Learn to Paint in Acrylics with 50 More Small Paintings: Pick Up the Skills, Put on the Paint, Hang Up Your Art Materials, Tools, and Techniques Before getting started on the 50 paintings, it is important to explore the options for tools and materials as well as to consider essential principles about color and design. This chapter will introduce you to the basics of acrylic paint, brushes, surfaces, and the equipment you will need to complete the projects illustrated in this book. Putting on the Paint In this chapter, you will be introduced to the primary techniques needed to paint in acrylics through a series of progressively challenging projects. You will start with basic paint application exercises and slowly add new skills with each project. By the end of the chapter, you will have acquired the fundamentals necessary for painting in acrylics. Light, Shadow, and Form Now that you have a better understanding of applying paint to represent flat, two-dimensional objects, it’s time to explore the ways light, shadow, and color function with three-dimensional forms. The projects in this chapter feature objects that can be represented using a small group of simplified forms: spheres, cubes, cones, and cylinders. Interpretive Approaches This final chapter involves applying various color themes, painting directly without layering or blending, stylistic interpretations, and more. The projects are designed to provide you with a set of tools for creating more expressive paintings. Why not apply them to earlier projects in this book to see how your painting has progressed? The artistic possibilities are infinite. Introduction to Spheres: Pincushion 1 Mix a dull red-orange from Napthol Red and a little Cadmium Yellow Medium. Using the #4 filbert brush, paint an oval shape for the pincushion, leaving a star shape unpainted at the top. The pincushion is not a pure circle; painting it as an oval helps to make it look as if it’s squished down a little under the weight of the filling. 2 While the first layer is still wet and without cleaning the brush, go over the shape again, adding a little bit of Mars Black and Burnt Sienna to the mix as you work toward the shaded areas on the left and bottom. Slowly “feather” the colors together so that the wet paints blend on the canvas, giving a subtle gradation of tone. Don’t worry about a few irregularities—the pincushion is bound to have a few wrinkles in it. 3 Mix a dark olive green from Cadmium Yellow Medium, a little Unbleached Titanium, and a tiny amount of Mars Black. Using a #4 bright brush, paint the star shape at the top, then switch to a #1 round brush for the stripes radiating down from the star. Add a little Ultramarine Blue near the base of the stripes, for the parts that are in shadow. Pay attention to the contour—the two outside stripes curve around the form. 4 Mix a bright blue from Titanium White and Ultramarine Blue. Using a #6 flat brush, paint the background, cutting out the shape of the pincushion as you do so and leaving gaps for the pins. As they’re the same color as the primed canvas, it’s easier to leave spaces for them than to add them later—and the shape of the brush means it’s simple to make the pins absolutely straight. 5 Mix Titanium White with a little glazing medium and add a few pins to the front of the pincushion, using a #1 round brush. Paint the cast shadow under the pincushion in a mix of Ultramarine Blue, Unbleached Titanium, and Mars Black. Put in the shadows cast by the pins with a mix of Napthol Red, Cadmium Yellow Medium, and a little Burnt Sienna, making sure they follow the contour of the pincushion, just like the green stripes in step 3. Use the same mix for the shadows around the star. Finally, paint the pin heads in any colors you like. 6 The next geometric shape we’re going to look at is the sphere—a shape that’s found in a multitude of everyday objects, from fruit to soccer balls. So how do you make a sphere look as if it’s rounded and three-dimensional, rather than just a flat circle? The key is to exploit differences in value as the object curves away from the light: our eyes tell us that if part of the object is in shadow, then that part must be turned away from the light source—so we instinctively “read” it as being rounded. You will be blending colors wet into wet on the canvas rather than creating sharp, clearly defined shifts in value. The gradation is so subtle it’s almost imperceptible, and it’s worth practicing this because the fast drying time of acrylics can make it difficult to achieve. This exercise also introduces the idea of contour lines—lines that curve around the form of the object to give it depth and dimension.
✔ Author(s): Mark Daniel Nelson
✔ Title: Learn to Paint in Acrylics with 50 More Small Paintings: Pick Up the Skills, Put on the Paint, Hang Up Your Art (50 Small Paintings)
✔ Rating : 4.6 out of 5 base on (190 reviews)
✔ ISBN-10: 1631598511
✔ Language: English
✔ Format ebook: PDF, EPUB, Kindle, Audio, HTML and MOBI
✔ Device compatibles: Android, iOS, PC and Amazon Kindle
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