The Magic of Acrylics - Acrylic Painting Basics for Beginners

1. Welcome to The Magic of Acrylics: Hi, my name is Amanda from the bust artists.com. I am is self-taught acrylic artist ray, to show you the magical world of acrylic paint that'll help you drop kick your fear of failure and fill you with that delicious artistic competence that you deserve. Welcome to the magic of acrylics. If you've always wanted to make some paints lapping magical art with acrylics, occasionally have dabbled here and there on the canvas. Or just want to brush up on your acrylic painting skills and learn something new. This is the class for you. Each lesson within this class is broken up into specific bite-sized steps, building from each other to give you a final gorgeous painting at the very end, in this class, I'll show you all the art supplies you'll need to complete any acrylic painting, including my favorite art supplies that I personally love using for all of my paintings, as well as developing a keen eye to expertly choose the art supplies that are custom tailored to your needs. You'll learn specific techniques that'll get you tickling your Canvas way faster, like how to create gorgeous 3D textures with paint using very simple tools and proper mixing practices, you'll learn how to make color your very best friend by learning how to mix any color in the rainbow and how to create amazing depth in your paintings, I've practically will suck the viewer. And most importantly, you'll learn key mindset tricks to keep you motivated and wanting to slap paint around on your canvas and not just have it collect dust stashed deep, deep inside your closet. This class will give you the hands-on kick in the pants approach to painting with acrylics, that'll have you loving the process every step of the way. We're going to cover a lot of information. But by the end of this class, you'll be able to have the knowhow and most importantly, the confidence to create gorgeously colorful acrylic paintings. So head on over to the next video, and I'll see you there. 2. What is Acrylic Paint?: Welcome to this lesson where we're going to talk about what acrylic paint is and why it is so versatile and useful in the painting world and why it's one of my most favorite mediums to use. So if you're not quite familiar with what acrylic paint is, it's a fast drying paint that's made of pigments that are suspended in an acrylic polymer emulsion. When you get your acrylic painting, you're starting to work with it. It's water soluble when wet works really, really well together with water to create nice blends, washes, and then once your paint layer dries, that layer will become water resistant. That's kinda where the acrylic polymer emulsion plays into that. And what we're going to talk about a little later is why this is such a great advantage when it comes to using acrylic paint. And not only that, acrylic paint is extremely versatile because you can manipulate it with gels, mediums, and other additives to resemble other types of mediums like watercolor, guage, or even oil painting. Acrylic paints are usually packaged in tubes, jars, or gallons, and always come wet and are fairly viscous. We're going to discuss later on in this course the various characteristics of what makes acrylic paint. Acrylic paint, including the types of viscosities or paint flow that it can have. We'll get into that later. Now I just wanted to take a step back and talk to you about other paints, mediums that are out there, and how acrylic paint actually can play into both spectrums. One is oil paint and another one is watercolour paint. They each present a unique set of benefits. For example, when you deal with oil paint, these paints are made with a special type of oil that will extend the drying time of your paint and therefore help you create really beautiful blends on your canvas. And usually oil paint is extremely thick. You can create really beautiful looking textured surfaces and layers on your campus as well. Plus it offers really nice opaque color options so that you can do nice layering. But there are some disadvantages to using oil paint because of the nature of how oil paint is made, it is a very, very smelly medium. You need to have good air circulation when you are working with oil paint because the fumes alone can kinda drive you crazy. But not only that, after you are done with an oil painting session, you need to actually clean that oil paint. And it does involve toxic clean-up materials like turpentine and mineral oil, which you need to proceed with caution while you're using it. Now I mentioned this as an advantage that, and it takes oil paints a lot longer to dry, but that also could be a disadvantage. So if you're trying to work layer by layer on a painting with oil paint, you're probably going to have to wait two to three days in-between layers before you can go back in and apply a new layer without disturbing the previous layer. So it takes a relatively long time and sometimes ages to get oil paint to finally dry up and cure. And not only that, oil paint is more likely than not to crack and fade over time after you are done painting. Now if we move onto watercolors, watercolors present their own unique benefits. It is fairly inexpensive to start with. You don't need that many materials. All you really need is a nice set of brushes. Some water and a pallet of paint. There's also marvelous for blending. And these paints are very water soluble. And what's so unique about watercolors Is that the layer that you make can always be reactivated with water once it's dried. So you've put down a layer of red. You took a day off, came back to your painting and decided to add a shade of blue or a shade of pink. All you need to do is just add a little bit of water that'll reactivate the paint. And you can go back at your blending and everything will just kinda start working together. And another advantage is that it uses relatively less harsh chemicals. There may be a couple of pink colors that you may have to exercise caution. But if you happen to spill any of that paint on your skin or accidentally hint chest it for the most part, it's on a huge safety risk. And unlike oil paint, it's virtually settling. So you really don't smell a thing. But like many things, it can also have its disadvantages as well. One is that watercolors are prone to water damage if you accidentally spill water on that part or later on once you're done with your painting, some water gets into the painting that can actually ruin the painting and mess with your blending and your pigments. Working with watercolour paint requires hairy, very careful color planning. As you do run a greater risk of creating muddier looking colors when you start to combine too many colors together and you can't reverse that. So when we talk about acrylic paint and all of this, acrylic paint really takes all the good stuff of both oil paint and watercolour paint and mixes it together into its own medium and offers those benefits and advantages. So let's just dive in really quick and talk about what are the benefits of using acrylic paint. One is that it has a very fast drying time. Every time you are painting with acrylic paint, you're probably looking at about five to ten minutes of drying time in-between layers. Now this is a really great advantage as opposed to oil painting, which takes you like two to three days in between layers. When acrylic paint dries, it is water resistant. Therefore, you have a really great advantage of building layers on top of layers on top of layers to that you can get very interesting color combinations and color blends. And very much like oil and water color, it's got really great mixing capability. You can combine different color variations and get beautiful, spectacular color blends. Not only that acrylic paint is very versatile, it can be used in a variety of applications. You can use it on multimedia surfaces, you can use it on wood, plastic, Canvas, fabric. There are just so many places that you can use acrylic paint. It's a relatively easy clean up. All you really need to do is just use some water to clean up any of the excess paint tab left on your brush. It really doesn't involve any harsh chemicals besides just soap and water. And probably one of my more favorite reasons for acrylic paint is that it's a lot easier to wing it if you make a mistake on a layer, all you gotta do is just wait for that layer to dry, and then you can just go on top of that layer with another opaque color to cover it up. Now those are the good parts, but let's talk about the miss parts of acrylic paint. One being that it has limited blending time. Like I said before, we're not dealing with oil paint where it takes two to three days for that paint to dry. So when you're dealing with acrylic paint, you have to work with that paint while it is still wet. It doesn't leave you that much time for blending. And another disadvantage is that the layers can't be reworked when dry. Basically, once a layer is down, it is down for the count and cannot be reactivated. But despite all of that, acrylic paints have such a unique advantage over using oils, as well as using watercolors. You can do portraits, pop art blending still-life, mixed media. There are so many possibilities when it comes to using acrylic paint. And I'm really, really excited to dive in on how you can utilize acrylic paint to your advantage. So that concludes the end of this lesson. I will see you all in the next one. 3. General Art Supplies You'll Need: Every artist has their toolkit of all the supplies they need to create acrylic paintings. And unlike oil paint, acrylic still require a lot of setup. Now while this entire class, we'll dive deeper into all the supplies and what to look for when choosing. This lesson serves as your general checklist, a list of the basic things you'll need to get started when painting with acrylics. So the first thing is you're going to need obviously are some acrylic paint as well as paint brushes, a pallet of some sort, either a plastic or a disposable palette, palette knife or a set of palette knives, a cup of water, a towel to dry off your brushes, supportive, some sort like a canvas, paper as well as a covered working surface and apron or a smock to keep yourself clean as you are working. Because I recommended these items, you don't necessarily have to get everything all at once. It's truly up to you what you would like to do and what you would like to use. But these are the supplies that a lot of acrylic painter start with. And I figured I would show them to you and let you know about them. Nothing in a broader understanding of supplies every acrylic painter uses. Lets proceed in the next lessons to understand exactly the specific types of paintbrushes and supports, you need. 4. Making your Creative Space : When you think about what an art studio looks like, you probably envision a dedicated room bursting with dozens of paint tubes and brushes and cute coffee cans, walls that are covered Florida ceiling with Canvas art and paint speckled tables, chairs and floors are part of a past magical painting project. And you're probably thinking, there is no way I can get a studio space remotely close to that. Fortunately for all of us, every artist studio looks different. Some artists have dedicated rooms to paint, while others have a small makeshift corner in their kitchen for their paintings. The point is you've got to work with what you currently have. You're not required to have a traditional studio to paint. All you really need is the following. A dedicated space, a place, a store brushes and paint, a working surface, and tablecloths or drop cloths to help protect your furniture and floors. So let's talk about each one of these. Now. One of the biggest obstacles every new acrylic artists faces is where can I paint? Some people live in studio apartments or confined to one room in a house like a bedroom. So space sometimes can be very limited, but even so, plenty of great art can be made in the tiniest of spaces. This requires some forethought and a bit of planning. And the reason why I'm stressing having a dedicated space is twofold. It helps you stay organized and easily know where all your art supplies are and not have to scramble to gather supplies every time you want to paint something, think about it. You suddenly have the urge to paint, but you have to spend the first hour trying to find a canvas you left in one room paint tubes you've left in the basement brushes you buried somewhere in your kitchen junk drawer and the time you're ready to sit down and actually make something, you're just exhausted and that creative spark just vanishes. This can definitely be a recipe for disaster. So having a dedicated space is like your shrine to creativity. It's a way for you to get Painting quickly without the added brainpower of playing, hide and seek with your art supplies. So do your creative soul a favor and find a spot in your home or space that you will dedicate to painting. This can be a corner in your bedroom or a section of your kitchen table, but plant yourself there and make that your dedicated space to create meaning. Nothing else will touch that space besides your art and your art supplies. And as an added tip, to help drive more inspiration. Be sure to hang-up art, an art that you've made or art that inspires you all around you and that dedicated space so that it will excite you to make more art around her space. Once you've carved out your space, you'll need a place to store all your brushes and supplies so you can easily grab them from one spot. This is very important, just like a dedicated space who do need that one spot for all your art supplies live. And this can be as simple as a small corner shelf that holds all of your art supplies. In fact, I have an old bookshelf that I transformed into my art supply corner where I store all of my brushes, all of my paints, all by pallets, canvas, canvas, paper, brought clots, everything. Once you're ready for painting, you're going to want your rest your canvas on something while you paint a working surface, you can choose to work using an easel where you can prop your canvas on an upright angle while you work on it. And there are various types of easels out there, like an iframe easel that rests on the floor or a display easel. You can prop on your table so you can sit while you paint. Or you can just rest your canvas flat on the regular table and paint that way. You're just getting started with painting. This is a fine alternative to start with. But if you want to get better at painting, you'll want to consider other working surface options that prop your canvas at an incline so that it'll help better capture your subject without perspective war and will be much easier on your neck and back muscles. Personally, I actually have a drafting table that inclined at an angle so I can sit in paint at the same time without actually needing an easel. And there are plenty of places that you could find these easels and drafting tables on Amazon or other online or physical art supply stores. Now whatever working surface you choose, be sure to use a tablecloth or drop cloth to cover the table surface or floor you are working on so that you don't accidentally splatter them with paint. Unless of course you like working in that way. No shame in your game. You know, the day you got to work with what you currently have and with what works best for you and your situation. And I hope this lesson showed you that you just need a few key things to ensure you have the creative space to work and to explore. Just as a recap, all you'll need is a dedicated space, a place to store brushes and paint, a working surface and tablecloths or drop cloths to help protect your furniture and your floras. So your assignment will be to choose one dedicated space in your house to be your art studio. And once you know where you're going to work, figuring out how you'll store all your art supplies there. And on a fun note, be sure to share what your arts-based looks like to. I'd love to see the creative spaces that you come up with for yourself. So I hope you enjoyed this lesson on making your own creative sanctuary in preparation for making amazing art. So with that being said, I will see you in the next lesson. 5. Choosing the Right Brushes: Paintbrushes, They are the conductors of your entire painting. Orchestral masterpiece directs paint shows movement and gives you specific textures and strokes your brush can make or break your painting. So understanding which ones you should use and what they can do to help you get an awesome painting is pretty important for we go into what our brushes can actually do for us. We got to first talk about Brush anatomy and every branch has the same, similar components. Let's take this brush, for example, is a three-quarter inch flat wash brush. You first have the handle. Every brush has one, and some are made with plastic or wood. In this case here this is a simply Simmons brush is actually has a wooden base with a plastic coating on top which kinda chipped away, having done painting for quite a while now, I've actually started really liking the more plastic handles because it's a lot easier for clean up later. And it also extends the lifetime of your brush. So when it comes to choosing a handle, you gotta choose one that you like the best. So try out a few and see which one feels the most comfortable in your hand. The next part of the brush anatomy is the feral. This is usually the metallic part of your brush which connects the handle to the bristles themselves. It clamps together all of the brush and bristles together. And it's actually what determines the overall brush type and shape. And then let's go and talk about the bristles themselves. Now, bristles are considered the actual part of the brush that you paint with. And bristles can be made from a variety of materials including animal hair or synthetic fibers. In the case of simply Simmons and the brushes that I tend to use, I like to lead towards more synthetic fiber brush bristles because again, it just allows for very easy cleanup and I think it actually makes the brush lasts a tiny bit longer. Next, let's talk about the different areas of the bristles. One is the toe. So the toe is this area of the brush, the very edge of body. This is pretty much the area of the middle part of your bristles like basically between the toe and the heels. And when you load your brush all the paint mm, nicely gathered inside the well of the body here and holds a very nicely Your body gives your brush a particular type of strength. Artists like to call it a spring back. The ability for your brushes to kind of spring back into the same position that they are right now. So if I were to take a brush like this and use my my finger, bend the bristles back and it springs back just like so I like to have a brush. It has very good spring back. I really am not a big fan of brushes that are very, very soft. Those are more preferable for watercolors. In terms of acrylics, you're going to need something that can give you a good amount of pressure and spring back so that it can withstand the friction of your canvas or whatever meat or whatever surface or painting on and be able to carry and transfer your paint effectively. So when it comes to picking a brush, just listen for the spring back. And of course it's all preference. If you feel like you'd like something that's maybe a little more stiff or something that's got a little bit more give to it. That's totally something that you can go ahead and try out for yourself. Lastly, in terms of brush anatomy, we have the heel, this is where the bristles go into the feral. So now that we've gone over brush anatomy, let's talk about the different types of brushes and the strokes that they can give you. Firstly, you have your flat wash brushes. Now these brushes are flat, they have a flat feral and the bristles are nicely spread out. So you can get a lot of coverage when you are actually going ahead. And painting, it's great for covering large areas like backgrounds and can be used for washes, base coats, applying glazes and finishes. And typically you will get a large, broad sweeping stroke. Next is a shader brush, also known as a flat brush. So the difference between this kinda brush and a wash brushed is that this brush doesn't have as big of an area that it covers. So even though they're the same shape as a wash. You can use them flat or on the tips to create Chris edges and precision control. So you can use flatter shader brushes for blocking and colors, shading, blending, highlighting, doing smaller washes and smaller brushstrokes in general. Now let's move on to our Filburn. What's unique about the Philbrick brush is that it has a rounded tip and this router tip is really great for creating strokes with soft rounded edges. They're really great for filling in circular areas and blending. And my particular favorite thing to use Gilbert's for is for soft looking objects like hair and clouds, because you can achieve those nice, rounded soft edges. The next kind of brush is a round brush. Barrel itself isn't flat as its circular in shape. The bristles all have the cylindrical kind of shape to it and they all come down to a point at the PTO. And what's really advantageous not using a wound brushes that you can use it at its point, or applied pressure to make thick to thin strokes. You can use this for detail work or filling in large areas. And I actually like using these foreshadows. Now another type of brush that I always use I totally, totally loved or my detail round brushes and detail round brush has a round feral. Therefore the bristles will be nice and round and they come to a very nice point. I love using detail brushes because I loved making details in my art. And it really is the secret sauce behind making those nice crisp lines. They are really amazing for line work and for outlining, especially when I make my pop art and the pink nationally thinned out with water. So you can create an even more Encke, consistent to create those nice, smooth, crisp lines. And so when it comes to detail brushes, they run a variety of sizes. For the most part though, usually start at 0 for a 0 detail round brush. And then they get smaller and smaller. So you'll see that this one here is actually smaller than this detail brush. It's a two over 0. And this one here is a four over 0, which is even smaller. So when you see fractions on your detail brushes higher the number gets smaller than brush tip will be. And therefore the smaller your strokes and your details can get. Honestly, I always recommend people start with a 0 detail round brush and kind of feel it out and see whether they liked to go smaller or bigger depending on their preferences, like using like a round brushes have a detailed round. You may be wondering, Okay, I have seen detail round brushes, but what is the difference between that and a liner brush? A liner brush really is the same thing as a detail brush except that the length of the bristles are much longer. That could good medium between getting very fine control details and longer flowing strokes beginner or somebody who has a certain preference, sticking with a detail round brush gives you the most control over your strokes, especially if you're just getting started or you want a little bit more control because you have a little trouble directing your paint. I always recommend going with a detail round as opposed to going for a liner, liners a bit more advanced. They have a little bit more of a give to them. So it's not for the faint of heart. A lot of paint brushes or most of them anyways actually come with numbers on the handle themselves. And these numbers just represent the size of the brush because you're not only just gonna get one type of round brush DES, round brushes will come in different sizes. For example, this is a number eight round brush. Then here is a number three round brush seeing kinda look same kind of achievement you can do with your strokes except that bristles themselves and body are much shorter and therefore you can get more detailed with the round strokes. Long story short, if you're dealing with your typical brush, the higher the number, the bigger that brush will be. And of course, if you dealing with a detail brushes which have fractions, the higher the number on the numerator, the smaller that brush is. Does another example, two, this is a one inch flat wash brush. This is a three-quarter inch flat wash brush. Now when it comes to washes, they kinda go by the actual width of the bristles themselves. As you can see here, this is about one inch. Therefore, you're going to be getting one inch of coverage with every brush stroke that you make. And this is the three-quarter inches, but again, it goes back to numbers. The higher the number is, the bigger that brush and the brush stroke will be. And know that there's a bajillion other brushes that are out there that I did not mentioned here, like angled brushes and fan brushes. But when it comes to choosing the brushes that can give you the most versatility, that can help you do the most stuff. The ones that I have shown you here today will get you there and it will definitely help you achieve a lot of your painting goals. Now that you know about brushes and the strokes that can make, it's time to play. Identify the different brushes you own According to the brush types we just mentioned. And with paint, observe the various strokes each brush makes. Feel free to share your brush study in the class project area. Have fun. 6. Brush Cleaning: Much Needed TLC: Brushes are our first line of defense when painting. And if we clean and care for them well, they can last us many, many years. So in this lesson we're gonna talk about how to effectively clean your brushes and keep them looking delicious, knew for many years and painting projects to come without needing tons of time or cleaning material to do so. If there's one thing I hope you take away from this lesson, never leave paint on your brush, not even for an hour, because unlike oils, acrylic paint is fast drying, so you don't quite have the luxury to lead your brushes with paint on them for hours. In that timeframe, the paint will dry and harden into the bristles and it'll be a complete nightmare to clean up. I'll outline to methods for keeping your brushes clean. One that happens during your painting session, and when that happens after you're done using your brush from your painting session. So the first cleaning tip is to clean while you paint. Even though this sounds like an absolute shore cleaning your brush right after you use them while painting is a fast yet effective way to keep your brushes and paint colors clean once you're done with a brush, wipe off as much excess paint as possible on a cloth or towel. Then with a cup of water, dip your brush head into the water and lightly beat the bristles on the sides and bottom of the cup to shake out any paint that maybe deep inside the brush body. Once you're done, wipe off the bristles on the towel and repeat as often as needed until all the paint has been removed. Now the second part of cleaning is cleaning your brushes after a painting session. So once you're done with a painting, you'll need to give all your used brushes a deep clean to ensure all the paint has been removed. And two, condition the bristles so they hold their intended shape. This is a big deal because painting with frayed bristles makes it impossible to get the strokes you want. So conditioning those bristles will help prevent fraying. So do this, grab a hard surface like a plastic palette or a plate, sink bottom or even your hand and squeeze out equal parts. Dish soap, I prefer Don and oil. I actually use extroversion olive oil, but you can use grape seed or vegetable oil. Then taking your brush, swirl the bristles, combining the soap and oil together, be sure to swirl your bristles in a circular motion, alternating on the tip and the size of the brush body to get as much paint out as possible. Once you've worked up a good lather, rinse your brush using the same circular motion on your poem or hard surface. Repeat this process until all the paint has been removed. I usually can tell my brush is clean when I press on the bristles, are squeezed the bristles and whatever liquid comes out as colorless. As a final conditioning, I run my brush across a tiny bit of coconut oil coating both the sides and the tip. And with my fingers I shape the brush body and the toe. Coconut oil is a great conditioner and will help your bristles hold their shape and as an added tip, heat up your coconut oil just a tad about lukewarm but never hot. Coat and shape the bristles. And once the oil cools to room temperature, it technically becomes a solid and it can help your bristles stay in shape. So that is how you can effectively clean your brushes and keep them functional and working like new for many years to come. So your assignment would be to practice good brush etiquette and clean your brushes during your painting session and after your painting session using the tips we just talked about in this lesson. See you in the next one. 7. Get the Best Paint with this Strategy: Acrylic paints are a ton of fun to play with. But did you know that not all paints are created equal, as crazy as that sounds, knowing how to handle your various types of acrylic paint can give you a leg up on your painting experience and gives you plenty of awareness of the next time you're out buying more paint. And the best way to do that is by knowing how to read a paint tooth label. So why is knowing how to read a paint tube label so important? Well, I know in the beginning just getting a tube of acrylic paint seems daunting enough by understanding your paint and the ingredients that make up that pigment can improve your paintings and save you lots of headaches. The long run, because it helps you understand what pains can give you the right brush effects. And in the event that you have to replace your favorite tube of paint, you know exactly what it is that you need to look for without having to compromise on quality or the color of your acrylic paint. So in this lesson we're going to go over how to read a pain tube label so you know how to choose the best acrylics coming projects. And the way we're gonna do that is by looking at several tubes of paint so that you get to see a basic round house of what it is that you can look out for it. Most of the things that we want to point out are always present on any paint T2 because it has a standard that all paint companies follow. So what we're gonna do first is look at the liquid text heavy body series. The first thing we look at is the paint tight with acrylic paint. There is a binder or an acrylic resin that's added to a pigment, which gives it more or less of a body, giving it that viscosity. So in other words, the more binder that is added to a paint, the denser, less viscous, more paste like it will be. And there were three famous types. Viscosities, heavy body acrylics, which look more like a peanut buttery pastes like consistency of paint. That is great. If you were working with palette knives, impasto style paintings, and textured brushstrokes. They can also be diluted with water to create a higher flow of color. The next type is soft body acrylic sows are usually soft creamy paste with the consistency of custard that is grateful brushed details, glazes under coats for painting, march flat areas. And then lastly, you have liquid acrylics. Liquid acrylics or more free-flowing, are extremely diluted with pigments and paint with a milk like consistency. And these are ideal for paint brushes, airbrushing, Fresco's just to name a few. As far as viscosity Preferences go, I personally liked heavy and soft body paint, which was something I figured out through simple trial and error. So I highly suggest you try out each paint type the best, figure out what it is that you like most for your projects. Because from my experience, one paint type may do a great job for one type of acrylic project, but me bomb miserably with another. So take the time to play and figure things out for yourself. And this kind of goes into the next point I wanted to talk about, which is student versus professional hate. And there is a clear difference between the two. Student grade paint typically contains much more fillers mixed with the pigment. Which thereby produces colors that may fade over time, become much more darker than expected. They are typically cheaper and are great for practicing for journaling or for under painting. And they typically come as soft body viscosity. And some well-known student quality paints include basics collection from liquid text, Sargent and our Tessa, just to name a few, if you're just starting out with acrylic paint, you want to just get a feel for it and you have a limited budget. I would suggest you go more towards a student grade paints burst to kinda feel things out. If however you want paint that gives you that deep rich color that contains more pure pigment, less filler, and won't fade over time. You'll most likely wanna get the professional grade paints. And our professional grade paints are great for commissions, gallery quality artwork and for paintings you plan to give to others to enjoy or to give that extra air quality to your paintings. And with all these amazing qualities, it does come with a higher price tag in a tiny bit of a learning curve, if you've been dealing with student grade paint for a while. However, it is something that has totally changed the game for me. When I switched from student grade paint to professional paint, I personally started with a liquid text-based six to get the feel for my paint. And I later upgraded to Liquitex professional heavy body paint when it became much more comfortable and confident. Now back to your paint tube. Another thing you're going to want to look for on the label is the paint name itself. And on every label you should see the name of the paint color like ultramarine blue, crimson, red, Hanson yellow, et cetera. And another big thing you'll see on every pain tube label is the pigment number. Paint is made of pigments, which gives it its unique color. Every pigment has a unique color index name consisting of two letters and some numbers. The first two letters stand for the color family. For example, PB, like we see with this particular tube of paint. P stands for pigment, B stands for blue. We look at another example of another type of paint color. I will read p is for pigment, R is for red. And this kinda goes along with all the other colors. Yellow is PY, green is PG, et cetera. So you can see with golden acrylic paints as well as Liquitex acrylic paints. They all follow the similar pigment number standard. And then after the color category comes, the number. This number identifies that specific pigment. For example, PB 15 is failover cyanide blue, whereas cobalt blue is PB 28. These are two different pigments that have two different numbers. And this is really important to know. You'll probably see this when you go shopping around. Let's say you've run out of a particular paint and you want to get more, but you don't want to spend as much money or use a different brand. Instead of looking just at the paint name itself, you want to instead look at the pigment number. Manufacturers follow the same standard when creating paint from pigments. So if two different brands make paint with the same paint pigment, you'll get similar, if not almost identical colors. The next thing you'll see on your paint tube is the paint swatch itself. A pizza watches the color representation of the pigment inside of the tube. It's basically an easy way to eyeball what color you're going to get. For example, liquid tech sprints the color of the swatch itself right onto the label. But as a general note, acrylics do tend to dry a tad darker than their swatches. So I always recommend doing a swatch. For any new paints a you are using, so you know the actual color your paint will be after it dries. The next thing on the label is the opacity type. Opacity indicates how opaque or transparent to your paint is. So some art brands like little tax and our Tesla, like to represent paint transparency using boxes. Heat that is transparent is represented as a box with a black border. Semi-transparent paint is shown as a box and an opaque paint is shown as a solid black box. And of course, golden does it a little differently. Golden page swatch paint over three black lines on the label to physically demonstrate how opaque that particular pigment is. It's more of a visual representation and it also serves as a swatch for that particular tube. Now the next big thing I always, always, always emphasize everyone to look into when they choose their paint is the light fastness, permanence label, light fastness or color permanent refers to the resistance for pink color to fade over time. Most paint labels follow the ASTM standard from the number one, which means that your pink color will last you hundreds and hundreds of years with the fading to the number three, which means that your paint color will last you about 15 to 50 years. Now of course, if from brands may do differently, for example, our Tesla, they do it by using plus signs, but they still follow ASTM standards. Something I always encourage everyone to do is if you're not quite sure what a particular paint company uses for a light permanent paint standard. Simply email them or reach out to them via social media and ask any brand worth their salt will know how to answer your question. Just to put this into perspective, if you want to make gallery ready paintings or paintings you want to sell, you want to opt for a light fastness of one. If you're just practicing, you don't really care that much about the color. Permanent. You can go with a three, but I always recommend trying to go with ones. Now a series number is an indicator of how expensive it is to produce a certain pigment. A series number usually starts with the number one, which means they are typically the cheapest to make. And then the higher the number gets, the more expensive it will be to produce a specific pigment and manufacturer that paint. That means the more you will have to pay for that particular color. In this example here with liquid tax, this is a series one paint. It's relatively easy to produce that pigment with pyrrole red, there is a bit more work that goes into creating, to obtaining and creating that color pigment. Therefore, pyro red is probably going to be a little more expensive. And then of course, with the golden series, a series eight, this particular pigment, cobalt blue, is very, very difficult to obtain and make. And that also touches on something I wanted to bring your attention to, which is pigment color versus pigment hue. When you're considering your paint colors, you may also want to think about the color index number as well. In some cases at that pink color is not purely made from one pigment and is instead made up of a mix of pigment colors. The paint label will then be classified as a heap. This can make a huge difference in the price of your paint, but also in the mixing capabilities of that paint. Which hails back to good old color theory, which basically means that the more pigments that are introduced into a mix, more likely the colors will turn into mud or become muddier. For example, who wanted to look at cobalt blue hue from Liquitex? Liquitex uses three different pigments to create that color of cobalt blue, as you can see here, we've got p B29, PB 53, and PW six. Those are three different types of pigments that will create that cobalt blue, and as you'll notice, it's called cobalt blue. Q, It's not a pure pigment. And because it is made from three different pigments, it is therefore cheaper to produce. It's going to have a lower Series Number is particular to paint costs around $7.58 or a $1.90 per fluid ounce. The drawback here is that it is a mixing liability with colors because of the number of pigments involved in making this pigment. Now on the other hand, if we were going to look at, at Golden's cobalt blue and got a little bit of a different story. Golden's cobalt blue is made of pure pigment. As you can see, it's just that one ingredient, PB 28, that is pure pigment. It is a series eight, which means it is much more expensive to produce. Price at 14.477.24 per fluid ounce, and that's almost seven times more than liquid Texas cobalt blue hue. However, if you were to mix with golden cobalt blue, you will get the most vibrant mixes because it is only using one pigment. So if you want the most vibrant color out of your painting, consider finding a paint that is as close to pure pigment as possible. Which means you may need to find another brand for that particular color, but that's totally OK and normal for most artists and mix and match paint brands for their projects. So all in all, when choosing your paints, learning about labels and how to read them properly will help you make the best choices for your art. So your assignment will be to practice reading your paint tube ingredients, identifying each of the characteristics we just talked about in this lesson. See you all in the next one. 8. Choosing the Right Colors: Now another great tool that every artist should know about is choosing colors for your paintings and knowing which ones you really need. Proceed when it comes to color, there is an endless spectrum. I mean, look at the rainbow, Just look at anything that's super, super cargo. Even look at the surface of a bubble, you're just gonna see so much iridescence. There are just so many colors that are playing on the surface and in the realm of acrylic paint. Whenever you're buying a certain set of acrylics, sometimes you'll get sets that offer a lot of acrylic colors. Now at first glance, this might seem like a really cool bargain. Wow, I get all these colors. This is great, but there's a hangup here. How can I possibly choose what colors do I use? So I used this type of yellow. Do I use this type of read? Why use this type of blue? Do I even need this color? It just becomes very overwhelming to choose from so many colors. And because of that, it does become harder to learn about what colors do with one another and can impede your color mixing capabilities. So I guess in the grand scheme of things, how can you possibly choose the right kinda colors for your painting? The Secret answer here is to use a limited palette. Really what this means is you choose a set number of paints and then work with just those pains to create a whole spectrum of color that you can then use for your canvas paintings. So now let's talk about the benefits of using a limited palette and what are the colors that I personally would recommend for you to start with. Now in the next clip we're about to watch. It's actually a lesson that is taken from my color mixing Fundamentals course. And it just goes into a deeper dive as to why using a limited palette is beneficial for you as an artist, especially if you're a beginner. Okay, here we go. And in this lesson we're going to talk about the benefits of using a limited palette and why in the long run, it'll save you money as well as your sanity. And when it comes to colors, we already talked about how there are just a bajillion colors in the color spectrum. If you were to go to a store and try to pick out the color blue, for example, you wouldn't be choosing amongst dozen of different shades of blue. And having a little color possibilities is pretty great. But it can also be pretty intimidating and very overwhelming. Especially if you're just starting with acrylic painting or just want to understand how colors work best. Because when you have lots of color options, you'll probably feel very overwhelmed. And if you ever fall into the trap of just getting all the colors and using them when you're painting. That actually will result in a lot of color noise. And it will actually work against you versus working for you. When it really comes to painting, you have to be kinda strategic with the amount of colors you're using in the long run. Less is more, not only that having so many color options in front of you, it makes it much, much harder for you to understand how color and color mixing actually works. Because if you're trying to juggle between four different types of blues and six different types of reds and 18 different types of yellows. You're going to have a very, very hard time understanding how those colors work together, why they work together. So when it comes to learning about color, and this is something that I've heard from many people and I am a testament to this, to always keep it simple because you can learn a lot faster and it's a better way to understand how colours behave with one another. You can still achieve a wide variety of vivid colors and harmonies with a limited palette. There are many, many famous painters who did believe in using no more than six colors in their palates. And even one of the great classic painters tissue and highly endorsed working with a limited range of colors. Stating that one can be a great painter using only three colors, all in all, it just depends on your preference. So as you're working with your colors and understanding how they work, you'd start to develop a preference for different types of colors and different types of shades. And then you can make a choice in the type of colors that you want for your palate. I personally recommend using six colors plus titanium, white, and gray. So when we talked about the colour wheel, we talked about the three primary colors that can then give you secondary and tertiary colors, giving you a wide range of colors within the color spectrum. These are the recommended palette colors that I personally like to use. I always recommend others to use as well. This includes lemon yellow, yellow ochre, scarlet read crimson, red, ultramarine blue, Cerulean Blue, as well as titanium white and Payne's gray. What these colors, you can get a ton of different color combinations. Now with that being said, I did want to make a point that I did not include purples are greens on my list, but as a tip for any artist out there, if you happen to work with a lot of specific secondary or tertiary colours like purples and greens, then it's just much easier for you to just buy a tube of it instead of having to constantly mix it over and over and over again. And you'll also notice that I did not include the color black on the lists. A big reason being because it is a very overpowering pigment. And you'll learn about this when we talk about how to best dark in your colors. But of course, if you have a specific purpose for the color black or you want to use it to make the color grade because you don't happen to have a tube of grey, you can totally use black as well. Usually like to use an ivory black or a Mars Black. So out of all of this experiment and make your own choice on what colors you best like to work with. So starting with the colors that I recommended, experiment and see whether those are the bright colors for you or if you want to add something to it, it's all up to you and it's all your personal preference. Okay, so that concludes this lesson. I'll see you all in the next one. 9. Paint Supports: What do you paint on?: Another great tool every artist should know is how to choose the right paint support and what to look for. And if you're wondering what exactly a paint support is, it's any surface onto which you apply your acrylic paint, which in most cases is stretched fabric, canvas, or paper. A support can range from different types of mediums like wood, plastic, ceramic, paper, canvas, and fabric, just to name a few. And when it comes to choosing your support, he just need to look out for these specific characteristics in order to be the right fit for when you're painting. First criteria is that your support is sturdy enough to withstand the friction of your brush. You need a support that won't pill or disintegrate as you are applying that sturdy brush bristle on its surface. If you find that your support integrity is either tearing, ripping or otherwise not holding it's own. It's a sign that your support is not meant to be used with acrylic paint and you will need to get a different 1. Second characteristic is that your support can withstand the water-soluble nature of your acrylic paint in the same way as being able to withstand brush friction, your must be able to properly handle the watery nature of acrylics. This means if you are using plain printer paper to paint onto, your paper will most likely born tear and or pill or lose its structural integrity. And I gotta tell you from personal experience when I first started acrylic painting, a subpoena, and printer paper, and it did not work for me. It just completely disintegrated and ripped up my paper. So I learned my lesson. Thirdly, your support should be primed to accept acrylic paint. A primed support is a happy support because it won't eat up or absorb all your precious pain pigment on the first go, I can go a long way and can be very expensive if you're constantly laying down paint onto your canvas and your canvas is just simply drinking it all. When working with a support, you want to make sure that it's primed or prejudge sewed, which is his substance similar to acrylic paint, but with some additives for ultimate coverage. So your acrylic paint will sit nicely on the surface support without absorbing through and will ensure that your colors stay vibrant. So if you're looking for just those like the ones I have pictured here. Companies like Liquitex and golden have some really great Jessup options including clear and white gesso. I personally like using white just so, so I can also use it to reuse old canvases are fixed mistakes while painting. But something that I personally like to do is I just like to purchase a canvas or support that's already pre JSON, which is super, super common to find. And the fourth criteria is you want to make sure that your support surface is acid free or that the primer that's being used like you're just so is acid free. This ensures that your art will not yellow and degrade over time. So now that we've gone over those four key characteristics. Every support that you use for collect painting should have. What support should you choose? Well, ultimately it's up to you and what you like working with. Some artists like working with Canvas, others like working with wood, while others prefer the smooth appearance of paint on paper, it's totally up to you and your discretion what material you like to work with. So I always advise you to play around and feel things out. But if you're just getting started with acrylics and are looking to experiment and play around and your budget is kinda tight. I would recommend three different options. Canvas panels, Canvas pads or multimedia paper and prejudge sewed canvas. Now, a canvas panel is made by mounting unprimed cotton canvass onto a rigid board. This is a cheap alternative to Canvas. They are very lightweight and take up much less space than say, a stretched canvas over wood. And they can come in a variety of different sizes. How ever the drawback here is that because of the way that they are made, canvas panels will degrade over time. Now the second affordable option is Canvas pads or multimedia paper. Canvas pads are basically prejudge, so Canvas but in paper form. So it makes for space savers and you can get a lot for a decent price. And the same goes for multimedia paper, which can handle all sorts of different mediums like watercolor, acrylics, etc. So if you wanna do mixed media, that is a fun option to try as well. And then thirdly is a stretched three Jesu value Canvas. These canvases are made for beginners and students because they are much more affordable and come in bulk quantities. You'll just want to make sure the canvas you're interested in buying specifically states it can be used for acrylic painting or is universal, avoid buying canvas that is meant for oil painter tempera because they tend to be super absorbent, which we already discussed, won't bode very well for your acrylics. And lucky for us, all of these options are pretty easy to find. You can either go to your local craft store like Michael's or Joanne fabrics to pick up canvas or would I like to do is ordered materials online from famous art brands like Dick Blick or Tessa Winsor Newton and artists loft, just to name a few. But if you're much more comfortable with acrylics and want to upgrade your support. One of the best choices is going with professional stretched canvas or buying Canvas roles and wooden stretchers and stretching it yourself, which is a much more affordable option but takes the most time because you actually have to assemble everything, stretch and staple. There's a much more work involved. Professional stretch canvas is usually heavier than budget canvases, somewhere in the range of 13 to 17 ounces. And they typically do have a higher thread count. Professional grade canvas are known for being much stronger and less likely to stretch over time. A huge advantage over the value brand stretched preach. So canvas, which means you're painting, will last a long time without cracking or succumbing to the elements like humidity. Now, some artists prefer using paper to create acrylic art because there are a variety of textures that can accentuate and accommodate lots of styles like smooth delegate details are rough brush strokes and of course they're much thinner than your typical Canvas. So it makes for lots of space saving options. So if you're interested in using paper as your support, here are just a few additional things to look for. So not only should your paper meet the four criteria we mentioned earlier to withstand acrylic paint, you'll want to make sure that your paper is thick. At least 300 grams per square meter, or GSM for short. So it can hold its own against paint. And depending on what you want your painting to look like, You can choose between cold pressed or hard pressed paper. And this is just referring to the type of manufacturing process that paper goes through. And they each have different looking results. Cold press paper is much more textured on the surface and can give the appearance of refer brushstrokes, kind of like an abstract painting. If you're into that, however, the paper texture will present a challenge. If you want to make smooth, crisp detail lines, it's very hard to drag a line without it getting bumpy. Now hot press paper, on the other hand, is much smoother on the surface, which is perfect for helping your brush glide easily and making smooth details and more realistic paintings. So now that you know what to look for in your support, it's time to go ahead and experiment. If you're not sure what type of support you want to use, try painting on a few to see what feels and looks right to you. And remember there is no right or wrong way to your style. I hope you enjoyed this lesson and I'll see you in the next one. 10. Amazing Texture with Palette Knives: In this lesson, we're going to talk about how you can use the simple palette knife tool to create gorgeous texture in your paintings. Now, if you're wondering what a palette knife is, it's simply a thin steel blade with a handle. They typically come in two different types of shapes. A flat blade shape and a trailblazer shape, where the blade is angled downward. The trial shape is my personal favorite because it makes applying and directing paint so much easier. Now traditionally palette knives were used for mixing colors or applying and removing paint from your palate will canvas. But many artists have actually taken palette knives a step further and painted with them so they can achieve broader textures that they otherwise would not have gotten with a brush alone. Palette knives come in many different shapes, but you really only need two to three varied shaped blades to get a wide variety of textures and styles. It just comes down to your personal preference and what you like using. So now that we know what a palette knife is, let's see how you can use them when painting. Now to use a palette knife for mixing with a clean blade, scoop up the desired paint that you want to work with and place it onto a clean surface on to your palate. So be sure to wipe the blade with a towel to make sure that there is no color interference when you go to mix with the second color, scoop up the second color, place it next to the first color on your palate and then begin mixing it together. I'd like to first start thinking like an X marked with my blade and then eventually just moving in different motions. And it's very important to be sure to press down with your knife to make sure that the colors mix thoroughly onto your canvas. And like I said, I like to use a variety of circular motions inside scrapes, meaning I just angle the blade to the side to scrape the paint and keep it thoroughly. Now to use a palette knife for painting, there are tons of techniques and ways to get creative when painting with palette knives, but here are just a few techniques to help you get started. Practice canvas sheet I am using contains a few painting prompts. So if you want to follow along, you can find a copy of this in the class notes. So if you want to work on applying flawed swats of paint, you'll first wanted to take your palette knife tilted to one side and move the paint on your palette in the same direction as your tilted side. To apply the straight broad stroke, start on the left side of the box. Place your blade flat on the surface and with a gentle pressure, moved the blade from left to right. This will help push the paint on your blade evenly onto the canvas. You get, then proceed to go back and forth, right to left and repeat. If you want a thinner paint layer, simply add more pressure to your blade to help spread that paint over a wider service. To apply curb strokes, you'll pretty much do exactly the same thing as a straight of application, but instead of moving your blade in a straight line, you will make a C-shaped with your blade to help you keep a steady hand. You can pivot the blade while touching the surface. Your support or keep your entire arm that is holding the pallet a stiff and pivot from your elbow. This will help you to achieve better looking curves. Now let's talk textures. If you wanted to create a varied amount of textures that add dimension to your paintings like tree bark, rocks, plant life, et cetera. The palette knife can work miracles here. So let's start with a tapping texture. Firstly, gather paint onto your blade, go to your painting surface. Simply tap with a gentle pressure. Repeat the step over and over until you get some really cool, lumpy peaks that can be used for imitating plant life or rock textures, just to name a few. To make straight lines, simply take your palette knife and using just one side of the blade, gathers some paint. Then on your painting support angle the blade with the paint side at a 45-degree angle and gently press the blade edge onto the surface. This creates a simple straight line. If not enough, paint transfers simply go back to your palate and collect more paint on the blade edge. You can also drag the blade edge to carry more paint and extend the straight line. This technique is super useful for creating grass, trees, painting structures like houses or buildings. Now if you want to step it up a notch and add more texture, you can add material to your paint ranging from sand, wood shavings, pencil shavings, glitter, tissue, paper, et cetera, and combine that with your palette knife. This is a great way to imitate and achieve varying material aesthetics. Plus it's just, and we're satisfying to just combine and mix different things together to see what happens that when this example, I use pencil shavings mixed with I paint using the palette knife and then I transferred it to the surface using a similar technique that I use for creating my broad application, which is literally just keeping my blade flat and spreading the paint. Now another great palette knife technique is mixing two or more colours together to get interesting visual blends and colored juxtaposition to do that, scoop up one color you want to use. And using the broad stroke application, apply your paint, covering a little over half of the desired area you wish to paint. Here I start on the left and I move the paint to the right a little over halfway. Once you weren't done, clean the paint off your blade and scoop up your second desired color. Then on the other side of the box in the opposite direction using gentle pressure, push the second color onto the canvas surface, eventually gliding it over the first color layer. Now it's important to keep gentle pressure while doing this because otherwise you might risk picking up the underlying paint color and inadvertently mixing it. But if that is something you actually want to have happen, go for it. But if you want to keep the two colors fairly strong and separate, proceed with gentle pressure. Not only our palette knives amazing for adding painted canvas, but it's also great for removing or scraping paint as well and creating shapes in the negative space as a result. So for this example, let's demonstrate how to make lines and boxes. First laid down and even layer of paint and with a clean blade, angle the blade so the edge touches the surface and drag it to bolt, scrape off the previous paint layers and form a line. If you weren't making horizontal lines, position your blade horizontally and drag the blade up and down slightly. To make vertical lines. Position your blade vertically and drag the blade left or right. And to make boxes, instead of just slightly dragging the blade edge, you just simply scrape off more paint until the negative space looks like a box. You can bury the block shape and orientation depending on how long you scrape and what angle you place your Blink. By using this super straightforward technique, you can create consistently sharp lines and boxes. So we hope this lesson showed you the power of palette knives and how they can add a lot of depth and intrigue and textures to any painting that you're working with. So you're less than project will be to choose a palette knife and practice mixing, applying and scraping paint off of your support. And you can follow along using my guides, which I have attached in the class notes and you can make your own so you can follow along with me. I hope you enjoyed this lesson and I'll see you in the next one. 11. Color Magic I: Color Mixing: Welcome to this lesson that dives into the world of color and how to use it to create beautiful, eye pleasing acrylic paintings. Because color is such a huge topic, I've split it up into several lessons within this class to better explore and learn the concepts. So in this first lesson, we're going to talk about color and how to understand how they work and play together. So to understand color, you're going to want to understand the three colors that make up all the other colors, red, blue, and yellow. These three colors are considered to be primary colors. Now, what makes a color a primary color? Well, a primary color cannot be made by any other color. You can't mix other colors to make these specific pigments. And another really interesting characteristic about a primary color is that you can mix them to create other colors in the color spectrum like secondary and tertiary colors, which means you don't necessarily have to buy tons of pink colors to get a buried color selection. You really only need the primaries, and we'll talk more about that in just a second. Lastly, a primary color can be used to create the color black and dark colors like browns and graze. Your primary color is like stepping stone for all other colors in the rainbow. So now that we know a primary colors are, here's a demo on how to create a full color. We'll just by using these three colors. Hey there and welcome to the demo on how to create a whole array of colors using just three primary colors, red, yellow, and blue. This is going to be a really fun lesson because you get to learn about the relationship between using just three colors. You create a whole rainbow array of colors for all of your paintings. So all you're going to need are the three primary colors. And he read that you have any blue that you have in there, any yellow that you have for now, and you're going to want to work on some surface I have here palette paper to work with, but you can choose any that you like, as well as a mixing medium. I'm using a palette knife as well as a towel to help me wipe in between my mixes. So let's go ahead and start. Now in order to understand how all these colors worked together, we're going to make what we like to call the color wheel is basically just a colorful spectrum showing how all three of the primary colors work together. So we're going to start by, I'm just gonna take my yellow and then to spread that over here. White my blade, get it nice and clean. Then I'm going to grab my blue. And I'm just going to make a triangle and I want to leave enough room. So I'm just going to put a blue right here, just like that. White my blade. And then I'm going to grab red. And then it's going to find a spot right around here to lay down that colour. Alright, excellent. Wiper blade. So like I mentioned, these are the primary colors, yellow, blue, and red. Now, whenever you are mixing two primaries together, the resulting color that you get is called a secondary color, and they're really fun to make. So let's go ahead and start with yellow and red. Now, if you were to take equal parts, yellow and equal parts red, and then combine it together in the middle here. You would get an orange color. So I'm just going to grab more yellow. I'm just gonna wipe my blade, grab over here and mix the color. Something you'll notice as you're painting and getting more use to paint pigments, yellow is not as powerful as red and blue. So you're always going to want to use more yellow when you're mixing so that it actually can work its magic and appear in the mix. Okay, so you've got a really nice looking orange color right here. And that's a really nice secondary color. Now, what happens when you want to take a secondary color and mix it with a primary color, you get a tertiary color and not just presents more color options for you. So if I wanted to make a tertiary color between orange and yellow, We're gonna get, you guessed it, a yellowy orange. So I'm just going to take that orange at a bit more yellow to it. And you can see how it creates this really, really nice looking orange, orangey, yellow, good fat. So you got that really, really nice gradient that happens right here. And I'm just going to add more yellow on this side, just like so. So you can see the difference. That's one way to tell whether you're doing this right is every time you're making a new color, you want to make sure that the color next to it and looks a little different. Okay, so now that we've made a secondary, tertiary color using two primaries, let's go and make another tertiary color between the secondary orange and the primary red. So I'm just going to grab some orange. I'm going to grab some red. Mix them together. Usually like to do equal parts of both colors. That way you get a, you get a better understanding and a better mix. Okay? And of course and of course by one just add a little bit, get back that orange. I just add a little bit yellow to help me out. So you can see here that really cool looking color progression from primary red two like that reddish orange to that orange. So you can really see how they kind of go into each other. Really cool. Ok, so that's one part of the wheel. And now let's, Let's work down here. Let's actually create the reds and the blues and see what happens. So if you remember from elementary school, if you were to take red and if you were to take him away like my blade, take red. And you take equal parts, red and blue, you get purple. Really nice, lake violet color. I'm going to add a bit more blue to that. So you get this really, really nice violet, very nice secondary looking color. Now, what if we combine red with that violet? What do we get? So who's going to take some of that? That violet and just going to grab that red. You can see the red kinda looks. It's gotta, gotta shade going on with it. So it looks like a deeper red. Now what if we were to take violet and combine that with blue? What do we get to add those together? So you'll definitely get a purply blue color from that. And you know, of course, if, you know, you feel like you lost a little bit of purple while doing that, just add a little bit of red. You know how to do it now because you made the color wheel up to this point. Last but not least, we're going to work between the primary yellow and blue and see what happens there. Again, always make sure that your trial is nice and clean as you're doing this. So if we were to take blue and rwanda take yellow, I'm just gonna take it from this side anyways. We're gonna combine that. It makes green. I'm going to mix those two together. You get a nice-looking green color, okay? Now, if we were to make a tertiary color from this secondary colour and a primary color, we're going to get some really interesting looking cues. So if we were to take yellow and combine that with the green, I'm just going to grab some yellow over here. Combine that with the green here. You're gonna get a really nice yellow, green. And again, because we're dealing with yellow, it's not as strong of a pigment as, as the other color. So I usually like to play and add more yellows just to make sure that it pops and shows up in the color mix. And you go so you can see it goes from that green. So that yellow, green to yellow, white my blade. And now I'm going to go to the green and combine it with the blue and see what happens. Right there you have it. So it starts looking like almost like a teal color. So that's pretty much all there is to it. When it comes to making the color wheel, you start with three primary colors. You've got the yellow, we got the red, and you've got the blue, which then help you make the secondary colors, orange, purple, and green, which then you can use with the primary colors to make tertiary colors so that yellow, orange, orange red, red, violet, blue, violet, green blue, and green yellow. So just by using those three primary colors, you can make a myriad of different colors in the rainbow. No need to buy tons and tons of paint colors in order to do this. And what's really fun is that you can do this with any sort of primary colors that you have in your arsenal. So if you have several blew, several read some several types of yellow. You can make different color wheels using different combinations of those primaries. And you can get different looking results every time, but the concept always stays the same. So I always encourage you to experiment if you have different types of primary colors mix and match them and see what kinda colour wheels you get. I hope you enjoyed this lesson on primary colors and how you can use them to create a whole slew of colors for your paintings. So for your lesson project, pick your three primary colors that you have and make your own color wheel. And as an added bonus, if you have more than one primary color, try making multiple color wheels and note the color combinations that happened as a result. I hope you enjoyed this lesson and I'll see you in the next one. 12. Color Magic II: Color Value: So now that you understand how colors work and mixed together, it's time to now talk about one big important concept in the color world, and that is color value. Now just simply put, color value just refers to how light or dark a colour is. So if you had the color red here, for example, if you were to add black or white to that particular color, red, you can lighten or darken that specific color and give a different values. So if I want to progressively add more white, the color red, as you can see here to the left, as I add a bit more white, the color lightens, it becomes lighter in value. And if I want to add more black to the color red, and I were to take it to the right. Every single progression of color, as I add black, makes that red darker and darker in value. And what you see here is a tonal value spectrum. So what does color value really have to do with painting? Well, if you know how to create varying tonal values of a certain color that can help you with creating shadows and highlights, which can add depth and realism to your paintings. And another really interesting fact to about a tonal value scale is that you get the lightest of lights, the darkest darks, and the color spectrum. And then in the middle, that color is considered your midtone. So we're going to cover midtone shadows and highlights in the next lesson. But for now I just wanted to touch on what color value is and what it looks like. So to put this concept into practice, I'll give you a demo on how to create tonal values with colors. Hey there and welcome to the demo on showing the value tone of a color and how you can go ahead and achieve that. So all you're going to need is three colors. You're going to need a White, a pigment of your choosing right here, I chose green and black. And this is just going to demonstrate how value works in relation to colors and how you can get a whole value system from just one color and use that with your paintings. It's super valuable in a really great way to learn about what colors can do free l. So I just, I have this on pallet paper so we can show you how to go from one end to the other and I have a brush to help me out. I have it's slightly wet so that I can easily carry the colors. And you want to be sure to have a towel on hand as well. So all you're going to do first and foremost is I'm going to grab that Green. And I'm just going to lay it as the color right here. Anything that's to the right of the screen is going to be considered highlights of that green. So it's, we're just going to be adding more and more white to the side. And then on the left are going to be adding more and more black and see it get darker in value. Okay? So value goes from darkest to lightest, from left to right. Okay? So let's start with, with the white. So I'm just going to grab this a little bit of white. And I'm just gonna pick a little area. And I'm going to mix it with my green a little bit. And then I'm just going to go next to that color. We just firstly down and add that white. Okay, so you can see it definitely has a little bit of a different look to it. It does look like it, it tend to it a little bit more. So now I'm going to add a bit more white. And of course, what's really helpful is you just want to compare that color with the color previous, As long as they look a little different. That's how you know that you've made a difference in the value. So you can already see the value scale here has changed. So we're going to make another color here by adding more white. Okay? Again, I always check to make sure that I added enough white to make sure that the previous colored differs from the color that I'm putting down. So you can already see the difference. And now I'm going to go ahead and add more white for the second or for the next color. And really that's all this is. This is a really good way to experiment with color value and understand how to do it, OK. And then keep on adding more white. Okay? So basically, when I'm, when you can barely, barely see the green at that point, that's kind of when I know I'm like, okay, I think I hit, I hit that it's most extreme value in terms of going to the lighter values here with into the White. I think we've pretty much achieved it. So I'm just going to clean my brush off. We're going to go in this direction and add more shade, AKA more darker color like black to get darker value of green. So I'm just going to get that, get that green here, get a little bit of black. Black is a very powerful color, so I'm only going to take a little bit at a time. Okay. So once I have that, I'm just gonna go to the left of that of that first color that we lay down initially. So you can already see how different that looks. Okay, now let's add a bit more black. Black is very powerful, so you're just going to have to do a little bit at a time. Okay, that doesn't look quite different, so we'll just add a bit more black. Yeah, that's already overpowering. So this part is it just takes a little finessing, little getting used to. And I'm not too crazy about using black in terms of darkening and color. And I'd go over that a little bit more in my, in my other course about color mixing. But this just gets the general idea across. So we've got a nice darker value of, of green. So let's just add a bit more black to that. Create the next tone. Okay? So you can see already that scale is, is forming. And then this actually might be the last one because only I can go any more subtle than that. Yeah. Okay. And there you have it. It's a very simple exercise. Can see here, this is, this is our midtone, that green we started with. And this is our lightest tint color. This is our darkest shade up that same color. And this is a really great way to plan out your painting and to figure out where the lightest lights are and the darkest darks are, where the mid tones are, and how to create those colors and then use it on your painting, which we will touch on in the next lesson. I will see you there. I hope you enjoyed watching that demo and how you can create varying values with just one color. So your lesson project here is to choose any paint color you would like to work with. And using a mix of white and black, creating full tone scale, ranging from the lightest of lights to the darkest darks. I hope you enjoyed this lesson and I will see you in the next one. 13. Color Magic III: Value Sketch Study: Welcome to part three of the color magic lesson. In the previous lessons about color, we talked about color value and how to create varying values using one color plus black and white. Now, we're going to take what we know about value and apply it one step further. Doing what we'd like to call value study sketches. And really a value sketch is nothing more than a quick doodle that you can do before painting to help you figure out where your color values are and how you can best use them to get the most out of your painting. It's simple, fast, and an effective way to plan ahead. And as always, let's use examples. Here I have a picture of a lime. If I want to paint this lime as a still life painting, I first want to make a quick value sketch to figure out where my values, which are my highlights, my shadows and a mid tones are in the picture. So to do this, I just simply look at the picture and look for the lightest of lights in the picture, which are the highlights and the darkest dark areas, the shadows. And then from there I identify the mid tones, which are simply the middle values between the lightest and the darkest values that I see in the picture. Then once I've identified this, I quickly sketch out the values that I see on a separate piece of paper using a few tools like a Sharpie and a pencil. Then once I have my sketch, I am ready to paint. It's really simple and you'll thank yourself later when you actually put brushed a canvas. So now that you've got the general gist of value sketching, let's do a demo. Hey there and welcome to the demo. So we are going to tackle how to do a quick value sketch whenever you're starting to pre-plan and get ready for a painting. And like we mentioned before, doing this can help you quickly determine where your values are in the painting or in the subject that you're looking to paint. And it helps you to troubleshoot later on if you run into any problems of a painting looking flat or not very real or lacking depth. So this is a really, really great way to train your eye to do this. So all you're going to need for this value sketch study are for things. You're going to want a piece of paper right now, I just have a piece of printer paper, nothing crazy, but if any paper you have is fine. We are going to be using a Sharpie, a pencil, and eraser in case you want to clean up any marks that you have. And I just made two little boxes just because we'll be doing two value sketch studies. And I wanted to keep them separate. And I'll be following to reference pictures which I will include in the class notes. So you can follow along with me to see exactly what we're doing with a value sketch study. So let's just go ahead and get started. Now the first value sketch is the lime. And I thought this was a really great example of the use of value and how you can illustrate that with a value sketch. So what we're going to do is we're just going to grab our Sharpie. Now are Charpy is going to act like the darkest darks in the picture. And the white of our printer paper is going to act like the lightest of lights in our values. And the pencil will be kind of like the mid tone of the, of the subject. Okay, so that's all you need to know. White is lightest lights. You're a Sharpie which is going to give you the darkest pigment, is going to be the darkest values of your, of your drawing. And the pencil is just going to be like your midtone. So I'm just going to grab my sharpie because I kinda like working with the darker. The darkest dark is first. And we're going to go take a look at our picture. Now, if you look at that line, we're just concentrating on the line. We're not really focusing on drawing the oranges. We just want to focus on the lime and the shadow. So if I'm looking at the lime and I squint my eyes, right? So we already talked about if you wanted to find out where your values are, you can squint and look at the subject that you're interested in. Because by squinting you take away a lot more of the light that's coming into your eye and better able to see the values. So if I squint, I can see that there's a lot of dark right around this part of the lime. So this is going to be the shadow of the line break right here. That's because that's really dark. And there's like a lot of darkness right over here. Ok. And within the lime itself, there's a lot of black right there. So I'm not exactly drawing a circle and representing it that way. I'm looking purely for where the darkness of dogs are and I'm filling that in. Ok. So this is a little different. You would kinda turning good drawing on its head. We're not looking to have the best drawing here. We're looking to do a value study. We're trying to figure out where those values are. Okay. So I with my with my sharpie identified, were the darkest darks are in the picture, which is going to be the cat, the cast shadow on the line as well as that shadow that's around the bottom portion of the line opposite its light source. And really a light sources just the direction of origin of light that's hitting the object, which we can see is coming from the top right. So we're gonna keep on going. Now, you already notice too that the background that the lime is is very, very dark. So I'm just gonna do a line here and another line right over here. And we're just going to continue that. So now something I've noticed, if I squint the line between this dark shadow in the back of the background. They're almost the same except there's like maybe a thin, thin line in between that is a little lighter in value. So I'm just going to represent that with a Sharpie. And then I'm just going to fill in the background because if I squint, the background has the same value as the cast shadow. Okay, so you see what I mean? When you're planning out your, your drawing? You can see where everything is supposed to go and how, how dark and light it should be. Okay, so you can already see the back contrast is being formed. And of course, right around here, we have the stem of our lime. Kinda comes out like this. Only again, I'm representing where I said the darkest darks. So that's really all there is to it. It's just those little parts. And then the opposite end. Of the stem which meets the dark background, is filled in just like that. So you can see that, that it just kinda makes the object appear because of the contrast. Okay? Alright, and then again, it's just kind of be encased in the dark values all around. Okay, so once again, the Charpy is going to represent our darkest darks. And of course, if you, if you think you messed up, you know, you didn't quite get it, that's ok. You can always start over. These are really simple speak quick studies are not supposed to be these in-depth drawings. Okay, just looking at this, I think I capture the majority of the dark values in this. So I'm going to move over to my pencil. This is going to represent our midtone values, but it's also going to be a way for me to mark where the lightest lights are happening. So we look at our picture. We noticed that the widest whites, the, we notice that the lightest lights, the lightest part of the lime is kind of on the top corner of that line. So I'm just with my pencil just gonna draw like kind of a circular representation of where that is. So it's kinda one to the top right over here. And there's another one that's kind of to the left of that. Alright? And that's pretty much the majority of where it is. So the lightest lights are in this area right around here and here. Now I'm not going to fill that in because again, I'm just using the printer paper white to represent the lightest of light. And so in between, that lightest of light in the darkest darks where we did the Sharpie. That in-between area is kind of like your midtone. So we mentioned that the pencil is going to act like the midtone value. So with your pencil, I'm just going to fill in and connect those two areas. Okay, it doesn't have to be perfect. But again, this helps you plan out your painting and what you need to do. Now if I were to squint one more time and take a look, the background color, the background like the area, not the background but the surface onto which the lime rests. If I take a look and I squint, that value is not the, it's not the light. It's all very, very light. It's probably just a little less. It's a little less light than say, the highlight portion, but I'd say it's, it's close. It's a little bit lighter than the value of the midtone. So just with my pencil, I'm just going to fill that part in. I'm probably not going to fill it in as much just to represent the fact that this is not as dark and value as say the midtone itself. And we just, and I also determined from the stem portion that that latest of light is also on the on the part of the stem right over here. So I'm just going to leave that as is. Okay. So that's how you do a basic value study. Very simple and very quick. And I've already assessed from this line drawing that the darkness of darkness values happen in the background here that frames the lime. And the darkest of dogs also on the cast shadow of the lime itself, the lightest of light values happened on the originating light here, as well as on the stem. And as well as maybe just the tiniest portion according to the outline from the darkest cash shadow to the background here. And then the midtone is just going from that lightest of light to the darkest darks. Okay? So let's do this again. Let's do another example just to kind of get ourselves situated with it. We're gonna go with the orange. So once again, we're just going to take our Sharpie. We're going to start with the darkness of dark. So if I squint my eyes and I take a look at the orange, we have see the darkest darks happening right here at the bottom. Okay, the cast shadow. Okay? And you'll always, you always notice that the values between pictures is a little different, right? Because the light sources are different, but we're always going picture to picture, always figuring that part out. Ok. So I'm squinting my eyes and I'm seeing okay, the outline of the oranges but is pretty dark and defined going up to here. And then maybe just this area here. Separating the, the surface to the background is also pretty dark. So I am going to represent that. Then this is going to go down like this. Let's again. Okay. And then and then it's just ever so perceptibly darkest at that point as well. And then I'm just going to fill this part in. Now of course I'm just gonna take a little bit of Liberty in the background because there's just stuff happening in there, in the background. But I'd say for the most part, this has got a pretty dark value in the back. All right. And I'm just taking a look. I maybe I see a few little parts here that maybe are a little dark. The hit the darkest value. So I'm just kinda doing that very lightly with my, with my sharpie to represent and capture those areas. But they're not, they're not completely like big blocks of color. Just little bits here and there and that kind of forms texture, which is cool. Okay, that's good capturing. Alright, so now with the pencil, we're going to go in, choose the highlight. If I'm looking at the origin source of light, it's coming from the upper right corner. And it's happening if I'm squinting my eyes, the lightest light is happening or array right around here, right? The lightest light of that picture, all that color is happening right around here. And you could make the argument that this portion here, the surface, is the lightest of light. Which that's, that's true too. So we know you can always just slightly shade this a little bit more. But you know, if we're, if we're looking at color value, this area here is going to be the lightest of lights for the oranges. So I'm just going to kind of divvy that out. And then everything else around this area is going to be the kind of like the mid tone colors. They're going to not be the lightest of lights or darkness of darts are kind of like in the middle ish. So with my pencil, just gonna fill that part in. And because it's pencil, you can always layer a bit more if you want to show darker, darker value of, of the pencil. So if you wanna go towards those areas here that you did with a Sharpie and kinda add a bit more pencil to that area, Go for it that just, again, it's all to help you pre-plan your painting. Okay, and then muscle seeing too that there's maybe like another slightly darker value around the, the cast shadow like right around here. So I'm just gonna go ahead and represent that. And again, you can be doing this dozens of times and come up with a different draw, sketch every time you're just training your eye to look for things and see what you can pick up. Ok, I think that's a pretty good value sketch. If I were to just squint my eyes and take a look at both my my value sketch and my picture. They kind of are about the same more or less. And that's how I can figure out, okay, maybe I'm missing something or maybe I should add a bit more darker value here, maybe lighter values here to capture that bump all the more or less. This is kind of the plan that I got going here. So that is how you go about doing really quick values sketch studies so that you can plan out your painting. I hope you had fun with this demo. I hope you enjoyed that demo and learned a little something more about how to apply value sketches before painting. So your lesson project will be to use the attached reference picture that we used here, or one of your choosing and compose one to three tonal value studies. I hope you enjoyed this lesson and I'll see you in the next one. 14. Color Magic IV: Monochromatic Value Study: Welcome to part four of color magic. So by now you've seen the wonderful power that colors, color mixing and color values can really do for your painting. And you know that color value is kind of a big deal when it comes to painting because it helps create depth in your work, helps your painting appear less flat and boring and creates aesthetically pleasing eye candy that draws interest instead of bores people to death. So that's great and all. But how do you effectively apply value when you're painting? Like, how does it all work? Well, a great way to learn how value and color work together in a painting is to do a monochromatic painting, meaning you only use one color, Mono, which means one, chromatic, Chrome, which means color. So you only use one color and use a range of that colors values to make one cohesive painting. So without further ado, let's go ahead and do a demo and see this all put into action. Hey there and welcome to the demo on doing a monochromatic value study. This is a really, really great way to combine everything that we just learned about color and color values and put them all together when looking at a reference picture and painting. And we're gonna be doing a still life painting. And we're gonna be using that lime reference picture that I've been referencing in the past couple of lessons. Of course, you can do this with any reference picture that you have. So if ever you're choosing a new reference picture, of course, always be sure to do a value study and to just get an idea of what kind of colors you want to use. So what you're going to need is a working surface to paint on. I have a mixed media paper. I have our little value sketch that we have done for the line picture, as well as the value scale. And I will be using that one green color to represent this entire painting. And we're just going to use different values of it to place it in the painting. And the reason why we're not doing all the colors of the rainbow quite yet is because once you've kind of mastered how to do it with, how to do values and how to a place values was just one color. You can then swap and do other colors just because you're starting out and you just want to get the hang of it. I think just using one pigment color and varying the values is a really great way to start and really get your feet wet. And that helps you make what we'd like to call a monochromatic painting. It's a really great way to simplify things, but at the same time to challenge yourself and bring yourself to the next level. So in addition to your value sketch and your value scale, you're going to need two brushes. I just have hearing number ten, Hilbert and a detail round brush. This is a number one. Again, not that big of a deal on one kind of brushes you use. I just want you to get one brush that's a little smaller and that can do details. Another one that can do broader strokes. So we can lay down swats of paint. And I have here a palette, and on top of my palette add three colors or we're going to be using, I got titanium white, I got some green pigment and I have some black. So again, if you don't have this exact color, that's okay. Just choose one color that you want to work with and make sure that you get a white and the black to go along with that color. I have some water off to the side here as well as a rag to wipe off any excess paint as we go. And of course, I always have my reference picture on hand. I have it on my phone right now and I'm just going to be constantly looking at that. In addition to all these helpful tools that I have around me. And with that being said, let's go ahead and get started. So first things first, I'm just going to grab my Philbrick brush, independence of water. And I'm just going to wipe the excess water off of my brush. I just want to create a circle. With my green. So aka we're going to, we're going to paint in the lime right away. And I just wanna do the shape of the line first just to kinda place it. So I'm just going to load my brush and I'm going to, I'm going to place it like right around here in the, kinda in the middle of my paper. I'm just gonna do a simple circle. Ok. This is not to test out like our abilities yet. This is more just to help you understand where and how to place color and color values. So I just got here a nice circle. And I'm kinda just looking at my reference picture just to make sure I kinda got like a relative size going here. Now the color I just laid down is going to be my midtone. If you remember when we did our value scale study, the blackness of black was here, the widest of White was here in the middle, was the original color that we use. So that's kinda why I decided to do the midtone first to lay that down and then to add in the shadows and the highlights afterwards. Now, just because I did the original pigment doesn't mean it's always going to be the mid toe. It just so happened because of the tonal value scale that I'm using. That just so happens to be the midtone. The midtone kinda changes every time you're doing your value scale. So keep that in mind as you're doing this. Just because I chose this color green doesn't make it the midtone for everything. It's just in this particular case. Okay, so next we're gonna go to our value sketch and we're gonna do a couple of observations. If you remember, place that we drew in with Sharpie was the darkest darks, that is going to be where our shadow is. And if you look at our value scale that we did in the previous lesson, the darkness of dark is this color right here. So you remember that it was really just taking the green color that we had and mixing it with black. That is going to be what our shadow and all these darker areas are going to beat us the color we're going to make. Okay, That's kinda as simple as a ket. So what we're going to do is we're gonna take, going back to our palate romantic, that green. And then we're going to add some black. And like I said, Black is a very powerful pigment. You really don't need that much. I think that's, yeah, that's pretty much it. You can always test it against your value scale to see whether you made the color that you wanted. And so what I'm gonna do is I'm gonna go to my lime and I'm just going to paint in the shadow. Now, we already established from the value study here that the originating light sources coming from the top right corner. So any shadow's going to happen in the bottom left. Okay, so really this is just kind of reiterating what you saw in your sketch. Ok. That's kinda like why am I doing sketches is because you kind of had this all thought out already. You just, it's just a matter of repeating it. Then we're just gonna do our cast shadow. And of course I'm always looking at my reference picture just to make sure I kinda get an idea of what it is that I'm trying to do. So that looks good. And then I'm going to connect these two because of course their values are very similar. In fact, they, I think they are the same we've established in don't don't be afraid to make mistakes here. It's okay if you kind of do too much shadow because you can always go back in when the paint dries, right? We talked about this in the first lesson of acrylic painting that once the paint dries, you can kinda layer on top and you can kind of just make whatever you just did disappear underneath if you are not so keen to it. So we establish that set of shadows. Now, if you go back to our value sketch, we have a whole other slew of shadows. On the top here is the darkest darks is against the backdrop of the lime. So once again was gonna grab that color and I'm just going to pick out a spot. I think it's pretty much starts right in the middle of our lime. So I'm just going to make two lines and then very simply just going to fill this part in. And already you can, you can start to see, you know, as you're filling in the dark, the darkest darks, you really can start seeing this all kinda taking shape. So really what's important here is that you are capturing values. And of course, you can always double-check yourself if you'd like doing if you're painting and you're like, I know, I don't think it's as dark as I thought it was. You can do you can squint your eyes, block out as much light going into your pupils as you can to understand where were the darkest darks are happening. And I think that's pretty good for now. So we're going to clean our brushes. Doesn't have to be extremely perfect, but I like to make sure that we get the majority off. Now that we take a look back here, I want I don't want to touch the highlights just yet. I do want to do the foreground here where the lime is resting. And we've determined that it's probably about the same kind of as the midtone, but maybe a tad lighter. All's we're going to do if you remember from Art scale, this is our midtone. If we maybe go in this area right here, that probably will capture it. So I'm just going to grab that green. Add a little bit of white, is little, not too much. And then we're gonna go here. And we're going to add it. So you can see that it's it's slightly is different from the mid tone of the lime itself. It's got a slightly lighter value. So it differentiates if you were to squint your eyes and take a look, they would be different, honestly, that's a lot of what goes into painting is understanding where those values are and how to represent them. So I'm just painting again, you can kinda go over your shadows. Are you produce ugly down. You can put the shadows back in, which we're gonna do in a second. So if I'm squinting right now, you can definitely see, I know that this is definitely the foreground and this is definitely the lime. It's gonna get my brush shake quick, clean, and go back in with my shadow. And then you can go put it back in. No big deal. And it can actually mix in with the already wet paint of your surface that you'd just paint it. And that's really cool because then you create more colors. I'm pretty happy with that. So next, let's make some highlights. Shall we were just going to grab that green. And if you notice the highlights, is basically just adding a law to white. Until it's practically white. Alright, so we're just going to just pile on the white here. And with white, it takes a little bit of building, you know, so you may have to do multiple layers of white, but that's okay. So I think I've got something that, that's pretty close to the highlight. I'm just gonna go to the top. Now that it doesn't have to be perfect. Again, you can always go back and forth. We're just kinda laying it down. So I put that area in. Now you'll also remember too, if you looked at our values study, we identify those tiny sliver here, right between the cast shadow and the background. A tiny sliver of that white of that, of that lightest light. So I'm gonna go in with my detail brush this time. So we're going to add water and go back and highlight this time. And then I'm gonna go to the corner here between the lime and the background. And then paint that line right there. Again, I'm just establishing colors and then we can always go over again shadows to just fix and print it up, but we just need to set it first. Okay. It's not it's not really about getting it right on the first shot. It's just about laying it down and then building. So I'm going back in with the shadow. And then really I just covered it up. Now that we did that, you can still see that, that line, that very, very light imperceptible line. So now that we've done that, there's also, if you remember, we had a little stem here. So what I'm gonna do first is I'm going to grab the lightest of lights, right? We have established that the stem here is made really from the lightest of lights. So I'm just going to grab that lightest light colors that we have with my detail brush. And then I'm going to go to the center. And I'm just going to represent that that stem. Okay. Not nothing, nothing crazy. You know, we're just doing a straight line going up kind of a diagonal and then it flares out on the side just like so I'm just going to grab the darkest darks. And then I'm just gonna do one next to it. Now at this point, you can play a little bit. You can add even more green to the, to the dark color that you have to, you know, so that you can kind of, you can bring your values maybe right around here and work on the transition points between the darkness of darks and the lightest of lights, right? So this is your opportunity to play, right? And I would like to use a detail brush for this. So with my detail brush kinda do like little tapping motions. And this helps to create textures to make it look more like a lime. And it's okay, I'm, I'm kinda going back over the highlight. And that's okay because we're gonna go back in with the lighter colors again, put those colors back in. But right now, you just want to take this exercise, look for any more dark areas that you see and represent those. Okay? And it doesn't have to be super complicated if you out at some point just want to stop and say, you know what, I think I get it. I think I have the gist of what it is I want to do here, then you're good. But as long as you understand that this is what doing a monochromatic value study looks like, and the basis of this can be used for all colors. Then I'm gonna go back in with the highlights. Now this area here is not quite the midtone. It's a little lighter than that. It's probably like right around here. So I'm just going to add a bit more green to that, represent that here. So really you're just training your eye to really pay attention to the objects and the colors. And honestly that's what painting is all about. It's paying attention to details, but at the same time, it's about kind of taking my creative liberties and having fun with it. You know, if I wanted to take even more creative liberties, I could make the background a little bit more interesting. What's important for me is that I've created a stark contrast between the edge of the lime. But what if I just wanted to maybe out here, lighten that value up? I can always go back in and add that. But still maintaining that contrast with all the other areas. So I'm still achieving all those, those values that I want. But up here where it doesn't really matter where I need the contrast, I can just kinda take some liberties, See how it just makes it a lot more interesting. And can even go back in with some white, lighten it up on the top. Again, as long as you're maintaining those values around the objects and maintaining that contrast. Okay, so that's how you can go ahead and do a monochromatic value study. I hope you got a lot out of this demonstration and learn just a bit more on how you can use values in conjunction with your color and with your reference picture to make a cool looking painting. I hope you enjoyed that demo and saw all the wonderful possibilities that color and color value can do for your painting. So you're less than project here is to use either the attached reference picture or one of your choosing to create your own monochromatic painting. I hope you enjoyed this lesson and remember to always have fun when you're painting. 15. The Artist Mindset: Get in the Right Headspace: Now one of the most important tools that any artist can have in their arsenal doesn't necessarily have to be a product. It's actually the artists mindset, which I believe is the real secret behind success in a painting. Before you push this off as some sort of mumbo jumbo, I really want you to understand just how impactful your mindset is when creating art or painting. So let's take a step back. Remember when we were kids and the world was just full of possibility. We jumped, climbed, laughed, made instant friends, and basically dove into things we loved because, well, we were super curious and wanted to learn more. Nothing was off the table and our kid minds and we fearlessly jumped in. And that is the major difference between kids and adults. A big reason why we feel we can't be creative or find ourselves stuck behind an empty canvas for hours on end, has mainly to do with our fear of failure. We want things to look perfect and instant masterpiece. But the truth is that perspective is totally unrealistic. Many artists, even the big names took years and years of practice. And just to get good at what they do. And this is something that we often don't see. We don't see all of the botched paintings, the awful drawings. We don't see any of that. All we see are the good things at these professional artists put out. But we just tend to forget that they're human too. And they had to take lots of steps and lots of failure to get to where they are today. So now let's do another mind exercise. Think of painting and creating, kind of like learning to drive a car if you have the fear of failing and of looking like an idiot behind the wheel, you wouldn't just throw away the car keys and never drive again. You would practice. You overcome your fears by first practicing in a small parking lot, then eventually in the back roads, and then on the highway. And before you know it, you're driving cross country on a weekend spirit journey because why the hell not? The point is it's all baby steps and every mile you do is one step in the direction of your goal to drive a car safely and get from point a to point B. Painting is very similar to this. Every brushstroke and pen stroke is just one step closer to improving. You can't get good if you don't put down the strokes first. So what can you do to strengthen your artist's mindset? Well, one of the things that I always recommend every new artists to do is to uncover their creative y for wanting to create. Well, yes, the ever popular question I literally asked, every struggle busing artists. Why are you even making art? Does it help you process your emotions? Is it an avenue for income for you? Does it help you relax, understanding your wife, we're putting all of that time and effort into your art is a huge portion of what drives you to keep going. Even in the times when all you want to do is give up on your painting and die under couch watching this progress when thinking about your why, you really want to dig deep, Everyone has a different reason for doing what they do. And it always, always, always comes from an emotional place. In fact, might tip for you is to ask yourself, why? Five times until you hit a real deep human need. For example, if I were to ask myself, Why do you create art? I would say I like making pretty art. Okay. Well, why do you like to make pretty art? Well, because it makes me feel good about myself. Okay, we're getting somewhere, but it's not quite hitting an emotional chord yet. Why does it make you feel good about yourself? Well, because I feel like my art is making an impact on the world. Ok, we're getting a little closer. Ask why again? Why do you want to make an impact on the world? Because I want to be remembered. Now that is hitting an emotional chord. And I know I, and this exercise right when I know that I just hit a really deep emotional need for myself, wanting to be remembered, not wanting to be forgotten. So while you're doing this exercise, remember to really get deep, really get some emotional raw feelings as your primary y for making something. Don't try to be superficial. Notice that I didn't stop at all because I wanna make money or because I like making pretty art. That's superficial. That doesn't strike a chord within you. You really want to think about a reason that gets you out of bed in the morning that pushes you through the hard times of painting. That's what your creative y is. And then once you nail your creative, Why? Write it down on a sticky note and place it in a location where you can see it every single day. A more physical reminders of your internal motivations that you can manifest to yourself, the more you will subconsciously keep an open mind and keep on learning to express yourself. Because we all know that painting is all about learning. And it's not about perfection. It's about your progress, and it's about you growing as an artist. So the more that you can build yourself up, give you those reminders of why you do what you do. You are putting yourself on the road to success. So with all these tools in mind, you are now ready to kick some butt and do some painting. 16. Final Thoughts & Next Steps: And that concludes our magic acrylics class. I hope you learned something new and that you're excited to dive more into the world of acrylics and all it has to offer and making more colorful, gorgeous paintings. So what do we do now? Well, I'm going to offer you some next steps. The first thing I always recommend is to experiment and give yourself that freedom to play around with your acrylics and supplies and keep on practicing. Know that as a first-time acrylic painter, you may not get the results you want the first time, and that is totally okay. You're never supposed to get it right on the first go. Now I also want to offer a challenge yourself when it comes to your painting experience. One way to do that is to take the reference picture from this class and attempt to paint the picture from start to finish without following the class videos. It's a really great way to take out the training wheels and learn a little bit more as you go along, you totally, we'll learn something new every time you step up to the canvas. And of course, please share your completed projects because I totally would love to see them. You can do that by using the class Instagram hashtag, acrylic magic and tag me on Instagram with my handle at the bust artists, I would love to see what you come up with. Now if you want to take your skills to the next level and play around with acrylics. You may want to consider taking mastering watercolor effects with acrylics class. This is a really great way to harness the power of acrylic paint, while at the same time giving you the smooth, sexy natural blends of watercolor with the versatility and water solubility of acrylic paint. And I show you how to do all this and bite-size lessons that are easy to follow and very hands-on. You could find this class via the URL view boast artists.com forward slash watercolor. If you want to dive deeper into brushes and brush techniques, I do offer my course a pain slapping magic of Russia's a step-by-step approach to squashing your inner procrastinator and finally start painting something you should be super proud of. This comes with up-close detailed printable instructions on how to paint grass, trees, clouds, apply even coats of paint and thin lines, which means no more splotchy paintings, clumsy lines or grass that looks like gross armpits double. You'll have a jumping off point demonstrations. And he looked behind the easel. So you never have to stare blankly at a canvas wondering if you're using the right brush or what to even paint without ruining good Canvas, saving you a boatload of time and a lot of frustration plus a lot of paint. If you want to check that out, simply go to the bust artists.com, forward slash brushes. And finally, if you want to explore the wide world of color with acrylics and wanted look behind the curtain on creating heads snapping eye-catching paintings. You may want to consider the magic of color, the complete guide to creating eye-catching, vibrant colors and pallets that'll turn heads and not require a bajillion. Art supplies. Learn to paint any scene or picture using your own colors without following all those YouTube tutorials, even allowing you to go off-script.