Underpainting.....Blocking in

This is a photo from one of the oil painting classes I taught earlier this year and I LOVE painting birds.  Before we hit the canvas with oil paint, I had students "block in" the darkest parts of the bird with acrylic gesso (or acrylic paint). The acrylic dries fast so we can finish the painting in one sitting and it locks in the main parts of the bird.  That way we could paint our background without losing our lines.  Remember you can go over an acrylic with an oil, but you CANNOT go over an oil with an acrylic.  I try to stress to my students to make your tools work for YOU!  We had great results with this little painting as you can see from the work in progress shot here.  

Here's our reference.  I have amazing students!!!!

Happy Painting!!

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Saving your brushes when using masking fluid or frisket

Masking fluid is a great tool for your watercolor paintings.  Most of the time when using it, I have a few old brushes that I save just for that purpose.  The photo shows one of them.  However, you can use your good brushes and still keep them in good shape by doing just one simple thing; putting your brush in some liquid soap.  Here’s what I do…

I just use whatever liquid hand soap I have at home.  BEFORE dipping my brush in the masking fluid, I dip the brush in the liquid soap and work it into the bristles all the way up to the metal,  then I just wipe it off with a clean dry paper towel.  No water. 

After that, I just dip the brush in the masking fluid and apply to my paper like normal.  When I’m finished, I clean the brush with soap and water and the masking fluid comes right out.  

I had been painting with watercolors for years before attending art school and had never heard of that before college.  Now I can use my old brushes like normal, but I can also use my good brushes for more refined detail work and don't have to worry about ruining them.  

I used masking fluid on the below painting to keep the lightest parts of the birds feathers.  

Happy Painting!!

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Gridding out tough subjects....

I use a grid method to get tough subjects, specifically portraits of people & wildlife looking right.  If you're painting someone you want them to look like them...just like if I'm painting a finch...I want it to look like a finch, not a warbler.  

I just make a grid on both my sketchbook or canvas and on the reference I'm using.  

Then I draw a line drawing, each square at a time.  When I'm done, I remove or paint over the grid lines.  This little guy was featured in one of the classes I teach. (Those of you in KY who took this class will remember this little guy.)

Are there other ways to do this?  Yep.  Are there better ways to do this?  Maybe, probably.  But when I don't have the option of "taking liberties" with a subject, I use photo references.  In art school, this was not allowed in my initial drawing classes....for good reason.  I needed to do the work so I could get better as an artist.  Now that I'm teaching and selling my work.  If I have a reference, I use it.  

Happy Painting!

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Blocking In....

I block in very roughly on most paintings.  Usually I go dull, then brighten up.  Sometimes though I put in colors that are brighter than the local color of a subject.  Case in point is this little portrait of a desert flower from Bryce Canyon.  The rocks there are amazing and this painting is about the ledge and the flower.  In the foreground, I put the pinks a little brighter and deeper than they read to me.  Then when I completed the painting, some of that brightness comes through.  Just enough to bring out the wonderful shades in the formations.

You can see the bright red of the rock underneath the plant.  It's more understated in reality, but when I put in my final darks and lights, enough of it shines though to intensify those cracks.

I knew I wanted that red banding and to ensure I didn't wash it out too much in the final painting, I push it in the block in.
Happy Painting!!!


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