A Cottage Garden in Newbury, acrylic, 11×14 ©2010
How would you go about painting this picture? Below are 3 steps that work for me. Not everyone goes about it this way but many do. It is a good approach to a successful result and helps to avoid frustration. Each step is brought to completion before beginning the next. They begin after you have loosely sketched the images (line).
First Step—Block in (Mass)
Notice in the painting below that the paint is applied thinly. Use a big brush and a loose application. After applying this layer of paint, take a look at your painting in the mirror and decide if everything looks pretty good. At this point it would be really easy to alter the colors, values, shapes or composition. That’s one of the main reasons to put the paint on thinly. The painting looks fresh, and a little child like. Not to worry, keep it simple and make sure all the big shapes work together. This is my favorite step! It is the most fun!
Second Step—Shapes inside Shapes (Form)
Notice how the second layer of paint (below) makes the painting have a more finished look. The paint is applied more thickly giving additional consideration to value transitions inside each shape and getting the colors more the way you want them. It would still be fairly easy to fix anything that doesn’t seem to be working. If the paint gets ahead of you (meaning, if you put too much paint on too soon and you have hard edges where you don’t want them) you will need to sand them off. Lets say the roof line is not straight and you already have a thick hard visible edge. It would be in your best interest to sand the paint off until there is no visible line showing. Be sure the previous paint is dry before sanding. Wipe off the residue and then repaint the roof correctly. You may need to apply several coats of white paint to cover any dark color, as I have demonstrated in this previous blog post. Here Today … Gone Tomorrow
Third Step–More Paint & Detail
The final painting (at the top of this post), has a lot more paint and detail. (It does not look exactly like the examples because I needed to keep these examples simple for demos done in a class.) Everyone wants to jump right into putting the details in right from the start. Hold yourself back and you will be rewarded. This three step approach to painting comes about little by little and each step falls into place. One step sets you up for the next.
Below is another version of this painting showing modeling paste used underneath the block-in. The paste was added only in selected areas. The left side of this painting (bottom right) shows how much modeling paste I used. Click on the painting to see the texture. I liked the way it worked in this painting, better than if the paste was applied all over the canvas.
This demo painting (almost finished) was executed in three steps. I did several versions of this for the class using different colors and values. It’s fun creating different moods just by changing the colors, values, edges etc. Find a simple subject with a good design and try this approach. Let me know how it turns out.
I hope this is helpful. It is a lot of work for someone who is not a writer or photographer. My motivation is to help you. Please let me know if these lessons are helpful.
Thanks for reading.
