Transcripts
1. Class introduction: In this mini class, we will be painting a trio of
beautiful daffodils. Various shades of green, like we see in this reference photo, could end up looking too intense and unnatural
inner painting. That's why we will turn to
the great Master of color, Vincent Vang, for
color inspiration and for overall
style inspiration. Vengo didn't use green very
often in his paintings, but these pink crosses and the vase have lots of
variations of the color, and it's beautifully painted. I'll show you how to easily modify the greens you already
have in your set of colors. In this class, I'm using a
set of gouache made by Hemi, to make them look natural, varied, and three dimensional. Let's start working on our
daffodils and see if we can turn them into a masterpiece at least a little bit like angs.
2. Painting process: First, I draw the
flowers with a brush. No point using a pencil. It will just disappear under
the first layer of guage. I'm using mi gage. I choose this light blue color. I think it will be easy to cover when I start adding
other elements. The exact pigment
doesn't really matter as long as it's not too
dark because as we know, when we layer gage, it's easy to lift
the previous layer and using dark color
Mapo painting. Let's also feel in the
background between the flowers. This will help to preserve and verify the overall drawing. So this will be another kind of preparatory step,
the initial step. I'm painting on Canvas paper. It's just thick paper with a special coating meant
for oil and acrylics, but it works well
for Gouache too, at least for this style
of guache painting, where the application is
fairly thick and layered. Now it's time to
start distributing colors and creating
larger shapes. As you saw, I picked up some of that teal green that I
have in the palette, which would be a
little too dark. Doesn't look exactly
like what I need, like what I see in my reference
and in Vans painting, and I modified with the light blue and that
gives me green that looks like the leaves that are lit with a cool morning light. And for shadow sides
of the leaves, which will be still cool, but darker than the
lit side, obviously, we will use the same color, but we will modify
it with deep blue. I'm working on
medium tones first, so basically looking
for object color and painting each shape
without going into details. If we kind of squint
and look at the photo, we will see big shapes
that we're painting. Each leaf will be shape. I see a few stems that
are showing in the back. There will be large shapes. I'm not painting veins or
shadows or anything like that. Only big, simple shapes, just blocks of color. This will be our second step. Let's work on the
background a little bit. That intense blue up on
top really throws me off. It needs to be a lot lighter. There's some light in
the reference photo, which I think will work
for my painting as well. Just apply a few brush
strokes for now. Since I have this column mixed, it will work for shadows
on the flowers as well. This pale blue. I can start defining the
petals a little better. The shapes will be corrected, of course, after I
painted the background. So still messing in
the large forms. This is not a superfast process, and things might not look as pretty as we want them to be. But this is very important
foundation of our painting. So we need to have
patients and get all these large shapes
established the best we can. And I'll draw your
attention one more time to the fact that
I'm still working with basically the
same three colors that I have on my palette, that still green,
dark blue and white, and mixing them in different
proportions gives me endless variations of color and tone that I need
for my painting. The painting looks very cool
overall in temperature. So I'm painting the yellow
centers on each daffodil. This makes a big difference. The overall palette immediately
becomes more balanced, and I start seeing
the final result that I'm working
towards on paper. All the blues and greens get
balanced by yellow accents. We see something similar
in Van go's painting. It's overall
temperature is, green, but they're balanced by very subtle pink shade of roses and fairly large
shape of the vase, which is warm kind
of terracotta color. The yellow centers kind of cast the warm glow on the
surrounding petals. So the petals in the center of the flowers can be
really pale yellow. They also come forward a
little bit towards us, so making them warmer,
will bring them forward. I want to add this really pale yellow on the
background as well, to give it a little bit more of sunshine and it looks
a little gloomy, and I still have some dark
blue peeking through, so a few more light brush
strokes will balance my painting a little
more and connect the daffodils to the outside
edges of my painting. And that would be another way to modify our greens to layer a light yellow glaze over blue green background to warm it up and to
lighten the colors. So we don't necessarily have to mix colors
on the palette. We can also mix them
directly on paper. And if you look at our
vinos inspiration, that's exactly what he did
in his painting as well. Let's mix in some yellow
and tower greens and blues and warm up the leaves
that are coming forward. As you can see,
I'm not a big fan of washing my brush
while painting. I wipe it on my paper towel. But in general, I just try to use the color I already
have on the brush. I can usually use
it somewhere in my painting or mix
it with something. And what makes it
possible is using a limited and balanced
color palette. Washing the brush takes time and dilutes gase unnecessarily. And like I said, I'm trying
to work fairly thickly with kind of impasto
brushstrokes and with layers. All right, the colors
are distributed, but everything is a bit patchy. I'm just going to take a
damp brush, flat brush, and smooth everything out, including the flowers.
The texture is nice. That's what I wanted. But I also want unity in my painting, and I also want
the background to be in the distance and
all kind of in my face. The painting is close
to being finished, but everything looks
very close in tone. I have light areas and
I have mid tone areas, but I don't have any darks. Vengo painting doesn't
have a lot of dark shapes, either, but it has some. Those dark green leaves
are one example. So I'll darken some
leaves in the daffodils. I'm using very dark blue. I have in my mi set mixed with green to get very
cool dark color. We're not going to
use black, of course, Vengo gave up black after
he met the impressionist, and that's the color palette
we know and love him for. So that's what we're going to
do in our painting as well. I am mixing that
dark blue color, ultramarine blue, with
even darker Prussian blue. Even though the
leaves are green, the shadows are so deep, that really dark
blue mix is what's going to give me that depth
that I need in the painting. I think I'll try to add subtle dark outlines
to the petals. I can see that in angs
painting as well. It's important here not
to go too heavy handed. These contours need to stay only on the shadow side
of each flower, I think. Maybe a little more definition
in the leaves as well. The painting immediately
becomes more three dimensional. I'm creating depth of
space and contrast. If you love Vincent Vango and would like to explore
his style further, I have a class called
Learn to Paint L Vengo. In that class, I paint replicas of two of his
paintings using gouache, not oils that Vango used, and then I explain
how to apply what we learned from those replicas
to our own painting, and we paint a
bouquet of flowers. The last thing I
need to do after I look at my painting and evaluate is to add depth to
the flowers to the centers. They look a little flat still. The centers are
very warm orange, almost red and mine kind
of cool yellow still. I also lost some highlights
on the white petals. I knew this would happen
while I was working, so I'll bring this
back with pure white. Mango flowers a very soft
overall his style of painting, but each flower is actually well defined if we look closely. So I'll try the same approach. I have to say, I really enjoy painting in this style
when I use gage. I paint pastel with minimum water with thick
textured brush strokes, like a wood with oils, but without the long
drying period of oils and without all the mass of the cleanup that you have
to do for oil paint. I hope you'll paint this
daffodils or any of your favorite flowers and use
Vang as your inspiration. Please share your artwork
in the project section. I'm looking forward
to seeing it. My vengo inspired
daffodils already. Here's the final painting. I hope you enjoy
this master class, and I hope to see you in other classes that I
teach here on Skillshare.
Ksenia Annis, Figurative artist
