HERE'S A PROCESS THAT WILL BRING OUT THE KINDERGARTENER IN YOU!
SUPPLIES
ABOVE: YOUR SUPPLIES are (clockwise starting with paint)
1. FLUID acrylics (don't use other types)
2. sponges
3. tape
4. absorbant towels or, as I show here, puppy training pads
(to absorb paint drips)
5. brush used for acrylics (don't use your good watercolor brushes)
6. toothbrush
7. spray bottle
8. disposable cups or jars for stirring, pouring paint
9. YUPO paper (white in background)
START: Pour a nickel sized amount of paint into a cup or jar. Use a separate cup for each color you want to use. Add a small amount of water to thin it to a pouring consistency.
If you want to preserve large amounts of white (to keep from having to remove it with alcohol), you can tape it off, as I have at the top. If you want a speckled effect, use a toothbrush to create some fine specks, using the diluted paint. Dab up any that look too thick or large. For the third effect, use a sponge dipped in diluted paint and dab lightly.
You don't need to do any or all of these. These are options.
Caution: If your paint is too thick, it will not be transparent. If it is too thin, you will have a hard tme getting to the medium value you are looking for, and it will take longer to dry.
These effects should be dry enough in 15 minutes, or you can use a blow dryer on low at this point.
ABOVE: This pic shows just 4 ways of starting a pour. Top to bottom: tape off area you want white, spatter with a toothbrush, sponge lightly, and leave blank and let the paint do its job. Let this layer dry before pouring.
BELOW:
I began this pour with magenta, cobalt blue, and some yellow.
First: Use a stiff board beneath your work. On top of it lay an old towel, paper towels, or, as I like to use, a puppy training pad, to absorb drips of paint. There will be drips. There will be mess. You will love it.
Have a spray bottle of water handy. Tip the board slightly, and begin to pour one color. Move it around, spray it if necessary to get the paint to move. Then pour in another color. Move it around to get the paints to mingle in the direction you like. When you are ready add a third color in places. You can pull up and blot with sponge or paper towel; spatter in another color; wipe off places you don't like. As long as the paint remains wet you can work with it.
Your object is to get an OVERALL blend with few hard edges that is MEDIUM value. Not too light or too dark. If an area is not blending well, spray it with water a little or spatter in some other color to break it up and make it move.
BELOW: This is how my first pour turned out. You can see the tape on the left; spatter in the middle; sponging next to that; and on the far right, only the paint pour.
My second attempt: tape on left, then spatter, then sponging, then plain.
Close-ups of spatter after I've poured.
Close-ups of sponging after I poured.
NOTES ON PLANNING A PAINTING
1. Don't try to overplan. Begin your process using more paper than you think you will use.
This gives you options. If part of it turns out more interesting than another part, you can use that instead of where you might have otherwise chosen. You have to be flexible.
2. You can plan some. For example, if you know you want one area to be sky, you can pour that area first. You can either let it dry after you like it, and then pour the ground area, or, if you feel confident, pour the ground area at the same time and add textures to that area only.
3. You can start with color that you want in the background and center of interest.
4. This truly is "Watching paint dry." You want to watch that backruns don't get into your painting from paint puddling or collecting on the edges and running back into your painting.
5. When you use tape, you will get runs of paint underneath it, which you will probably enjoy and keep, but can wipe off with alcohol later if you don't like it.
NEXT WEEK: transfering your drawing and wiping off white with alcohol.
No comments:
Post a Comment