You Want to Paint But You Can't Draw ... Simply Trace a Photo

1. Intro: You Want to Paint: Hello. You're probably watching this because you're like so many people that I've met that if said I could never paint because I can't even draw a straight line and really like to paint. But I don't do it because I'm too afraid. Well, I'm here to tell you you don't have to have really strong drawing skills to make a really good painting in this class. I'm gonna teach you a simple method working from a photograph to get a line drawing down on your painting support so that you could get the fun part which is mixing colors, getting the values right and making a really great painting. My name is Cynthia Eddings. I'm fine Art Painter. The two paintings that you see behind me were both done in the method that I'm about to teach you. It can be abstract or it can be realistic. The large abstract here behind me. Waas. Something that I saw on Instagram and I knew I wanted to make a painting out of it. And so I work from a photograph, traced it onto the panel and well up many, many layers later. This is how it turned out. But it still has the foundation of the original photograph, and this is a photograph. Well, this is a painting, but I started off with a photograph that I took, and I was able to trace it onto the panel and then make the painting. So this class is for anybody. You could be a complete novice. You don't I need to have any painting experience. Or you could be somebody who's been painting for a long time. For your project. You're going to post a image of your lying drawing on your painting sport and shared in the project section. So let's move into the first lesson, which is just about what you need to be able to do this. It's simple. It's easy. What's fun. Here we go. 2. Supplies: Okay, let's talk about what you're going to need. You're going to need something to paint on, and for your project, you want to choose something that has an edge to it. So it's important that you're not painting on paper unless it's really thick paper. So you could be painting on hardboard or a cradled panel or stretch canvas board. Just make sure that it has some sort of edge. The next thing you need is a printed image of the subject matter. You want a paint, you need some tracing paper. You need a hard, leaded pencil and some masking tape, so I'll go through each one of those things. I'm gonna be demonstrating on a very small panel at six by seven inches, and I wanted you to see that it has an edge to it. And here it is on the right lane flat. I haven't just sewed, and then I have ah, wash of some great acrylic paint over the top of it, because, hi, I prefer to paint on something that's just not a blazing white surface. The next thing you need is a printed image of what it is that you're going to paint. So here is an 8.5 by 11 sheet of paper with an image that is exactly the same size as my panel. So they both need to be the same size. The Panelists six by seven inches in the printed image of six by seven inches. You need some tracing paper here. I'm showing you a roll of graphite paper that I got at the art supply store. This particular brand makes this. It comes in several colors. It comes in white and red and yellow, maybe even blue. I'm not sure, but the graphic paper works just fine. You actually only need a piece that is a little bit bigger than the painting surface that you're gonna paint on. And then you need some masking tape and a pencil. So that's it? Not a lot of stuff. So in the next lesson, we're gonna talk about choosing your subject matter and taking your photos of your subject matter. 3. Composing in the camera: since I work from photos and what you're going to do for the class project is work from a photo. I start by making the composition, actually in the viewfinder of the camera, and I am going to work with this bouquet of yellow tulips. I decided I wanted to paint them. So what I do is I take them outside and I set up a little still life stage in the sun. I really like the contrast in the shadows that the the sun makes. And so here I am, um, outside on the table and I set up a white foam core that's folded in a trifled behind it, which makes a backdrop to knock out all the stuff that's in the background. And then I can zoom in and start taking pictures. And, you know, I start paying attention to what's happening in the vase that I can see through with the stems in the water line and shape of the flowers and the the whole composition. And, um, you know, take a lot of photos. I change the vase and see if I like that better. We start looking at the shadows that air happening here and change the vase again and took down the backdrop here I have a really dark background, which I really like. So I take lots of pictures, change the vase again in what I land on is the one that we're gonna use for the demo of the Tracy. So this image is cropped and sized in photo shop to be exactly some seven inches tall by six inches wide, which is the size of our panel. And this image is available for you to download in the project section in the resource is so if you want to use this to make your class project, all you have to do is printed out. It's already sized, and you can trace, which is what we're gonna do next. We're going to get into the demo of how to actually do the tracing so that you can have a line drawing down on your painting support 4. Tracing Demo: Okay, so we're ready to put the line drawing on the panel. Here's my panel. My six by seven inch panel photograph, printed photograph of my composition. And I have a piece of carbon paper that I've taken off this role right here. Have just cut us help. He's off. They've actually used it before. You can use this over and over. So very important. You want toe anchor the panel that you're painting on to a table top. So I'm just gonna use some masking tape. I'm gonna put a couple pieces here, right on the top and actually a couple in the corner. It's important not to put the tape where you're gonna be doing any of the Tracy. Okay, then the next thing is to put the tracing paper on top of the panel. And you wanna anchor this down, too. But you're just gonna anger it down on the top. So it's kind of like a hinge. Two pieces of tape there you can lift it up, put it back down, and then you want to place your picture of what you want to make a painting out of directly on top of your panel. This is why it was important to have the picture of the exact same size as the panel. Also, that's your painting surface has a bit of a ridge on it. That way you can find the edges of your photograph so that when you're tracing down, it's gonna being exactly the same place on your panel as it is in the photograph. Okay, so now you just take your pencil and you draw the lines where you want them. You're just going to make outlines of what it is you want to pain. And as you go, you can lift up to check to see if you've missed anything or if it's actually going through a few times I've actually accidentally put my graphite paper upside down. So it wasn't putting the lines it was supposed to be, which was a problem. So if you spent a lot of time doing that and then you lifted up and there's nothing there, you got to start all over. So here we go. I'm just gonna do this shape the these flowers and impressing down pretty hard. Now I'm gonna check to see if it's coming onto this and I can see that it ISS So I'm gonna keep going. Press down pretty hard. I'm just putting the lines where I want them to be. Where it'll help me with my painting in my composition with shape right here between the stem and that stem in the bottom of those two flowers is really important. So I want to make sure I get that in there. And I'm just going along the edges of the shapes from lifting to make sure that everything I wanted is on there. It's not. I kind of missed this place right here. And I want to get the stems in there with being again. I think I want to get this outside of the tulip. Make that 16. It looks good. 5. Wrap Up: Okay, so that's it. Thank you so much for watching, please poster questions in the question section for this class. And I look forward to seeing your projects that she composed also. And I am going to now show you a little time lapse video with cleaning because you do this , actually. So thanks for watching. Enjoy painting by for now.