EXPERIMENTING WITH GREENS

EXPERIMENTING WITH GREENS

Why green? Because you can hardly paint anything without needing a good green, but it is SO easy to kill your painting with too much or too boring a green. 

Here is a way to discover the world of greens without making boring color swatches.

Start out with an abstract drawing as in my April 13 blog.

Use triangles, circles, squares, of all sizes overlapping them until they make an interesting drawing.

Instead of using primary colors, as in the April blog, use three blues and three yellows. Try phthalo, French ultramarine, cobalt, Cerulean, or manganese for blues; hansa, new gamboge, cadmium yellow, quinacridone gold, or even raw sienna for yellows. (as long as there is a variety of warms and cools of both colors)

STEP ONE

Wet one of the larger shapes and paint it wet into wet with pthalo.

While wet, drop (“charge”) one yellow into one corner, another yellow into another corner, and a third yellow into another area. Allow the center to remain blue.

Repeat this in two other shapes, using a different blue for each base.

You should be able to see what kind of greens each combination will make.

STEP TWO

Wet a shape with one of the yellows. Then drop each of the three blues into

the yellow to see the reactions.  Allow the center to remain yellow. Repeat for the other yellow shades.

You should now have six shapes colored in.

STEP THREE

Wet a shape. Drop a blue in one area, and yellow into another. Then add

either a red, orange, burnt sienna, or purple to see what happens to your green.

Experiment with other shapes.

STEP FOUR

Hopefully you have at least six shapes left. Leave at least three small shapes

to the end.

In at least three shapes, choose to make three or more different greens and mix them

On your palette instead of “charging” wet-into-wet.  This will give a very flat appearance

Compared to those done wet-into-wet, but it makes for a good comparison. Sometimes you want a flat effect.

STEP FIVE

Finish up your painting leaving some white spaces and using reds or oranges to fill

in some small spaces. This will accent your greens. Use these complimentary colors to make your design have some “pop.”

(I think my example looks like a cubistic monkey~!)

LAST STEP:

Top it off by glazing over areas with a stripe of red, orange, or violet. Notice how much it neutralizes the greens. 

Anonymous

This is the not-quite finished version of the painting I did for CASA's Addiction and Recovery show. I showed it also at the Regional Show, but I meant it for the CASA show. It is called Anonymous, not Faceless. It's about how addiction affects all of us, even if you don't think it does. Those who are trying to recover are part of N-A or AA; those of us who love them are part of Al-Anon or Nar-Anon, both of which encourage anonymity: the mask. The rainbow face represents those who are trying to fight stereotypes of drug users and become a more public face, making the community notice and become aware of what needs to be done to face the problem. The eyes, almost but not quite black, each have a spark in them to represent the hope for recovery. One mask has real eyes, representing regaining a real and meaningful

life again.

Hummingbirds

I have been wanting to paint hummingbirds for a long time. When we were in Florida, we saw these flowers at my brother's house (actually, all over Florida), so I figured I could combine the two. This is a yupo, a fluid acrylic background with watercolor. It was in our Regional Art Show August 20.
It's about 11 x 15.

TWO ROSES DEMO

Here are the steps to completing the rose painting we started in class. 

In the first picture we had already copied the picture. You can see where we applied cobalt on the red rose on areas that would face the sky. We applied some quinacridone gold on areas of the red rose that will be the warmest, the areas nearest the heart of the rose.

On the yellow rose, we wet each petal, one at a time, then painted some hansa yellow (or another cool yellow) in the center of the petal. Then we applied quin gold to the center, warmer part of the petal, and some red along the edge. The red is a thicker when it is painted in. Remember, the wetter the paint, the lighter it will be when it dries. 

While it is still wet, apply more red to the outer edge and more quin gold to the center. 

Use the above technique on each petal, one at a time, working around the rose so that you are never working next to a wet petal. I like to leave tiny bits of white on the edges of some petals. This just gives some sparkle to the painting.

In this picture, I have darkened some of the red areas and added more quin gold to the deeper or shadowed parts of the yellow flower. I am using Quin Gold because you can get a deeper value in the shadows than other yellows. Remember, you can't get a darker value than the color that comes straight out of the tube.

You can see in the red rose that I have begun to add reds to the petals. Where we had underpainted with gold, the colors look warmer, and where we underpainted with cobalt blue, the colors look cooler.

In the above picture I have finished washing reds over the entire rose. I've added some darks to separate the two roses even further on the very bottom red petal and on the very top. 

To paint the leaves, I wet the leaf and put a light wash of cobalt blue.

I then applied quin gold over the cobalt, adding in a dab of red on the most shadowed parts of the leaf and yellow on the tips that would get more sun.

Next I painted the rose bud, wetting it all over, then just applying red on the outside and letting it blend into the center, keeping the center fairly white. When it dried, I added a thicker blend of red to the center and shadows.

After I was sure I had all the paint where I wanted it, I began to gently lift in places I wanted to have highlights or be softened, especially where the petal might curve. 

I added a background because I could not get some pesky spots off the white paper. I just got a large area wet, washed in some cobalt, and added some watery reds. Then I created some "blossoms" by dropping water drops into paint that was almost but not quite dry.

Last picture! The background didn't hide those spots well enough, so I added two leaves under teh red rose. I blushed on some red in parts of the yellow rose. Then I discovered I'd completely left out one of the petals! (See if you can tell the difference!) So Ipainted that in too. Voila! Done at last!

SNOW SCENE

The purpose of this lesson was to experiment with a different paper - 300 lb arches cold press-- and to discover different ways to preserve whites.

We started with masking tape, and tore strips of it down the long sides to create tree trunks. We used smaller ones for branches. We also experimented with ironing on strips of white freezer paper (waxed on one side.)  Most of us discovered that the roughness of the 300 lb paper doesn't allow the freezer paper to stick as well.  (in the picture above I've done the same thing--you can see the blue tape--but I've started a fall scene. Just ignore the paint and see how we taped off trees and grass)

Then we used Contact Paper to cut out the shape of a little cabin in the background. Then we spattered some snow with miskit. All this before we even picked up a brush to paint!

Leaving on all the tape and miskit, we used a combination of ultramarine blue, burnt sienna, and a bit of red to wash in  a dark sky. The darker the sky the more the snow shows up. While the paint was wet, sprinkle a little salt into the whole area. After all that was dry, and salt was scraped off, we created a little bit of background bushes behind the trees and cabin using the same mixture, only adding a bit of green to it. We kept it very soft to imply distance.

After drying, we removed all the tape, contact paper, and miskit. Then we began to work on the trees.

This picture above shows about how far we got in the class.

To create tree bark, trying for an aspen type of tree with white bark, we used ultramarine blue and burnt sienna again. We applied about an inch or two of paint on one side of the tree (in my case, the left side) and scraped it with a cut up credit card to create the bark.

In the next class we just have a bit to finish up. We'll finish the trees. The barn/cabin will be painted with a little red toned down with the blue/burnt sienna combination. The siding will be created by scraping the credit card into the wet red paint. We will shade small mounds of snow and make the trees look like they are attached to the ground. And for the last step, we will spatter white guoache for a little more snow effect. 

Orchids and Strawberries

Two paintings recently finished and put in the June art show at Greendale Cabin.

Our art guild, Southeast Indiana Art Guild, hosted a special event today at the Greendale Cabin. Steve Harpster, a Cincinnati cartoonist, gave a great presentation to local kids. With Steve's unique style of teaching, he had kids from 4 to 14 drawing successfully and loving it. He starts with a letter or a number and teaches them step by step how to turn it into a cartoon. I was so pleased that we could bring him to our community.

Anyone interested in seeing videos of what he does or buying his books can view more at harptoons.com.