Thursday, April 25, 2024
Denise Love: Multi-Media
Thursday, April 18, 2024
Ellen Crimi Trent:Mini Monday Madness
Ellen Crimi Trent was born in Massachusetts and graduated from the prestigious Pratt Institute in Brooklyn. First she went into designing children's wear before deciding to become a freelance print designer. She branched into licensing. She leads art tours in Europe yearly. She now has a YouTube channel and Patreon. You can definitely hear that Eastern accent when she speaks!
Ellen's Patreon has a sketch level for $3 a month, another level for $6, and one for $12.
The $6 level includes sketches and references and her YouTubes without any commercial interruptions.
She started doing Monday Mini Madness, painting small, about 4" by 4" or on special cards made by Stonehenge that are 2.5 by 3.75 in. (These are available at Blicks or Jerry's for $1.99 each. Amazon is a bit more, since you have to buy 12) I enjoy referencing her when I want to get some ideas for making cards. (Although she does have a lot of regular sized painting projects).
Painting small has some distinct advantages:
You aren't using a lot of paper or paint.
You have to focus on the most important parts of the painting. There's not a lot of space for special effects or techniques.
And it doesn't take a lot of time. It's great when you don't have a lot of time to paint but still want to keep your brushes wet.
It's good for experimenting with composition.
Usually with her minis, Ellen will tape down two cards, side by side, and teach both pictures in the same video. Often they follow a similar theme. Here is a link to some of them:
hot and cool flowers mini
https://www.youtube.com/watch?app=desktop&v=Py8ZOWzSJhQ
abstract landscape mini
https://www.youtube.com/watch?app=desktop&v=mk5OxZWufoU
Each mini teaches about an art concept: hot and cool colors; painting loose; negative space; etc.
When I did mine, I wanted to have a theme. I took a walk in our local park by the river, Lesko Park, and took some photos and made mini paintings from them.
I prepared the paper by dividing my 9 x 12 paper into squares (4 squares and 2 smaller rectangles). I taped off each to give me a border around each one. I drew a scene onto each square. (Top left to right: bird feeder and iris buds, spring blossoms, large, and a lady walking her 2 dogs. Bottom left to right: house with pink tree, small blossoms, and blank.)
The bird feeder scene was inked off with permanent micron. The large buds only have a bit of Miskit on the stamens. The house scene has Miskit loosely sponged (or use paper towel wadded up) over the pink tree. The small buds were completely covered in Miskit. Each one to show a different process.
Bird feeder: Ink and wash is one of my favorite ways to paint! If this were a larger piece, I would be using several widths of water proof ink. I used an 05 Micron for this size. I just washed in a sky (opportunity for practicing clouds or sunsets here). I washed in some yellows and greens for the stems and leaves. It had to dry to do the bird feeder, but it dried pretty quickly. Besides ink and wash, I wanted to show using an "underpainting." I painted all the shadows with a cobalt blue. (Mine are on the right side of the feeder) when that dried, I washed over it all with burnt umber and some ochre. Instant shadow! You can add whatever details you like after that, such as a little color in the iris buds.
Small blossoms: This was a demo on negative space. While Miskit is on the buds, loosely wash in some blues and yellows to create sky and some greens by the flowers. You wash color over everything, including the stems. This has to dry completely. Then draw in some leaves or stems. Mix a darker green. Then paint AROUND the newly drawn leaves and stems, to make them stand out. If it is to be sky, use a darker blue around it. Be sure to blend the new color into the background so you don't have any hard edges except around the leaves. You can do this several times, going darker each time.
Remove the Miskit and paint in the blossoms. If you want white blossoms, just paint in blue in the shadows.
House and pink tree: There is just a bit of Miskit where I want to paint the pink buds on the tree, and maybe on the tiny flowers around the house. I applied this with a crumbled up towel (or you can use an old sponge) so that there would be little spaces and not just a big solid white space. Paint greens around the background trees, grass, etc. The background trees should be a little bluer or duller than the foreground. The yellow green should be in the foreground.
Paint the house any color you want, but the left side should be a darker versions of that color to suggest it is the shadow part. (in mine, the light source is on the right, shadows to the left) While painting the house, be aware of the perspective, especially doing the windows. They should all slant the same way. Paint in the roof and windows if the area around them are dry.
To do the pink tree, remove the Miskit. Be sure to leave some of the white. Wet some of the white and drop in pink dots. These wet ones will give a softer look. When dry, add some darker pink to give volume to the tree. Paint in the trunk and a few branches.
I didn't have time to do the larger blossoms. On it, I only used masking fluid on the tiny stems. The flowers are large enough to just paint around. I wet the entire background and dropped in colors I liked: cerulean blue, yellows, etc. I wanted a very loose background, and all the attention to be on those white buds. I wanted white buds, so just painted the shadows a pale cerulean with a little burnt sienna in it. I painted the centers yellow (wet in wet), and painted in the stamens with yellow, making a blue shadow under each stamen.
The other picture is a woman I saw walking her two little dogs in the park. The sun was casting a pink reflection on the river, but the river was a muddy color from all the rain and mud.
Mini sketches:
Progress photo: House pic still has Miskit on the tree; small blossoms Pic has just the first color wash.
Progress photo: House pic has blossoms on tree. Blossom pic has negatively painted leaves and stems.
Still has the masking.
Thursday, April 11, 2024
Karen Rice: Abstract City Skyline
Karen uses cut up credit cards to create abstract designs. One of the easiest and most fun is a city skyline reflected in water.
For class, we created a loose sunset and reflection, then let it dry.
Then we practiced making marks with credit cards. You need to be sure your paint is right from the tube. Just three of four colors you really want to try together. On mine, I tried it on rough paper, hot press, and cold press.
On the practice, we wet a strip across the paper where the horizon line would be. Then we practiced pressing the card edge into the paint, making marks, scraping across, making semi-circles, all kinds of marks to indicated buildings. Then we sprayed the bottom of the buildings and allowed the paint to drip down, using a wide soft brush to drag down some drips to look like reflections.
This one was one rough press paper.
Thursday, April 4, 2024
Karen rice florals
Karen Rice is a YouTube artist from London, UK, and over the last 30 years has accumulated a large following. Her tutorials on YouTube tend to be 14 to 20 minutes, and her patreon ones are longer and more complete. Patreon costs $6 a month. For $4550 you can join her group painting in Portugal. OK, I wish.
Karen is known for using a sharpened twig for branches, stems, and veins in flowers. She is also known for creating abstracts using the edge of a cut credit card. This week was focused on two ways she does florals. One is by masking out the flowers and doing a very loose and free background. The other is a wet into wet technique for flower petals.
Friday, March 22, 2024
ERIC YI LIN
Eric Yi Lin- Cafe Watercolor
Eric was born in Taiwan, and moved to the United States when he was 14. He lives in the Seattle area with his wife and three sons. He attended art school, and worked in art fields before deciding to dedicating his time to Watercolor and his own art.
He has an online art school program that takes you from basic drawing skills to painting skills. He has a very loose style, which he demonstrates on YouTube . I love his gentle, conversational style. His focus is more on composition and making a successful painting. YouTube's do not include drawings...you watch him do the drawing...or references. If you subscribe to his Patreon page, you can get the references and final picture that you can download. The cheapest Patreon is $5. His higher ones include more personal attention, such as help with your painting.
Here is one of his beautiful portraits of his wife. He can do landscapes, animals, flowers, anything. His main focus seems to be landscapes.
Eric's mentor is Andy Evanson, (pronounced with a long e) a well-respected workshop artist. You will find that he emphasizes the importance of three basic things: value studies, connecting shapes, and simplifying into large shapes.
In order to give you a feel for his teaching process, I've chosen this photograph I took coming home from work one day, a barn about 5 miles from my house.
I put it on my Notanizer app to bring it down to 2 values, white and dark. I evaluated what I wanted to keep, what I wanted to treat as light or dark. Then I made a sketch, leaving out details. I also decided to take out the wire and the pole on the right.
Next step is to make a puddle of gray paint. (You can use Paynes gray, neutral tint, or any dark brown or blue. The color just needs to be able to be a dark value as well as a medium value when you add water.)
I looked at my notanizer and painted everything that is not light or white a medium value. I tried to connect as many shapes as possible. I'm looking to see if my big shapes look interesting and connected. (I am using a rough paper, but that's not necessary)
Next I decided on what my darkest shapes will be. I made a darker mixture of my medium gray for this. Now I can really see whether or not I like this composition. If you don't see an interesting composition at this point, you should consider changing something about the picture.
Now to transfer this process to color.
I picked three colors (just for simplification), a medium green, ultramarine, and burnt sienna. I wanted a medium value of all these colors. (We found that if you put a red plastic over the 3 puddles, they all looked the same value)
I'm going to start with the sky. Mixing a small amount of sienna to make the sky less blue, I wet the sky area (even the trees) and added the blue, lifting out the clouds. Then I started loosely adding some green to the trees, some gray into the barn areas (gray made from blue and sienna), and let them bleed together when they met. Then back to greens for the grasses and trees on the right. I didn't paint the sidewalk, stonework, or roofs.
I let all that dry, then did my darks. I made darker versions of the previous colors: a darker, bluer green; a darker brown/gray version for the barns, keeping the burnt sienna ready to drop in to give the barn more interest. I paid more attention than I did with the value study, doing some dry brushing with the dark green in the trees. When adding the darks to the wood, I used a small brush (or credit card) to drag some lines down to indicate boards in the wood.
When I had the darks in, I added some light sienna to the stonework and the sidewalk. It doesn't show where I added some shadow at the bottom left of the sidewalk to keep it from drawing the eye off the page. Also added some dark lines in some of the barn wood. And spattered some of the trees and bushes in the foreground.
I was pretty happy with my first try at this process.
Here Eric shows this process. Talking about simplifying by connections.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9i3hIIKTgCI
value study lessons learned from Andy Evanson
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QBrMVl6ZbJQ&t=364s
As promised, Eric's YouTube on the 30/70 rule.
Thursday, March 14, 2024
Paul Clark: Trees
More about Paul Clark, and his tree methods.
In his videos, you'll see Paul Clark using the end of a paint brush to make smaller branches and to scratch texture into a trunk. There are a few things about this technique that you need to know before you try it.
1. Sharpening the end of a paint brush. OK, I didn't want to ruin a brush doing this, so I tried it on some of my older wooden handle brushes. You have to sharpen it and then sand the end down to round it a bit. Must be wood. It doesn't work as well with smaller brush handles -- you need about a size 12 for it to work well.
Also, I practiced a LOT trying to make this work for me. I also tried other items: a palette knife, a credit card, a stick, etc. In the end I found that the point of my silicone shapers (https://www.hobbylobby.com/Art-Supplies/Brushes/Silicone-Shaper-Paint-Brushes---Size-6/p/81072215 ) works the best for me. One student had Winsor Newton brushes that came to a nice point on the handles, and that worked well also. If you watch Karen Rice she uses a sharpened stick.
2. The paint you lay down on the trunk must be very wet in order to use your device to make small branches. He doesn't stress this, but he continues to add paint to the trunk in small puddles in order to draw the paint out. If your paint dries out too soon, you won't be able to use a stick or something to pull the paint out.
The link in the previous blog has one exercise on a tree with a background.
Here he tells several methods for simplified trees.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ygV5PuvzjE4
The middle of this video has a cool African tree in a sunset.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=q5bR1PeS9d8
This is another by Paul Clark. This one contains the abstract credit card method we did in class. It also has some details from a more complex tree, including lifting to bring some branches forward. He also demos a palm tree and fir trees.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xMVEuCfSVbs
There are many very good tree tutorials. Karen Rice has a very good one. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7UIo6FnX9KE Here is a very loose video from Eric Yi Lin. He is even more loose than Paul Clark.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4j3CSYZZMbQ&t=1249s
Thursday, March 7, 2024
YouTubers: Paul Clark
Paul Clark
Paul's ethos on teaching, is that students learn better when working in a happy and relaxed atmosphere.
Friday, March 1, 2024
Louise DeMasi
Today we painted a goldfish, Louise style.
Louise is a delightful Australian with excellent teaching skills. She has tutorials on Skillshare, Youtube, and Patreon. Many of the youtube lessons are on Patreon, but the youtube one is usually condensed and does not include important features, such as: full scale drawing, reference material, and progress photos. There are also many tutorials on patreon that are not on other venues. (patreon is $6 a month)(My favorite thing she does is the progress photos, which most other artists do not provide)
Louise has an index of her lessons that indicate whether they are for beginners, intermediate, or experienced. They are divided up into florals,
birds,
and animals.
You will find that she often uses a limited palette of just 3 or 4 colors, especially her more recent ones. Each of her lessons stresses some technique: wet on wet, blending, color mixing, texture, lost edges, etc. I enjoy her painting style, which is realistic, but very clean and inviting. If you want to learn how to create using wet on wet, she's your gal.
Most of her tutorials are more than an hour; some more complex ones are broken into two parts. She keeps an easy pace. Her style is learning by doing...in other words, the intent is to emphasize a specific technique, but she does it by applying it to a specific subject, in this case, a fish.
She also discusses supplies that she discovers, brushes, paper, etc. I like that she also lets you know if you can show or sell the artwork you do from her tutorials, places to find good references, and so on.
Also, watch to the end for the out-takes.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UAXHnemT0Og
I painted this goldfish, using her techniques for the most part. I changed to a reference photo that I found on Facebook's Reference Photos for Artists. I reversed the image to make it easier to follow. (It's very hard to paint an image facing the opposite direction.)
Reference photo in reverse
Thursday, February 22, 2024
Youtubers I actually watch
Emma Jane LeFebvre
I have been working on this series of YouTubers for several reasons. First, there are so many out there, it's hard to tell which ones will work for you. Second, I get so many requests to paint something in the style of ______ (insert artist name here). While there is a lot you can get from watching painting videos, you don't have any way of popping your head in there and saying, "Hey! I don't understand what you're saying. How do I do that?!!" And while you can't put me or any other teacher on "pause," you can pause a video. That's a plus.
I decided to begin this series on YouTubers with Emma LeFebvre. (pronounced Lefabv, with a long A)
She is a young Canadian who has been teaching on Youtube for about 4 or 5 years. A year ago she posted a Watercolor Week tutorial. There are 7 tutorials, about 28 minutes long each, well worth watching, especially if you are a beginner or not very confident. I love that she keeps her videos short.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RhFBybA6K4M This is day one of Watercolor Week. She discusses supplies in this one, so it is well worth watching. Others talk about wet on wet technique, color, value, brush strokes, and other beginner necessities. I watched all 7.
Emma focuses on LOOSE florals, leaves, etc., but she does other things.
For an example of florals, which emphasize brush stroke, see this: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RTuJTnlE37U
I would call her work illustrative. They are good for times you don't have a lot of time to paint, but want to keep your brushes wet. Especially if you love florals, and making petals seem transparent. What I think you will get from her are some very solid skills, learning brush strokes, and practices for those skills. She has a lot of beginner tutorials, since this is her target audience. Things you need regardless of what subjects or styles you want to paint. As you may have experienced, many teachers never go over these basics. (I suspect it's either because they have never learned it themselves, or they don't want students to feel "bored" with basic drills)
As a teacher, she does a very good job of explaining what she is doing and why. The website says she posts every Monday, Wed, Friday.
She doesn't normally teach from a pattern or reference photo. She does try out different papers, paints, and brushes, and talks about those. She doesn't use the same paint brands that I do, but she uses good ones. I use tube paints (for my own reasons), and she uses paint in pans.
Emma LeFebvre does have a patreon channel, with levels from $2.50, $5.50, 10.50, and $16. With the lowest version you basically get all the youtube work with no commercials. And it's organized in a way that's easy to find what you want.
Today in class we painted something similar to this plum tutorial. (We did peaches). We used the same approach, using wet into wet, "charging" color, and allowing paint to "bleed" into areas.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9Tw3ZLsIMqo&t=666s
The most important aspect of using youtube videos is to DO IT. Watching doesn't train your hand and eyes. Try it. You might have some unexpected fun.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?app=desktop&v=q9YKWaY37A4 This is Emma's first book, made especially for beginners. Here she shows and reviews the book and does a demo taken from the book. Amazon and Wal-Mart have it for about $19.00. I wish her good luck!
Any thing I put in my blog is not supported by any company. If it were, Dollar Tree would owe me big time! I just put in what I've tried and love. See you next week!