One Quick Thought

I was online watching Robert Davies demonstrate an acrylic painting (see http://www.how-to-paint-and-draw.com/). As he painted, he discussed how one could change one's mind at any point and take a different direction in an acrylic painting. It was so simple just to paint over what is there already and paint something different. That's when he commented that he guessed acrylics could be said to be the medium for the undecided. Initially I embraced that description but as I'm typing this I think I would rather say that acrylics is the medium for those who wish to keep their options open. Is that the same thing? Anyway, check this guy out. He's pretty interesting, especially if you like Brits.

Underpainting and the Belfries

I went surfing for new Web sites about acrylic painting and came up with some good ideas. After all, this is Evolution a Painter not Miraculous Birth of a Painter. So, I’m still learning. One idea I found that I'll be trying in the future is to draw my composition in charcoal or graphite pencil and fix it with a spray fixative so that as I paint over it, the drawing will not smudge or contaminate the paint.

As you can see, I’ve now underpainted the structure with a dark gray and sketched in the bells. I’m not pleased with the way the roof has become a little distorted so I'll work to fix that. I’ve learned that certain parts of a composition can grow as you work on them and become grossly exaggerated. I once began painting a liter bottle of wine in a still life and ended up with something more akin to those boxes of wine one can buy at the grocery store.

Now, back to the present. In keeping with the idea of beginning to paint from the back and come forward, I’ve decided to begin to paint the inside of each belfry. I don’t know that belfry is exactly the right term in this instance since this is not an enclosed bell tower. But you can see the area I’m referring to in this close up.

Now, the danger I see for myself at this point is spending too much time on a part of the painting that will ultimately not be a focal point. As I’ve said before, I don’t necessarily want my paintings to have a photographic flavor but I want them to be realistic to a certain extent. So, I want to paint the stones inside each belfry (Answers.com says “the part of a tower or steeple where bells are hung”) first.

I’ve not painted too many stone structures such as stone walls or water wells, for instance. So, I’m a little shy about my ability to make a realistic looking stone surface inside the belfries. That’s what sent me on my recent surfing expedition mentioned at the beginning of this blog. However, while contemplating this, I realize that I shouldn’t agonize too much over these small, less important parts of the painting. I decide to get some paint in those areas but will wait until more of the painting has revealed itself before I try putting finishing touches to the stones in that area. As the painting develops, I'll adjust the tones and values in these areas to more closely fit the rest of the painting. For now, I just want to get the texture in there so I can paint the façade of the bell tower

This particular structure is so appealing to me because of what is revealed as the stucco falls away. Usually, an old stucco structure would be built of clay bricks which would show through as the stucco wore off. However, this bell tower reveals colorful, interestingly-shaped river rocks. As I look at the photographs I’ve got, I wonder what those rocks felt like in the hands of the men and women who built this bell tower. How old are those rocks that had been smoothed and shaped by decades or centuries of the water running over them in that river?

Let’s hope I’m up to the challenge of representing this beauty in my painting.

Painting the Roof

Using burnt sienna with a touch of cadmium yellow light, I underpainted or blocked in the tiles on the roof. I found a synthetic bristle brush that would hold a sharp chisel edge on the bristles to paint the tiles. From the perspective I chose for the painting, the tiles are on a diagonal running from upper left to lower right. So, when I painted a stroke, I moved the brush as if I were actually painting a tile that was already in place. I lay the chisel edge of the brush along the left side of the tile angled diagonally and made the stroke in an arc. That left the bottom of the roof with an inverted scalloped edge. Blocking in the tiles using this directional stroke method will make detailing the tiles easier later in the painting. It will help them look more realistic in the end.

After the undercoat dried, I mixed in more yellow and a touch of Gesso to lighten the mixture. I’ve determined that my light source will come from right to left. So, I went back over each “column” of tiles and followed the same stroke pattern. This time I just painted about ¾ of each tile on the right side. That made the tiles a little lighter where the sunlight would be hitting them.

After it dried, I saw that the lighter color was too yellow. So, I added more burnt sienna and another touch of Gesso to offset the yellow and dry brushed over the tiles again with the altered mixture. I’m not through with the tiles yet because I want to come back in and define the individual tiles.

One thing I’ve learned about painting with acrylics is that it can be very forgiving. However, to use this to your best advantage, you must remember one thing. Never leave a hard edge or lay on the paint thick enough at this stage to leave visible paint strokes. When blocking in areas on the canvas, be sure to feather the edge of the area you’re painting.

For instance, if you outline the side of a square shape by dragging your brush along the edge of the box with the chisel edge of the brush perpendicular to the edge of the box, you’re likely to leave a little ridge of paint along the sides of the box. Maybe that box shape was the front of a house or building. Later in the painting, you might decide to paint some shrubbery in front of that building or maybe you make a major change and eliminate the building all together replacing it with a differently shaped structure. Unless subsequent coats of paint are thick enough to hide it, that little ridge of paint along the edge of that square shape will show up if you look at the painting under certain lighting conditions or from certain angles. So, someone looking at your painting will see a straight line reflected from the light in the room and this straight line runs right through the tree standing at the front corner of this house.

It would be much better to hold your brush with the chisel edge of the bristles parallel to the straight edge of the box shape. Place the bristles almost on the line and drag the brush towards the center of the box figure, making sure not to deposit too much paint on the canvas at the beginning of the stroke.
This, ladies and gentlemen, I speak of from personal experience.

Background - Cleaning the Brushes

This is The Master's Brush Cleaner and Preserver and it's THE BEST I’ve ever found. It reminds me of the saddle soap my dad used to use to shine some of the shoes on Saturday night for Sunday church. It’s very simple to use. You just moisten the brush, rub it on the surface of the soap to pick some up, and then agitate it on the palm of one hand until all the paint is out. Then you rinse it and let it dry. If you want, after you’ve cleaned the brush you can reload it with soap. Shape the bristles and let it dry. The brush is like new!

This stuff works really well. I had an old brush that had been allowed to dry with acrylic paint on the natural bristles. I thought the brush was a goner so I didn’t have anything to lose to try to clean it. It took several applications of the soap and some strong agitation but that brush is back in use.

Maintaining your brushes will give them a longer life and make your painting easier. When a brush gets a buildup of paint at the base of the bristles, near the ferrule, the bristles are splayed and the brush will not hold the proper shape. That prevents you from getting a dependable stroke from the bush. So, it is important that the brush be cleaned routinely to prevent that buildup.

Background - The Brushes

My PBS mentor, Jerry Yarnell, uses mostly bristle brushes, a couple of small sable brushes, and a Hake brush for background work. I started off with those brushes but have added other brushes as I’ve gone along.

The only thing I’m an expert at in the art world is knowing what I like. So, I can’t pass on any wisdom about the best kind of brushes, either by type or brand name. However, as with so many things in life, I’ve learned that I get what I pay for. So, the cheapest brushes are no good. They fall apart or they are not shaped properly. I haven’t ever bought a really expensive brush so I can’t speak to those. I mostly buy medium priced brushes. If I find a particular brand of brush that I like in one size, I’m likely to buy it in others.

Even though I’ve decided to work in acrylics, I’ve watched instructional shows and read books about painting in other mediums. I’ve learned about different kinds of brushes that way. The way I figure it, a particular kind of brush will make a similar stroke whether it’s loaded with acrylics, oils or watercolor.

As well, every artist I’ve seen uses the brush a little differently. I’m not afraid to experiment and emulate anyone I see. So, with all that input, I’m pretty sure my own style will emerge and I will find the types of brushes I’m most comfortable with.

The collection of brushes in the photograph above is from my larger collection. These are the brushes I thought would work best with the painting of the bell tower. Since the river stones that are exposed in the structure are rounded, I thought filbert brushes would work best to paint those. The tile roof needed a brush that would hold a sharp chisel edge to help define each individual tile. For that I used a synthetic bristle brush that would be able to hold that sharp chisel edge while I painted the little arcs that would represent the clay tiles of the roof.

I’m also showing my brush cleaner in this photograph. I'll talk more about that in the next blog.

Background - The Palette

I am self-taught as a painter through books, the Internet and PBS instructional painters (most importantly Jerry Yarnell School of Fine Art). I use Jerry Yarnell’s acrylic palette which you can find on his Web site.

From lower left to upper right, the palette includes these colors: white Gesso, cadmium yellow light, cadmium orange, cadmium red light, Hooker’s green, burnt sienna, ultramarine blue, dioxazine purple, Thalo yellow green, alizarin crimson.

In the photograph, you might see streaks of blue in the white Gesso. I had used this pallet to paint the background for this painting. So, there’s a little blue in the Gesso. I use Gesso instead of white paint because it helps opaque some of the colors that might be more transparent than I would want. Of course, the danger as a novice is that I'll get too much Gesso in the mix because a little bit goes a long way. If I’m not careful, I'll end up with a bucket of the color I’m going for because I had to mix in more paint to offset the Gesso I put into the mix. Ah, well, that’s what this is all about—learning.

As far as the palette box, I’m using a Stay-Wet palette. It is designed to keep the acrylic paint moist enough to use over an extended period of time. This particular palette has a thin sponge that fits in the bottom of the box. There is a special palette paper that you can use with this palette box and I used this system for quite a while. Then I decided to take a hint from Jerry Yarnell. He uses a piece of glass as his paint mixing surface.

So, this is how I assemble my palette box. The yellow sponge is wet almost to the point of dripping wet and laid first in the bottom of the palette box. Then I wet both sides of a piece of white palette paper and put it atop the sponge. The main reason I use the palette paper now is because I don’t want see the yellow under the paint I’m mixing. The white palette paper will work better as a backdrop to my paint mixtures.

After I lay the white palette paper down, I lay down the piece of glass which is maybe ¼" smaller each way than my palette box. As you can see, I’ve folded papers towels and laid them along the left side and top of the palette surface. I find that using the glass helps the paint stay wet longer than just using the palette paper alone.

If I’m painting for a long time, I'll sprits the whole surface with my spray bottle set to the finest mist setting. If I find that my days are too full to paint, I'll check on the palette every other day or so and mist the paint and palette surface. I'll also check to make sure the sponge is still sufficiently wet. If the paint mixtures dry on the glass, I can scrape them off with my palette knife and start over. The actual piece of glass I’m using is from a picture frame I wasn’t using. If all the paints dry out, I simply start over.

If the paints mold, I’m told that won’t affect the painting. Simply scrape off the mold and discard. A couple of things to reduce the likelihood of mold is to use only distilled water in your brush bucket, in your mister bottle, and on your palette. I’ve also heard that if you put the palette box in the frig between painting sessions, the mold will not be such a problem. I may try that this summer as it heats up here in southern Texas.

When I clean up my palette, I'll toss the sponge in the wash by itself to get it good and clean. This doesn’t work with every brand of stay-wet palette, however. I learned that the hard way. The sponge from a competitive brand disintegrated in the wash.

Pencils Down - Sketch is Finished

I think the grid process has worked pretty well. Here’s the pic of the canvas with the outside edge of the larger image, the tile roofs and the openings for the bells all penciled in. I’ve erased the grid outside the image. With the underpainting and detail painting the only place I might still have grid lines showing will be around the bells where the sky is showing through the openings. But using a drawing pencil with a harder lead and an eraser meant to erase pencil lines off canvas, it’s not too much trouble.

So, now, I’m ready to start underpainting the bell tower and the different roof lines. I’m going to experiment on a scrap canvas before I begin on the real deal. I'll share that next time.
Ta-ta for now, dearies.

Brush Up - Paint the Background

Here are some of the images I printed off the Internet of the bell tower at Mission San Miguel Arcangel, San Miguel, California. The one in the center of the photo is the one I created the ½-inch grid on. See my post of 8:23 p.m. on 03/31/08.

I’m going to write a separate post about the palette I use. I’m self-taught, for the most part, from PBS instructional painting shows. Since I like acrylics, I’ve learned most from Jerry Yarnell, Jerry Yarnell’s School of Fine Art. My basic palette is the one he uses.

So, now, to actually start on the painting. As I said earlier, I’m using a 16x20 stretched canvas. I began by wetting the canvas and applying a coat of white gesso using a 2-inch Hake brush. Then starting at the top of the canvas, I applied Ultramarine Blue and Burnt Sienna that I had double loaded onto my brush. It just took a touch of each but I actually used too much Burnt Sienna. So, I had to work with the Ultramarine Blue and more gesso to get the lighter blue I was looking for. I had to rewet the canvas, too, using a spray bottle of distilled water set on the finest mist possible.

After I was satisfied with the blue, I cleaned my Hake brush and took a touch of Alizarin Crimson and started at the bottom of the still-wet canvas. As I blended upwards, I overlapped the blue already on the canvas. Since I neglected to take a photo of the canvas before I began drawing the grid, just imagine this photo without the grid.

Keep in mind that I am still learning this craft. So, while I share my techniques and methods, I am most open to suggestions of more experienced painters or, for that matter, less experienced painters. This blog is meant to share from the perspective of trial and error, not necessarily instruct from the perspective of experience. It’s a group experience, if you will.

After the canvas dried, I began creating the 1-inch grid on the canvas. I used a hard lead drawing pencil to create the grid using a very light touch. I have a couple of T-squares one of which is exactly one inch wide. I used that one to move across the canvas and mark the gridlines. Since the ruler on the T-square was exactly 1 inch wide, I overlapped the previous line to adjust for the space the pencil line added. In other words, if I had laid the ruler where I could see the previous line and then marked the next line, the two lines would be further than 1 inch apart. I had to take into account the width of the pencil line and the amount of space between the pencil line and the edge of the ruler. Even though it’s minute, it adds up as you move across the canvas.

In this photo you see the finished grid and the image off the computer that has the ½-inch grid. Hopefully these will help me to get the proper proportion as I work to get the image onto the canvas.

’Til we meet again, adieu.