lightest light. And on full display here you can see these cutting in skills. And also I'm rotating that paper so that I can navigate around those edges to avoid those blind spots. So there's our lovely green circle, which really isn't what we're painting. Now we need some values to turn that into a form. So using a darker gray here, I can premix a green gray That should do fine for the shadow side. I'm going to make that a little bit lighter and perhaps a little bit greener. And note how I'm using those curves strokes, really trying to feel the form of that sphere. At this stage, the brushstrokes look pretty chunky and that's normal. I'm using a light gray mixture into that base green to add the area on the top left of that sphere. That's getting the majority of the light. I always seem to forget this. So I'm going to fall back now and add my swatches. So we have our dark base green. And there was the green in the middle. And now here is the light gray green. Also know that I'm trying to mix within the family. Or you can say, I'm avoiding using any complimentary colors. I'm going to speed things up just a little bit here. As I add one more layer to the sphere, my goal is to strengthen the darks a little bit more and then some of those mid tones. On the second round, I'm also blending the brushstrokes a little bit more to give it a smooth finish. And the last step is the cast shadow. Your recommended exercise is to paint a low chroma green sphere and try to do it besides the high chroma version so that you have something to compare it to. And now you know a little bit more about painting spheres. In this version, I use grey to desaturate it. I also mix within the family, so no complimentary colors. And now you have a recommended exercise to do it on your own. 42. High And Low Chroma Pyramid: The next form up is the pyramid. Again, we are focusing on value and color mixing drills and learning how to turn shapes and two forms. I have included both versions of the pyramid and this video. The first version will be a high chroma Violet, and I will mix within the hue family. The second version will be a low chroma violet. And again, I will mix within the family. And then the recommended exercise, I will begin by drawing my pyramids, which is basically a triangle with a side on the right. And that's a pretty easy shape to draw, so I'm pretty sure you can handle that. And now we can begin the high chroma violet. So high chroma, similar to the green sphere on the left. But this time I'm going to use ultramarine blue and then my Alizarin crimson. If you remember from the color wheel exercise we did, those two colours will create the optimal violet. And it also happens to be a pretty dark value. So I will add a little bit of white to that, which will bring out its true bias. I think that colors should work just fine for our darker value, which I will place on the right-hand side of that pyramid. Unlike the cube, we're only dealing with two sides and this form will not have a side that's in full light. I'm going to mix within the hue family. So my thought is, I would try this Cerulean Blue, which is a little bit lighter value into that violet. The little test swatch there said that didn't quite do it. So I will mix up a little bit of a light blue into that violet to see if that gets us there. Maybe just a little more white ended that violent and that should work pretty good. Now I can use my cut in techniques and go around the edges of our pyramid. And then once all that's done, I can add the fill. And now would say this pyramid has more of a tertiary violet, leaning more towards a blue. There's our shadow and now we can start the next version, which will be the low chroma pyramid. To create the base violet, I'm just adding a little bit of a dark gray to that base, violet after testing that color on the pyramid and a few areas, I felt some was losing a little bit of that violet. So I mixed up a little more violet end to that base mixture and now I'm adding a little bit of white. What should bring a lighter value? And of course, leaning more towards a blue for the front of that pyramid. And as you can see, this is reading a little more towards the blue violet family, again as a low chroma version, so it doesn't need to be saturated like the one on the left. I will finish cutting in my edges. And then I can start to focus on the dark side of that cube using a little bit of the ultra marine and to that base Gray. I can now push that a little bit darker. It still has quite a bit of gray in it though. So if you compare it to the dark side of the pyramid on the left, it has a much lower chroma. And now I'll paint one more layer on the front of this pyramid. And I think we're good to go for your recommended exercise. I want you to practise painting pyramids and try working with Violet. So perhaps you can do a more red violet or a more blue violet, or perhaps even a true violet. And then do a low chroma version of that, where you mix some grays and to that base hue. In this lesson, we painted pyramids. And of course, we've focused on value and color mixing drills. We did a high and low chroma violet pyramid. Both of them be mixed within the hue family. So we avoided complementary hues. And you know, you have a recommended exercise. So go paint some lovely violet pyramids. 43. High And Low Chroma Tube Demo: For the last form, we will be painting tubes. Again, these are value and color mixing drills, where we convert shapes and two forms, as with the pyramids and the previous lesson, I am putting both versions in this video. Of course, I will begin with the high chroma and I will mix within the family. And for the grand finale, I'm going to do a low chroma tube and use pretty much all of the skills we've talked about. So the kitchen seeing come in at Yahoo and then the recommended exercise. But first, let's draw the two. I'm going to start with a vertical rectangle and then add an ellipse on the top and a smiley face at the bottom. I'll Ode didn't know that on the right-hand side. So we are ready to roll when we get to that one. But first, a high chroma 2p, which I will paint using CAD red light and some of the yellow ochre in cad yellow light. So think of it as a red, orange because you have already seen alive these mixing techniques. I'm going to speed through this at two times real speed. I will add that base value to the middle of the tube and then to the left-hand side. We'll be mixing my hues within the hue family. So for my dark side of the tube, I'm just going to add a little bit of Alizarin crimson to my base mixture. And that should work just fine for my shadow side. Right away, you can start to feel the volume of that tube is no longer a flat rectangle. And now it's time to add a lighter value to the top of the tube. And I will use the same value that I use on the top of the tube. For the left-hand side, again, the light source is coming from the top left. The only thing left now is I will blend these values nice and smooth so that you don't see a lot of the chunky brushwork. I have a shadow and voila, the first one is done. Now it's time for the low chroma read to. And I will use multiple mixing techniques. So I am mixing my base gray, adding a little bit of blue and then a little bit of yellow and red to that. And I want something of equal value. So a warm gray with a touch of red should do just fine. I'm adding a little bit of red to that, and I think we'll be ready to add that base value to the tube. That works just fine. So I'm going to cut in along all edges of the tube. And then I'll come back and add the darker and lighter values, the kitchen sink. So even though I use a warm gray to get the base color, I will now switch to my complement colour, which is green. And I will use that green, mixed them with the red to get my shadow color. I will remind you that you only need a little bit of the complement colour to shade a hue. A small amount goes a long way. I'm thinking this huge should work fine for the shadow because it's the right value, not too light and not too dark. And now I will use a light gray, mix them with that base red. And that should give me the lighter value. For the left-hand side of that tube. A little spot test here will help me determine if it's the right value. I could probably go a little bit lighter. So pre remixing a light grey, going back to that base red and then adding that to R2. And that's really bringing that to, to life, giving it that three-dimensional feel. I could use that same value on the left-hand side of the tube for the top as well. And it would do just fine. But just for variety sake, I'm going to use a little bit of white and a touch of the cad yellow light and Q that base light value, and add that to the top. So adding the yellow gives it a warm bias for the shadow. I'm going to use a little bit of the Cerulean Blue and a touch of the cad yellow light. One, a nice cool green to Mixin to that base read. I will use that for the shadow. And you'll probably agree I use quite a few mixing techniques to make this tube, so long as the values are placed correctly as should work just fine. For your recommended exercise, I want you to convert some vertical rectangles into tubes. So we'll start with a high chroma that has a base red, and then mixed within the hue family. And then try the low chroma version and feel free to mix and mingle all of these wonderful mixing methods, painting tubes, value, and color mixing drills. I did the high chroma version where we mix within the hue family. And then a low chroma version where I threw the kitchen sink at Xia. You have a recommended exercise. So spent quality time exploring, painting tubes and remember, anything goes on that last version, so long as you get the values place correctly. 44. Positive & Negative Space Painting: Inside and outside positive and negative spaces. What is a positive space? What does a negative space? Different ways to define edges. And then the recommended exercise, what is positive space? And art? We refer to that as the space within the edges or the contour of your subject. I just painted a bottle and all of the space that I painted was only the space within the edges of that bottle. And this would apply to any subject, doesn't matter if you're painting a bottle, a car, a building, or an apple. And that is positive space. Again, the area within the contour of your subject. Now let's turn our attention to negative space. You may know this is the space outside the edges of your subject. And using negative space is an easy way to suggest and or paint an object. Without painting the positive space, you should be able to see happening here and this demo. So I'm suggesting a wine bottle without actually painting the positive space of the wine bottle itself. So you have different ways to define edges. And edges will oftentimes help communicate the symbol or subject that you are painting. And this can be very useful if you understand how to manipulate both of these at the same time, which we will talk about in the next lesson. But for now, you're recommended exercise is to paint positive and negative shapes. Keep your subjects fairly simple at this stage. Maybe a bottle like I did here, an apple or a banana. You get the idea. That is your introduction to positive and negative spaces. We discussed what positive space is also negative space. It is basically a different way to define the edges which helped to convey what you are painting to your audience. And a recommended exercise. So go paint some positive and negative spaces. 45. Layering Basics: Because acrylic dries so fast, you can use layering and this is a powerful tool. So I will tell you what is layering best to paint over dry, regained, edge control, hairdryers, speed things up. And then the recommended exercise. I'll begin by telling you I'm going to use a combination of both positive and negative space painting to introduce you to this idea of layering, you can use layering many different ways to achieve a vast number of goals, any effects in your painting? What is layering? I define that as adding a layer on top of another dry layer. Remember I told you, I'm going to use this idea of positive and negative space painting to introduce you to Layers. Notice how the edges of my apple and wine bottle are done very loosely. And I'm doing that on purpose as kind of a strategy. So basically I know I can go wild and chaotic at this point because I will come back when it dries to add another layer on top of it. And that layer will be applied to do one thing to bring back some of the edge quality. And my subject, as I mentioned, you can use layering if you do a vast number of effects. And this case, I want to redefine my subject and we will use it for other situations as we move forward. So my pain is wet and now it's best to let it dry. By letting it dry, I now get full control over my colors so I can paint over top of this dry layer and know that the first layer will not enter fear or blend. The layer I'm about to paint. Now I can begin to use negative space painting to define the edges of my subject. And you can see that white is in blending at all with the original dark layer. Layering is helping me regained edge quality and control. Kinda cool. Ha, this is a very powerful tool to have in your back pocket. At first, I have to introduce you to it. And eventually you'll start to harness the power of layering. One of the many advantages of painting with acrylics had dries fast, which means we can add layers quickly, one on top of the other. And if you have an old hairdryer lying around, that can speed things up even more. I use one all the time because I'm pretty impatient. I wanted layer to dry so I can move on with the next one. You were recommended exercise is to use positive and negative space painting and combine that with layering. Start as I did really chaotic, just a big blob and strokes on the paper allow it to dry. And then come back with some good ol, negative space painting and redefine your object. That was your introduction to layering. Another powerful tool we will explore more as we move forward. I told you what layering is as best you paint over dry and this situation that helped me regain edge control, if you have a old hairdryer lying around and use it to dry layer so you can get on to the next one. And you have a recommended exercise. Now please go explore layering and come on back when you're ready for more. 46. Leftovers: Hey, don't throw that away. What to do with leftovers? Comma bonus video for you here. Always recycle unused Paint. It makes perfect graze, get a large Tupperware and use it for value studies, recycle unused paint. At the end of a session. I always have leftovers and it will be a shame to toss this stuff in the trash bin. A much better solution is to use it. These colors make perfect grays, which you can use for value studies, which I know you'll be doing a lot of. Also. You can use it to tone your canvas and paper. So if you liked the idea of adding a tone to your white surface, you can use this as your base. Added little blue, a little red, a little white, whatever sort of gray you need and while ah, as Therefore, Yeah. So get yourself a very large Tupperware. Bleeding me, don't go small because you're always going to have leftover paint and scoop it right into the Tupperware and keep it next to all your paint. Believe me, you're going to want access to these graze. I use mine all the time. So don't throw that away. Always use your leftovers. Remember you can recycle this stuff and use it to create amazing art. 47. Introduction To Light On Form: This is your introduction to light on form. We will discuss what is light on form, the benefits, and then what we will cover and this entire section, a major, major component for your acrylic painting success. What is light on form? And the answer is, it's the behavior of an object and certain lighting conditions. This is a huge subject and it could be studied by itself for a very long time. However, in this course, I'm going to introduce you to some of the ideas and principles that you will need to know as a beginner now that you understand what it is, let's talk about the benefits. And that is, you can paint more realistic objects. And to help guide you along this path, we will work with these colorful blocks. The light striking a geometric solid, such as a sphere or a cube, creates an orderly and predictable series of tones. Learning to identify these tones and to place them in their proper relationship as one of the keys to achieving a more readable and successful painting. So what we will cover in this section, as you know, we're going to use colorful geometric blocks to begin our studies. And then I will introduce some other more organic shapes, such as a lime, some garlic, an apple, and so on. When you are finished with this section, you should have a few good base models to create light on form, thus making your paintings more readable and interesting to look at. 48. Separate Light & Shadow: Another nugget, light on form, separating light and shadow. We will talk about what is light on form. Shadows, cast shadows, see more clearly and then the recommended exercise. So what is light on form. And the answer is, how light hits your object and reveals its true form. And that's because light will only hit certain areas or planes of your object, and the rest of it will be in shadow and there will be a cast shadow. To understand that in its simplest form, we're going to do a simple two value exercise. Let's look at the shadows. So as light hits these forms, certain areas of them will be in shadow. So anything not in direct light will be shaded. So as you can see, I'm working on the right side of the triangle. And I will go around each block, each form, and do the same thing. Even if the side of the block has a little bit of light is still shaded, the tube happens to be a round object, so it's more challenging to figure out or decide what's enlight and what's in shadow. But I placed a value to the point where I fell, light started to hit the object. The more boxy objects are easier to see. Now let's talk about casts, shadows. I want to include them in my study. So I'm going to look in my image and then decide how these casts shadows are impacting the background plane, the ground plane, and then also the objects themselves. This is a great way to start seeing your subjects more abstractly, basically getting away from only seen what the literal object is. So by focusing on the shadows and cast shadows, I'm starting to see a very abstract pattern develop when I combine the shadows and cast shadows, a big part of becoming an artist is locating and identifying these abstract patterns in your subjects. Many experienced artists, certainly including myself. Oftentimes, we'll look at this sort of pattern before I decide if it's a good subject or seem to paint, if I feel I can rearrange things to get a more interesting shadow pattern that I will certainly do it. So that brings us to see more clearly. And by that I mean, this is a simplified way to view your subjects. If you notice here in this pattern, you will see it they almost connect to one another. So when we look at the shadow on the object, and then we combine that with the cast shadows. They start to join almost to the point where you have one object versus multiple objects. Again, an interesting way to start looking at your subjects. So get away from what you're really painting, which is a very, very hard concept to do for beginners. And only focus on some of the abstract shapes that are there. And they are, you just had to find them. But the first step is write here, understanding that it exists for now on when you start looking at your subjects, start to break away from what it really is and look at that shadow pattern. Also pay attention to the light pattern. What you should start to see more clearly now that I have erased some of those contour edges on the blocks, I will go over both shadows One more time just to smooth things out and to really take note of all of the angles and edges on this particular study. We will explore this more in the coming lessons. You're recommended exercise is to use the same image as I did in the video, along with pencil and paper. And create a Quick Study that captures the light and shadow shapes. And just for the record, I do this sort of exercise all the time. I love taking images, photographs, et cetera, and break them down. Really good to know how the light is impacting the form. And of course, as a whole, I'm looking for that beautiful abstract light and shadow pattern. So we have scratched the surface with light on form, separating light and shadow. I describe what light on form is. We whenever shadows and cast shadows, I told you how it helps you to see more clearly and a recommended exercise and do not neglect this part of your program. So go have some fun discovering abstract light and shadow patterns. 49. Separate Light & Shadow Demo: The light ONE form to color demo. We will read, send, repeat only this time using a light and dark color. And then the recommended exercise, you've heard it before, rents and repeat. So in the previous lesson, I did the same thing as I will do in this one. But I did it with pencil and paper. Because we're doing it with color, doesn't mean that anything changes. The only difference here is I'm using a light and dark value color. So I've got all my palate, some Cerulean Blue, yellow ochre and cadmium red light, and lastly titanium. Wait, because I'm only doing this to color demo. I do not have my other three Hughes out because you understand how to mix and apply paint. I'm going to speed up many parts of this video. I will start painting my darks using surly and blue CAD red light and a little bit of Titanium. Wait, I will also note that I'm going to paint the shadows on the object first. So again, the same exact painting process or steps I used last time, trying to of course, use good cut in technique, flipping the paper when necessary, just so I can get those edges and corners nice and crisp. In my daily routine, I would say I use pencil and paper to do these sorts of studies. I don't often paint light and shadow patterns. I prefer to do it with pencil and paper because it's cost effective and do it much more quickly. And then once I understand what my light and shadow patterns are and I feel it's interesting. Then I can move into a final painting. But painting with two values like this can be a lot of fun and educational too. Shadows are complete. Now I will premix a base color for my light areas and then speed through this part as I apply it to everything that's in light. When you do these two colors studies, don't try to be cute on having more than one value per color. Remember, you're not trying to render a finished painting. You're only trying to capture the light and shadow pattern. Also use student grade paint. There's no need and wasting your real expensive supplies on studies like this. This is an important lesson to learn. Can't just learn it with one particular image. You have to apply it to all of your subjects and to all of your art work. You just don't need to use your premium paint to do it. So that is taking lightened shadow to the next level by using two colors instead of pencil and paper. And that brings us to your recommended exercise using the same image as I did in the video, which you have in your resources. Create a two-color light, ONE form, study and excellent way to see your subject more abstractly. Light on form, two-color demo. We use the same exact ideas that I shared with you in the previous lesson. Only this time we use a light and dark value color. And then the recommended exercise so that YouTube campaign, colorful light on Form studies. 50. Complex Light On Form With Grayscale: Now we will take light on form to the next level by doing a complex value study, I will discuss the purpose of this study, value hierarchy which shouldn't be foreign to you, simplifying values. And then the recommended exercise, the purpose of this study was to prepare us for painting. As I've mentioned before, seeing value is the first step. And then if you can match color with value, you are well on your way to finding the freedom to put your ideas down on paper or Canvas. So I have my value scale down the bottom. As I've done in the past, I will refer to that scale and test certain values should I need to. As with previous scales, we will apply a five to the darkest value and then designate the lighter values or the lightest value as a one. Now let's organize the value hierarchy, starting with the lightest value, which will be the one. And then moving our way through to the dark, his values with my lightest values in place, the only two will be the top of the cube and the back. Three will be applied to the front of the triangle, also the ground plane and the left-hand side of the face of the cube that's closest to us. We have a four on top of that cube for most of the shadows. And then a three with the shadow on the right, leaving us with our darkest value, which is that five on the side of the cube. So what I've just done was probably simplify over a 1000 values and to five, making my job much easier. I can now go around starting with the lightest value and block everything in like we've talked about before. I'm not going to get fussy with details here. I actually will do just the opposite. The goal here is to mix up the value that's appropriate for the number and apply it to everything that has the number on it. Easy stuff I told you were painted BOD numbers. So at this stage, I'm not concerned about edges or trying to make divisions on what's the background or what is an actual object. I'm simply putting that value in everywhere that a belongs. Now that that isn't, I can put the two, which was pretty easy. I have a slightly darker value, which will go on everything that is a three. So going around all the edges, cutting in the corners using good technique. All of those things we discussed at the beginning of this course, all of those skills are starting to pay off. If you did your due diligence. As you can see, our three's are done. Now I can move right into the 4s, again, not paying attention or worried about details of this point, only trusting the value pattern that I laid out at the very beginning. I hope you see now how important light on form is an understanding the pattern that it creates. Once you have that, then you can dissect it, breaking it down into maybe four or five values, and then apply that value accordingly. So building those good fundamentals that are starting to pay huge dividends. As you can see, I'm working my way through the 4s. I've got the two, which is maybe a little bit tricky. And then lastly, that nice dark value on the right hand corner of that cube. I'm going to put a little bit of that dark value on the right-hand side of that too. And now I'm going to blend that in just a little bit so I'll clean my brush and then feather that around trying to give it a round Look as opposed to a square look that the other geometric forms have a little bit of touch up here or correcting. And then I can start moving in to the highlights. So I'll go in with some almost white value here and add that to the areas that are getting the most light, which will be the cube and the background that is of a lighter value. And then the vertical band of light value on the front of that too. I'll continue to go around the painting and just do a little bit of touch up. I do think the right side of that too, needs a little more shadow to sell it and then to smooth it out to give it that round feeling. And that's pretty much it. A few shadows underneath these forms. We'll finish it off just fine. That brings us to your recommended exercise. And by the way, this is where you're going to be tested on your commitment. Because as we go further, things will get more and more challenging. I have furnished the image for this particular demo. So you have access to that. So my advice would be to sketch it out the way I did and then plan your values. Also, feel free to explore a low key or a Heikki version. It doesn't have to be exactly like mine. That was a complex value study, advanced light ONE form. I share the purpose of this study. We also discussed the value hierarchy and how it simplifies the values and then the recommended exercise, have fun. Painting. 51. Small Light Box Construction: You may be interested in making a light box. This is your quick how-to guide. I will cover what is a lightbox, the benefits and paint from life. What is a light box? The lightbox I will use in this course will help me place my simple objects and then use some controlled lighting to take photographs. And there are many benefits to having a light box. Having the freedom to move the light source and different directions will give me huge advantages in setting up a particular scenery or lighting condition that I want to focus on. Let's get back to how this thing is made. I cut this cardboard 15 by 12 inches. Then I increased it down the middle or close to it. Now I can control which colors I'm painting on. Its, For example, I have a gray and then an eggshell white. I can I can easily attach the gray using masking tape. I will lie on that up with the crease in the middle and press firmly, flip it over and then I will take the reverse sides. So I can use that as either my ground plane or a background plane. I will now attach the off-white to the other side using the exact same method. I could use this by standing it up vertically. But for this course, I decided to use it as if it were a laptop. And if that's the case, I would place my objects on the keyboard and the screen would be my background. And then I'll play something tall and heavy behind it, which allows me now to paint from life, I can grab whatever objects I see fit and arrange them in any way to create fantastic subject matter. Of course, the sky's the limit. Grab whatever objects you have sitting around the house. You can paint from life and then also you can grab your phone, take images. That way you will have good reference material when the light box is stored away. Oh, and I almost forgot. Get a small desk lamp to control the lighting. Turn off the lights in the room. Set up your little lamp, and then point that light in any direction. And voila, you've got yourself a lovely still life set up where you can paint from real life or photographs for your next DIY project, make a light box. This was your quick how-to guide. So I told you what a Lightbox is and the benefits and you will love painting from life. What a great learning tool that is to have at your fingertips. 52. Local Color Introduction: Welcome to local color. Find that base, Hugh. Mixing color and really painting as a whole involves putting color down and your subject will have so many colors, it can be overwhelming when you start to put a color down. So the goal here is to simplify that process. And we'll do it by defining and deciding on a local color. From that colour, we can easily mix our shades and tense. There's no better way to learn this than to just jump in. Let's take these oranges. When we look at those oranges, there are thousands of subtle color variations in those shapes. So what we're going to do is find one base local color, and that color should represent the average hue for the orange is shouldn't be the lightest light, shouldn't be the darkest dark. Again, we want an average base hue that we can mix lights and darks from. Let's add the base color for that orange. So it may look something like this. As you can see. It's not too dark and it's not too light from that base, Hugh, we can arrive at a color that would work for the side of the oranges that are hitting light. And we can add a little bit of Alizarin crimson, perhaps a little bit of blue, and arrive at a hue that would work well for most of the shadows. So what about the bowl? We're going to do the same process. We'll find our base color again, not too dark, not too light, and then start mixing from there. So adding a little bit of white into that hue, but easily give us the side that is capturing light, adding a little bit of blue, perhaps a little bit of green, even grey. You could easily come up with the shadows. The background will do the same thing. We'll find that base color, which happens to be very dark and value at a little bit of white to that. And we have the area in the foreground, and we can shade that color and easily come up with those super dark hues. In the very back, I will now put a rectangle around the three Hughes lined up in the middle. Those colors would represent the local Hughes for the main objects in this subject. So we have our base, orange, blue, and then the background color, a dark grey. And that is the gist of understanding local color. And the purpose of this, again, is to simplify the color choices. Only understand that you need to create a painting that is a symbol of your subject. You're never going to be able to match nature. So if you try to get the perfect color in your subject, then you're in for a world of hurt. You will never, never win that battle. A better plan is to find a local color that works and then mix you're tense and shades around that hue. With this approach, you will have plenty of success without all the stress. 53. Colorful Blocks Project With Lay-in: Colorful blocks as time to get down to business, you will discuss toning your surface or preparing it. And then I will cover the lay and drawing. We will begin by tone the surface. I am using a piece of nine by 12 paper. That same paper I have used an every single demo for this course. Now instead of painting directly on the white surface, I'm going to tone it. And I will use my large brush along with some neutrals. So I have some white and some pre-mixed Gray. And I will mix a little bit of warm temperature color into that, and that color will be yellow ochre. The advantage of starting with a toned surface is that it's much easier to see darker and lighter shades when you start with a bright white surface like paper or canvas, that is hard to see the lighter values. So the goal here is to put a value down that's in the middle so you don't want it too light or too dark. However, many artists prefer starting with white, and many other artists prefer starting with something very dark. It's totally up to you. I'm just giving you a few techniques, some options to think about, to explore when you have time. Starting with this medium gray slightly on the warm side should work fine. As I mentioned, once I had that n, that will give me a good indication of how dark or light my values are. It's very important to let this surface dry. So once I'm done painting it, it will fully dry. And only then will I start painting on that surface. Now I will get a new palette and put my paints down. I'm using a similar order, if not the same as I used before. Putting the Hughes up towards the top and then using my vertical rows to mix. And now it's time to add the lay in drawing. So this is a quick contour sketch of all the main edges and shapes of my subject. I'm going to put that subject up in just a moment. But I wanted to cover the paint them using for my lay in. Again, you know, it's heavy body, but I want to start with a hue that's like a darker gray, nothing black. But certainly I needed to show up over the medium value that I tone the surface with. Also, I diluted that paint quite a bit with water. You don't need the paint to be very thick. So very light and transparent lines is all we need for the lay in drawing. I usually will start my lay in by adding the longest line that I can see in my image. This case is the line where the ground or the flat plane will meet the vertical plane in the background. It's kind of an angled line. And once I have that, I can begin to locate my other large shapes. I will begin with the cylinder because I feel that's the longest line. So I got that vertical in there and then I can move right away into the red block, right besotted. Having that cylinder in place gives me a reference point to add my red block. And if I need to add a little bit of foreground there, it's pretty easy to do. So I can just bring that line down just a little bit if I run out of room, this is another great advantage of paper. You're not confined to the width and size of the canvas, which in most cases is already pre stretched. I am now laying in the cube and the back, again, only roughing it in. It doesn't need to be perfect. Once I have all of these shapes on the surface, then I can start to tweak things a little bit more. Here you can see, I'm trying to find the right hand side of the corner of that triangle. I know it's slightly left of the right hand side of that yellow block. So I'm kinda comparing shapes, looking back and forth to understand their relationship with each other. Again, this is not a drawing class. I've mentioned that several times in this course. So if you want a good drawing course, I will leave a link in the description because I have plenty of those you can explore as well. And I know my lion looks a little rough around the edges, but for me it works just fine depending on your approach that you may want to refine that a little bit more, but I know I can take this and work with it. In this video, we started to paint colorful blocks. I tone the surface and then did the lay in drawing. Now it's time to move into the first layer. 54. Colorful Blocks Project With Block-in: And we'll begin the next stages by blocking in which you already know about I will use a local color. Again, you already know about that too. And I will not try to match color again, you know this stuff already, but I will correct it later on when I realize know things aren't perfect the first time around. So let's start with the block end. And before I do that, I have to think about color. And for my blocks I'm going to stick with the primaries. It's already there for me. So I know my main colors are going to be blue, red, and yellow by background will be an off white. And then I have a gray foreground. So I'm going to mix a local color that isn't perfect. It's never gonna be perfect, but it's going to be in the ballpark. Again, a local color that represents a base hue for my background. So I'm using a little Titanium whites. I'll mix in a little bit of yellow ochre just to warm it up a little bit. And sometimes it's good to have a mindset that you don't want to paint it perfect. Because if we're going to do layers, so the first time around, you can almost get something that's a little bit darker so that we come over the second time around, you know, you will add a value that's going to be a little bit lighter. For now, I'm just cutting in around the main edges using some good technique there. But again, I know I've got layers and my back pocket. If I go over the edges a little bit, I can always come back a little later when the paint is dry and correct things. So yes, I'm cutting in. I'm trying to do a good job. I'm trying to be neat as I can, but I'm not going to panic if I happen to go over a line or an edge. So you get the idea of where I'm at with the block end stage. Again, this is like a rough draft, so I'm going to speed things up just a little bit. And once we get to something that's really important, I will chime back in. So sit back and relax as I start my block end stage. The background block in is finished, and now I will begin doing the foreground pre, mixing a base local color, which is gray. For the blue blocks, I'm going to use Cerulean and tent that with a little bit of white and also some ultramarine blue. Because the foreground and background are still a little bit wet if you happen to get that mixed on your brush with the blue or any other color? Just take a moment, use your towel and wipe it off and keep painting. So this is part one of the block end stage. In the next lesson, I will continue the block end. 55. Colorful Blocks Project With Block-in Continued: In this lesson, I will continue doing colorful blocks and begin by picking up where I left off in the previous lesson with the block end stage. At this point is time to mix some red. So using CAD red light. And we'll also use some yellow ochre and a touch of light just to tenant a smidge. Once I had that base local color, I can start painting the red block. Again. I will speed things up here because you already know how this works. You've seen me mix paint and if something important happens, noteworthy that you need to understand, I will chime in. The red is finished for now, I can start mixing my yellow using cad yellow light. A touch of yellow ochre with some titanium weight should give me a good base. Local color. Again, I'm not trying to match. I'm only doing the first pass. It doesn't need to be perfect. And of course, it never will be. At this block in stage. Notice I haven't focused on shadows, on blocking the entire shape in with the local color, but it is time to start adding some shadows. I am starting by using titanium white mixed with a little bit of my gray. And I'm going to cool that off just a little bit with these Cerulean and a little bit of Alizarin crimson giving it a little bit of that violet feel. So adding the cast shadows on the background will be step one for shadows. And once I'm finished with the background shadows, I will mix a darker hue for the foreground shadows. So these again are, they cast shadows coming from the blocks that are on the ground or the flat plain that the blocks are sitting on. This Q should be a little bit darker because the base value for the flat plane is darker than that of the background. And now that covers the cast shadows. Well, for the most part, I'm going to use a little bit of that base yellow mixed with gray. So I am shading my block using the gray method and not necessarily a complimentary method. I am comparing shade tones to each other. I noticed the top of the block seems a little bit lighter in value than the left-hand side. So I wanted to try to get that part of it right. Getting the values correct is more important than getting the color is correct. Now I have a cast shadow going on that block. I will use the same exact mixture I've already used for that shadow. For the blue shadow, I just mix some of the local color with a little bit of the CAD red light, red shadows, I used the local color plus Alizarin crimson and a little bit of ultramarine blue. I will now add a little bit of yellow ochre, a touch, a blue, and a little bit of white for the top of that block, because I know that red is slightly lighter and value then the right hand side of that red block, which is the darkest value for the shadow on the vertical tube here, I will just use the blue that already have pre-mixed and his premix because I've already added that to the triangle block in the foreground. The only thing left at this point is to finish my cast shadow on the block. And once these shadows are finished, that should complete our first layer, which is the block end. So here's a little look at it. And now I will let that dry 100% colorful blocks. Getting down to business. We talked about the block end using local color, not trying to match color. And we'll come back later on and correct it because we don't want that first layer to be anywhere close to perfect. We're just trying to get it in the ballpark. 56. Colorful Blocks Project With Final Layer: Now it's time for the second layer. Of course, we will use the second layer to make any color Corrections, any corrections on shape, etcetera. And then I will give you a recommended exercise. Very important that you know, the second layer doesn't happen until the first layer is 100% dry. Doing this gives us full control over our brush work and our colors. At this point, I'm going to go with a similar process, starting with the background. I know that background as a little bit dark, some going to premix my color, which is a correction because the color on mixing will be a little bit lighter and value, I'm also going to add a little more yellow ochre into it, which we'll give it a slightly warmer temperature. So once I have that ready to go, I'm going to use my large flat to start cutting in. Don't be afraid to use your large brushes. This is the purpose of having them, they can get a lot of paint down quickly. It's interesting when you look at this color I just mixed and start putting it over the background. Before that color was added, the background scene that maybe kinda warm, but when we add this warmer hue over it, it starts to give the impression that that color was very cool. Again, color is all relative as best to not judge the temperature of a hue until you have something else to compare it to. And now I'm moving in to the cast shadows and we're going to focus on the shadows for the wall. I'm using the same mixture for my violet. So ultra Marine and a little bit of Alizarin crimson. I'm also going to mix some green down below. And that green I'm going to mix in to that violet and that's just going to neutralize it a little bit. So I'm not using a pure Violet is more of a neutral violet. The little test I did there seem a little too brown. So I will put violet back into it by using blue and Alizarin crimson. Again, we can always push our values back and forth so long as you understand color bias. So if a color has a certain bias and you wanted to lean in the other direction, then you just simply add that color to your mix so that color is working pretty good. As you can see. I'm adding that to our cast shadows on the wall where the top of the shadows meet the white of the wall. I lightly drag my brush across it and that gives it that artifact. And we talked about earlier on. Now with a little bit of my local yellow, I'm going to add more white to it. I'm not going to adjust this color a whole lot. I'm just going to add another layer, which is just going to make it a little more rich and vibrant. Once the color is where I want it, I will start to cut in going around the main edges. And then of course the cast shadow, which is coming from that triangle block, because I'll be painting that shadow on the block really soon. I don't want to do that over a wet paint. So that's all looking pretty good. Now I can move into that cash shadow. My yellow is already down, so I will put a little bit of violet end to that, which happens to be the complimentary color. I can test it and looked a little bit too light and value. So I would just add more violent end to that. So that's looking pretty good. I still think we need a little more violet. So I'll premix a little more and then add a little small amount to that yellow until I feel everything's good. Again, notice how I'm feathering that edge of the shadow just a little bit so that the cast shadow edge isn't as stiff as our block edges. Now I'm going to warm up the shadow distance a little bit on the yellow cube. And I'm doing that just by adding a little bit of CAD red light to that. I will test it. If it seems a little bit to lightened value, then I can take a little bit of that violate gray into it. That's looking pretty good. And now I, once you add the second layer to the shadow on the left-hand side, it was a little bit green and cool for my liking. So I'll warm that up just a little bit. On the second pass. Now I will turn my attention to the blue tube and the background. I know that color is tan or natural wood, but I thought giving it a blue hue wouldn't make the composition a little more cohesive. So I'm pretty mixing some Cerulean, a little bit of titanium white. So I feel like that local color, mint has pretty good. I think it works fine for that particular object. So I'm going to go around and paint mainly the left-hand side of the tube. While that blue is all my brush, I will go ahead and add a little bit of white to the mixture and then put that value, the lighter blue value on the triangle as well. I felt like making that a little bit lighter blue will give the illusion that it's a little bit closer to you than the blue and the background. Adding a little more white to that local color mixture, I will start adding a light vertical band of color along the face of that two. That's basically where light is hitting it flat on. So that's going to push the value on the left of that to slightly darker. And then of course, the right side of that tube is the darkest value. And speaking of darker blue values, I'm using my base local blue and adding ultramarine blue and Alizarin crimson too, that, that seemed a little bit too dark. So I put a little bit of white and gray end to that hue. The gray, of course, will reduce some of the chroma and adding the white obviously will lighten the overall value or tone of that blue. So that's looking pretty good. Now, a little bit richer and darker for the right-hand side of that too, and then also the top of it. And that should pretty much complete our Blues. For now. I can start to turn my attention to the red block. And for that I'm sticking with my cat red light. As the base local whew. I will then put a little bit of titanium white and then also a little bit of gray. And that little bit of gray will just DO that color and desaturated it. So I don't feel like that color as demanding my attention. Okay, So things are starting to come together a little bit here. I can now look at these shadow side for their red, a little bit of Cerulean Blue, and a little bit of gray should work just fine. And that gray is just going to tone it down just enough. I don't want that color to be too rich. And of course I don't want it to be too dark and value either. The right-hand side of that block is going to have the darkest value. I will put a little bit of Alizarin crimson and ultra marine and to that base red. And that should give me a nice dark value to place on the right hand side. So I will mix it up until I feel I have a value that should work. Again, I'm more about value and less about color matching. So long as I get the values plays correctly. As should work as a whole. Background and blocks are good for now, I will mix up a base gray and then add a little bit of violet to it. The goal here is to get a hue that is a little bit lighter in value than what the ground plane is right now. That looks pretty good. So I will start to add that by cutting it in around some of the main shapes, being sure not to paint the cache shadows because I'm doing the cash shadows Next. I don't want that area to be wet. So I want to apply this paint on a dry surface and not a wet surface. So that's looking pretty good. I think now I can move in to those cash shadows. I want a value that's just slightly darker than what I've already put down for the ground plane. So using a little cad Red, a little ultramarine blue, and just come up with something that works value eyes, I think this is starting to work good, but perhaps it's still a little bit too light. So just putting some Alizarin crimson and ultramarine blue into that will darken that value. And then I can start to see how that works. Obviously, this is working a little bit better. So I think I'm going to stick with that and finish it off by adding the cash shadows. As with the background shadows that are cast on the wall. I wanna make sure these edges are feathered just a little bit. I don't want the edge of the cast shadow to be too stiff. You'll see that a little more clearly when you see the final image. And of course, I will attach all of the artwork and demos I did in this course and a file. So you will have that at your disposal so long as you download it. Now that everything has a second layer on it, I decided to make a few more corrections. One of those is just making the ground plane a little bit lighter and value. The final touch is to smooth out the values on the vertical tube and the background. Because that is a round object. I want the values to transition a little more smoothly. So taking that dry brush and blending them together should do the trick. And that brings us to your recommended exercise. I'm going to first the image I used in this demonstration. I would like for you to follow similar steps as I did and paint these colorful blocks. This is such a good learning experience. You don't have to paint complicated scenes and order to learn as best to simplify, as I've mentioned many times over in this course. So it's not just about painting blocks. You're focusing on color, values, colour, temperature, mixing basics, all those things that every painter needs to learn and any experienced painter will tell you, these are the fundamentals of painting. If you can do this with a simple subject, then that will make painting more complex subjects easier later on. And that was colorful blocks. Getting down to business, we added the second and final layer, made some corrections and you have a recommended exercise. So get it done so we can get on to the next one. 57. Apple And Blocks With Lay-in: Welcome to Apple on block demonstration number two. We will use the same workflow as in the previous lesson. We will look for interesting angles. Again, don't try to match colors. We will focus on value and tone. And at the end you will have your recommended exercise. So again, same exact workflow as before. But this time I will start with a toned canvas that is more of a Teal or green hue. So mixing some Cerulean with my graze along with my yellow ochre and a little bit of cad yellow light. That should give me the perfect midtone green to start with. I'm also using my large flat. I also have an overhang grip and I added a plenty of water to that mixture. Those are the basics we talked about at the very beginning of this course. I think you understand what's going on here. So we will skip forward. Very important that if you use a toned surface to let it dry, this is nice and dry, which means I can start the next step, which is the land. For this land, I will use my smaller flat, mixing that titanium white with a few graze, a mixing migraines, you can see with some yellow, reds and blues. This will be a square design. And I will start with the longest line, which again is the line where the foreground meets the background. I can start to find my angles. So I'll look at my subject and tried to get the big picture looking at how those blocks are angled within the frame. And a good way to do that is just to compare what the angles are adorned with the al-Assad edge of the image. So when you look at these perpendicular sides that the photograph have, and then compare that to what the actual subject is done. You can start to see these angles a little more clearly. And that helps me get a quick lay in. And again, I'm not trying to get things perfect here, but I do want this lay in to convey the overall perspective that we're dealing with here. So in this particular scene, I am on top of or looking on top of, I should say, my subject. Plus the perspective on some of these blocks are that some of the edges are closer to me while others are moving away from me. It can be a little tricky to capture this, but paying attention to the angles is very important. So just trying to drop a few drawing skills on you, even though that's not the focus of this course. Now I can start to look at the Apple and how that's leaning slightly to the left. I always try to envision. The main axis line. So if I put a vertical line down the center of that apple, so basically gone down the middle of the core. Which way would that core be leaning? Left, right, centre, and so on. And this case, I just think it's slightly left. I've had to make a lot of corrections. And the white lines are starting to get a little bit too chunky. I'm going to use a little bit of Alizarin crimson mixed with some of my grays and come back over that. Just so I can see more clearly where some of these contour edges are on some of these Bain shapes. So something like this happens to you. Just take the opposite value. For example, if I were laying this N with a darker line and things just got a little bit messy. I will just go back over that with a lighter value line. And that way I can start to see how things are meshing for the initial layout. I do want the overall perspective to be there. I'm also concerned about scale. So are the objects in my subject, the right scale. The size of each object, should be relatively correct when compared to another object. So that's just something that I'm kind of fuzzy about. I'm not so big on. Accuracy is like if it's not a perfect apple, that's fine. I just want the perspective to be there. I think that's a big part of the believability of the painting. And I want the scale of things to be somewhat accurate. While I was giving the lowdown on my philosophy with a layout drawing, I pre-mixed a little bit of titanium white with some violet and grays. You can see this mixing a little bit with the red paint on my layout. It's not a big deal. Remember this is only the first layer. We will go over it again later on. Now if I get too much red mixed into that and it starts to make the overall white local color to red then yes, I'll stop and wipe things off. But in this case, I think we're pretty good. I'm now mixing the grey. For the ground plane. I use ultramarine blue, Alizarin crimson, titanium white, and then a little bit of Cerulean Blue. And to that, I will do my best to cut in around some of these edges. And as I go, I'm this correcting some of the perspective lines. So many of my brushstrokes will often go in the direction that the actual subject is. So like the bottom of that block there in the foreground. Notice when I made that brushstroke, I did it with a straight line. But that straight line really follow the perspective that I want for that block. So you can easily correct things as you go. I will do it again as I paint the left-hand side of that block. So that angle right there, that brushstroke helped me chisel out the perspective of the left-hand side of that block. I did it again right there. So that is not a perfect vertical line because I am looking down on that block. That leg of that little arc is moving slightly inward, so it's not perfectly vertical. Now it's time to paint the Apple. Again, a good base, local color, which is my cad Red Light mixed with my yellow ochre. And the yellow ochre will just reduce the chroma of that red enough so that again, that color doesn't jump off the page. Now it's time for the green. So there's a green block under the apple. Wanna mix a base local color. I'm thinking a little bit of my cad yellow light mixed with my surly and blue and then a little bit of gray into that. I don't want this to be a high chroma green. By look at that green block. It just tells me, hey, I'm green, but I'm not shouting at you. So I'll just get something that I feel will do the job. So sometimes we can judge just the character of a color, like when you look at it, doesn't scream at you and demand your attention. Or is it just kind of sit in there hanging out, you know, like I'm here, just kinda Chilean. No big deal, don't worry about me. Just another take on mixing color and perhaps something that may help you out. But always remember, don't fall into the trap of matching colors. Now I have my small flat and the last block will be yellow. So a little bit of the cad yellow light mixed them with some of the light gray values. Of course, that gray is going to help to reduce the saturation of that yellow mixing a little bit of violet and other Hughes N2 that is going to do the same thing. So I'm trying to push that yellow back a little bit. So I don't want to use a high chroma right away. And I'm always thinking if I use a really high chroma now, then what's left for later on? If I use a high chroma, I wanted to be near the end of the painting. And again, we want to focus on value and tone. Those are the big breadwinners. Those are what's going to make the painting work as a whole. After all, your audience will never know the blocks that you're painting. They'll probably never see the image you're looking at. So your subjects are only something that you are seeing. Your audience will only see the finished work. And that brings us to the end of the initial block N. So Apple on block demo to same exact workflow, I look for interesting angles. I tried not to match colors. I always focus on value and tone. And then your recommended exercise will not come until later on. 58. Apple And Blocks With Final Layers: Welcome to step to Apple on block, same exact workflow. So applying the second layer, always paying attention to my angles, my colors and value. At the end of this video, you will get your recommended exercise. Same workflow is the second layer. So I'm going to look at making corrections, value changes, and things of that nature. I happened to be satisfied with the background. So I'm going to move in to the apple. So the same colors. So cad Red Light, a little bit of my yellow ochre and even a touch of cad yellow light mixed with a little bit of titanium white, basically the same colours I used in the first layer. There, just a little more saturated this time around. Now it's time for the green block using the same exact values as I did before. But maybe this time around a little bit lighter and value. And I think that should do it just fine. I'm still mixing in a little bit of grace so that, that color isn't to chromatic. I'm also paying attention to cut Nan around some of these key edges. So like the yellow block there, I wanna make sure that corner as prominent. That's what's going to give the painting a little more depth. You will feel that yellow block sitting in front of that green one. The top of the green block is a little bit darker in value. So I'm going to use a little bit of gray into that base cream mixture that I just use for the light side or the front of that block. That's looking pretty good. But now that I compare that to, I want to make the light side. So the sod I'm painting now a lighter green. So I will make that change and then start moving my attention to the yellow block. For that, I'm going to mix up a light gray, which is what I'm doing. And then take that into my base. Local yellow. I want that to be somewhat saturated, but not too saturated. That's still a little bit too yellow. So mixing a little bit of red into that will darken the value. You are getting a little bit of a glare from the lights. So you're not quite seeing that true color, but it still needs to go a little bit darker. So we'll add a little more read into that. And then a little bit of a darker gray, which I'm trying to mix up now. Once I have a nice warm yellow, I can add that to the top of the block, and that brings me to the front of the block. There further block seems a little bit cooler and perhaps a little bit grayer. So I'm going to mix up a color, or should I say a tone that would work fine for the front. So I really want to pop that yellow that's on the left-hand side of that block. So in order to do that, I really have to downplay these other yellow hues, so long as my yellows and shadow are desaturated and low and chroma, then I should be able to really pop. The yellow side. So it's all about being stingy sometimes so that you can splurge and other areas. That can be a really good overall strategy sometimes. And that way, Not all of your colors are high chroma. Remember you don't need highly saturated colors on all of your painting to end up with a colorful work of art. Actually, it's the opposite. If you keep it reserved in most areas, and then add a color only on accents and certain parts of the subject. Then it's going to read colorful. And that's because you have contrast. The high chroma Hughes. We'll contrast and stand out against the more reserved low chromatic Hughes at this stage, you should have a good idea about what's going on. So I'm going to sit back and relax, put some music on, and just let you watch the demo when something important happens that you need to be aware of, I'll be sure to chime in. So at this point I'm mixing up a little bit of base Gray. And I will go over my foreground here. So I want to lighten that just a little bit, but I also want to push it towards a warmer tone. Now I will move in to my cast shadows. For that, I'm using ultramarine blue, Alizarin crimson, and a little bit of titanium white. I even makes a little bit of green into that just to neutralize it to reduce that chroma. So I've got a lot of that cash shadow block then. And now I'm going to put a little bit of that dark value underneath certain areas of the objects. And that'll just give them the feeling that they're sitting down on the surface. It's time to move into the shadow side of the Apple for them using Alizarin crimson, a little bit of the ultramarine blue. And certainly in blue, I also have a little bit of gray into that. So I don't want to make it too dark and value. Shadows and the apple are looking pretty good at this point. I can go ahead and start looking at the cast shadow that is putting on the wall. So I will mix up a value that should work pretty good. And when I look at the cast shadow, it's about the same value as the shadow in the apple itself. So I'm not afraid to let these brushstrokes blend, merging the right-hand side of the apple into the cast shadow. So that way the edges don't look so rigid. And that brings us to the cast shadow on the green block using a bayes green, I can mix a little bit of blue. End to that, given me a nice cool tone. I also use a touch, a violet and gray. And now mixing a little bit of titanium white and two that violet grey. I'm also putting a little bit of red into that, which will give it a warm bias. You know the drill we've talked about all of this and you're probably sitting there nod your heads and oh yeah, I see what's going on. I got your Robin. As you can see, layering is a great way to bring depth to the painting. It just gives it a nice rich Look. I can't remember the last time. I create a really good piece with only one layer. Typically, I use three or four in this course. I'm trying to do them with only two. I'm now going to go in. The light side of the apple using yellow ochre, cad, yellow light, cadmium red light, and titanium white. Trying to get a value that's slightly warmer than the red I've already used. So I really want that feeling that the light is just splashing on the face of that apple. Now I'll add a little more body to the apple by introducing some of that high chroma red. And since that red is still damp or wet, I can blend some of that darker value in the Apple with it just to create a softer transition. As you can see here, joining the shadow of the apple into the cache shadow on the background. And I'm using value to do it. And that's called a lost edge. Now I will go back into some of these cast shadows and beef them up just a little bit. I want to make sure the shadows look good and that they sell the light. In this painting. Light is such a huge part of the painting process. And it's all about capturing light on form. That is the ultimate task for the painter. A little highlight on the Apple should help sell the light source as well. He just got put it on and leave it alone. And I'm gonna go back into the top of that green block. So we're using the same colors. So really in blue, cad yellow, light, titanium white with a little bit of my Gray. I want to sell that a little bit more. I feel like that color is just a little bit too dark. It doesn't really give me the sense any light is hitting it. So as you can see, that kind of brighten it up a little bit. And because I didn't go so high chroma with the first, second layers, I'm able to go a little more intense. So again, reserving colors, always trying to be stingy with the chroma. And that way if you need it later on, it's there for you to use a little bit of repair here on the cast shadow for the apple. So I'll get that taken care of. And then I can start to address the front of that queue. Because I change the top value, I want to lower the value on the front. There is not much change in value. So the shift from front to top is very subtle and that's what I'm trying to capture. At this stage. Everything is coming together pretty good. I think I can look around, make sure there's not any clean up. There's always a few edges that could be refined. So I'll take a little bit of my gray that I have mixed up for the ground plane and do a little bit of clean up, basically refining the left-hand side of that yellow block and then splashing it here and there. And also trying to reshape some of the cash shadows. So a little more effort and attention to detail went into this. But I think the end result is pretty good. So hopefully you understand how useful good old geometric blocks can be. Mixed it with an apple and you got yourself a wonderful subject for your recommended exercise. Use this same image that I did. I have furnished it with the assets and this course. And don't put a lot of pressure on yourself. It doesn't have to be perfect. I mean, look in my Apple as a little jagged In some places, other areas perhaps is a little smoother, but as a whole it works. You can see there are blocks, will then Apple. That's all you're trying to do is paint symbols. So that is Apple on block demonstration to same workflow as we did in the first demonstration. I'll look for interesting angles and my only focus was value in tone. You have a recommended exercise. So go enjoy painting apples and blocks. 59. Workflow: Workflow, maximizing your studio time. I will go over the big picture. Taking the right steps, incorporate what's important. Setting goals and reminders. Always ask questions. The middle is the most important. Let's get started with the big picture. And what you need to know here is that all art, every single painting ever created, all started with an idea. So r equals an idea. Of course, we envision doing something very wonderful. But things change once that idea hits the paper or Canvas. So we're going to talk about this process as we move through this video. And hopefully the workflow I lay out for you, we'll help you get the optimal results. But first you need to know that your ideas are very raw. You may have been inspired from a photograph, something you've seen on Pinterest or Instagram budgets no, that it needs work. So once you have the idea, you want to go through a series of steps that will help you be more successful, more often, Let's talk about those. So once I have an image, I like to ask myself a series of questions and these questions will help me simplify my task. So the main one is, what is the y? This is the most important because it's the reason you want to paint it to begin with. And the key here is to target one simple idea. It could be the way a group of people are walking across the street and the way their shadows are coming towards you. It could be the way the light is hitting the red barn with a group of cows that are gathering around a silo. But the point here is to have something specific in the image you're targeting. Try not to target the entire image. Only find one why? One reason that you can extract from that image, that photograph. And that way you have a clear, concise target in mind for what you want to achieve with your artwork. Once you have one simple, clean idea, then he can look at composition layouts. And there are three options really, you can do a square layout, a portrait layout, or a landscape layout. There are others, but these three will usually do the job. So you have taken a very complex image and you've found your y. One nice simple idea. So the task now becomes putting it into a composition layout. And that's all about thumbnailing. Basically taking a very small space, hence the word thumbnail, and then see how your idea fits into it. So here you can see I'm starting with a portrait layout. And I have a tree with a helmet background and a shatter this coming towards me. I kinda like that, but then I'm going to see how that works. With a landscape layout. I kinda like that, that's working. Let's see how it looks with a square layout. Those are my three big options. Once I start to see my idea inside these different layouts, then I can decide which one works best and I can start to move forward. So we are building a workflow that makes sense, setting these goals and the subtle reminders that help us build these foundational skills that I've shared with you in this course. So I can take my idea, which I now understand was sort of layout I want and do a value study. So that is a great way to incorporate values studies into your workflow. And of course, there's a lot to remember and there's a lot to learn here. You can quickly add your subject here idea through this little thumbnail value study and then start to incorporate all the things we've talked about. Finding the lightest light, finding the darkest dark, and of course, all of the values in between. Again, remember we talked about a light source. So take your idea with your values, study here and put your light source down, then he can start to apply values accordingly. Just a really smart way to work, no matter if you're a beginner or an experienced artist. And once you get to this stage, you can ask other questions. Things like, Would it be smart to add a gradation in the sky, that mountain and the background, should that be lighter or darker than my dark has value? And just really plan things well. And that's the key to avoiding painting and circles, which will again lead to frustration and a lot of wasted time. So by spinning this time planning, you're painting. You're going to come across a solutions and you're going to see issues that you didn't even think about. And this ask yourself a series of really good questions that will help you paint the piece before your brush even hits the paper. Once you've worked on your value studies, you're happy with how things are looking and arranged in your little thumbnail there, then you can start thinking about colors. Remember local colors. Understanding the main color, the color you're going to build around for each major component of your subject. So I have a sky, for example. I have a ground plane, I have distant mountains, I have a foreground tree. So getting these colors down, help me envision how these colors are going to work together. And then also how I will mix them. And all the while, you're building a more solid painting and you're gaining confidence with all of these different techniques. And that way the lessons you've learned in this course are being applied rather than forgotten. So what's in the middle is the most important. The idea is just the beginning. What you do in between your idea in the final painting. What's going to make the most impact on your art? It will help you avoid frustration and also give you longevity so that you don't become a beginner burnout. And once you finish this little exercise and then you can grab your Canvas, your brushes in your paint, and start having some fun. This lesson is huge, so important, I would encourage you to go back and watch it a few times. I've given you all the demo images I've created in this course, none of which are as important as this one. Workflow maximizing your studio time. I gave you the big picture. Taking the right steps to ensure your successful incorporate what's important. Setting goals and reminders to work on the things that will build your foundation. Always ask questions and remember what you do in between your idea and when the paint has the canvas is the most important part of your painting process. 60. Final Landscape Project Layout and Block-in: Home stretch the final demonstration. I will go over preparation, add the layout, and then of course the block end. We will begin with preparation. And remember this good old workflow lesson. I started with my idea. I'll put it down. I went through my layouts, the thumbnailing, a value study, I thought about colors, Vesta preparation I did for this final piece, the only step by Skip was not having a photo reference. I made this up at a pure imagination, so I didn't have to go through that process, but I still had my y I knew I wanted to focus on the tree and a shadow coming towards me and everything else fell in line with using this good streamline workflow. Now i will begin to add the layout. My canvas for this particular piece is a dark gray. Because of that, I'm going to lay it out using a lighter value, which is titanium white and a little bit of yellow, and that's yellow ochre and cad yellow light. Now because I've already covered many of these topics that we'll be doing in this demonstration. You will see it at two times the normal speed. You can always slow it down on your in if you want to see a real time. And then also, I'm only going to narrate to things that are most important because again, you've already heard many of these things. So I'm just going to highlight the things that I need you to know or I feel that it would be a good reminder, layout is done. And now we can begin the block end stage. I will start that with the sky. Will remind you that don't try to get the color perfect the first time around. Think about the local color and then put that down. You're always going to have to come back and do the next layer, and maybe even a third, fourth layer. So the goal here is to put a value down that is in the ballpark. And then once everything is blocked, then then we can start to compare the tones and values to one another. And then we can start making the changes that will dial in a little more accurately. Now that the sky is done, which I used titanium white, some surly and blue and a touch of yellow ochre. I can begin with the distant mountains, that will be a warm violet. So I mixed a base violet using ultramarine blue and Alizarin crimson, and then added a little bit of yellow ochre too that you can see how quickly I'm working. I know this is sped up two times speed, but believe me, I'm not really trying to get fussy at all with what's going on. The goal here is to just get something down that's close. And then I'll get fussy later on if I need to. So here I have a nice warm yellow that's mixed with yellow ochre cad yellow light, a little bit of titanium white and even a little bit of cad Red Light. And I would neutralize that quite a bit to, so you see you had those greens and blues there in the middle. And now just helped to knock down that saturation and chroma just a little bit. Again, I don't want these colors screaming at you or me. So I always like to kinda tone them down versus using them. And a high chroma way, this section of the demo does have a little bit of a glare on it, is really difficult to get away from that when I'm filming under lights. But we will get the light corrected a little later on. Now, the tree, I'm mixed with some Boolean blue, and then also the cad yellow light. And I mix a little bit of the neutrals, violets, and different colors into that too, probably as you guessed it, to knock that saturation down little bit here, I'm going with a little bit of red into that green and that'll give me brown. So if you mix green and red, you get brown and that will give me a good base color for my trunk. Ha the color is much better here. I had to tilt the board away from US. That top of that board is going away from you a little bit. I have a towel underneath the lower edge of that board, so a skewed a bit, but I think we get better lighting like this. Now I'm using a base green, which is cad yellow light, the Cerulean, a little bit of ultra marine titanium white. And I'm mixing some of those violets and neutrals and greens and graze all into it. Again just to push it back a little bit. If I start out with really intense, highly chromatic colors that I had nowhere else to go. I know I'm repeating myself here, so that's Q a little music while I finish this block in. Well, that will do it. So again, very raw, very unfinished looking. And now the key is to let it dry. And then we'll add the next layers. 61. Final Landscape Project Finish: Home stretch the final demo, adding layers to the previously dry layer, some final adjustments, and then we're all done. This. Kick it off with adding some layers of Geta. Say it again. Everything is 100% dry. Now I will dial things in a little bit closer. Yes, I am painting with color, but I am more focused on values, values and tone. So I wanna make sure my values are good. I feel like if I get the values correct, then the painting should look pretty good. The colors may be off if my colors are off, but having the values in place, we'll make the painting more believable. So adjusting values in tones, I will work my way through the same parts of the painting, starting with the background, the mountains, the ground plane, and then the tree. All the local colors are the same. But overall, I will probably have to make the sky lighter. The mountains in the background a little bit lighter and value, I think the ground plane value is pretty good. I will probably work a little bit of green into that as I move forward. And then on the tree, the shadow side of the tree needs to be a little bit darker. And then I want the light that is hitting the side of that tree to be a little more of a golden yellow or perhaps more of an orange into those leaves. So maybe the same value. I just want to change that color a little bit. So now that you know what I'm doing, I'm going to queue some music and finish off this demo, but I will return when there are important things that you need to know. So here using the same base violet by one of that to be a little lighter, so a little more white into that mixture. Then I also took out a little bit of that blue. So as leading, leaning more towards a red violet than it was before. So introducing some lighter values to the ground plane, also a little bit of green. I want to test that out. This makes sure it doesn't clash too much with the foliage in the tree. So I want the overall feeling of the ground plane to be more of a brown. I think having a little bit of green in there, what does break it up? So it doesn't become too monotonous and too loud and take away from my main focal point, which is the tree. Starting to adjust the value in the tree here. But I wanted to add a few more sky holes. So Sky holes are basically areas and the foliage where it's not so dense and there are little holes where you can see through to the other side. In this case is the sky. That's looking a little better. And now I'm adding a few clouds into that sky. Thing. That's going to give it a little more interests because there is quite a bit of sky in this design. A little bit of grey under those clouds will just make it a little more believable. And now I can turn my attention back to the shadows and the trees. Again, I want to really make this dark, but I don't wanna go completely black. So I want to always give myself a little bit of wiggle room to go darker. I think there's adjustments are starting to look pretty good. The darker value on the right-hand side of that tree really pushed the hierarchy where it needs to be. So remember the darkest dark was on the right-hand side of that tree. Then probably that shadow, the vertical mountain in the back. The sky is probably going to be the lightest value, which I have a gradation going on there too, by the way. So it's a lighter white gray towards the top of the mountains and it works to a darker blue as it goes to the top of the canvas. So that's a good way to use gradation. But all in all this second layer is starting to wind down. Typically for a study like this, I will try to knock it out in two layers, but always try not to judge things right away. So I will add a second layer and then just let it breathe a little bit. That way I don't end up paying myself and circles. So adding a few grays here and there to tie in that Shadow Color. And then I will let it rest. And we will start to consider making some final adjustments. Time for some final adjustments and again, letting things dry, taking some time just to observe it to make sure I'm not just painting to paint. I'm really focused on what I need to do. So every layer should have a purpose, have not. You will end up painting over things that are probably just find a little bit lighter value here. I will say the camera, lights and the way things are film, you never quite get a good accurate color of what's going on. But when you see the final image, you'll see this has a nice now orange, green glow to it, which again, the, the lens just isn't picking that up right now. B, I wanted to make that value a little bit later. I'm going to work in the shadows a little bit. I think the value is good. I just want to clean up some of the shapes that are in there. Alright, that's coming together pretty good. So at this stage, I would say we are all done. This, have a look at the final demo, which again began with that workflow that I shared with you. So just coming up with your idea, simplify it. Think about your layout. How does it fit within the three main sizes? Don't want a value study, go over some local colors. Of course, you could always force a color scheme that we talked about with color harmony. And then you're ready to move forward for your recommended exercise. I have shared a bunch of inspiration images for you. Some are still life, some are landscape. But pick one and go through the workflow. It will give you so many reminders of things that you've forgotten about. And of course it will point out the weak areas. So if its color, you're going to find out if his drawing skills, you're going to know if you don't really see values that well, then guess what you're going to know. So before moving into a final painting, just take some time and shore up those weak areas. You can always return back to the painting. We feel you've strengthen some of those weak skills. 62. Final Thoughts & Assignments: Well, that brings us to the end of acrylic painting for beginners when thinking about what I wanted to include in this course, my main focus was to only give you the skills that you're going to need to excel. My final message is one you've already heard. Keep it simple. I encourage you to not focus on painting, finished art at this time only do exercises and studies that help you understand color, value and how light on form impacts your subjects. Keep your subjects very simple. A ketchup bottle, a cup of coffee, a wine bottle, a closed penned. That's all you need for your first six months to even a year. Learn how to draw. That is essential for all painters I did not cover allowed drawing skills in this course. That is something you need to study individually and should be studied for a while. I do have some good fundamental drawing courses. We'll leave those linked in the description of this class. And one more thing, paints small and paint often. I really hope that you enjoy this course and that it will impact you in a very positive way as you move forward. Thank you again for your support. If you ever have any questions, never hesitate to reach out. That's what I'm here for. Take care and I will see you next time.