Day V

Day five was exciting. We learned more about color and how to get the effects we want with it. There are tubes of paint in our composition and we learned how to put the under coat for silver in and how to correct compositional faux paux.

To make the under coat for silver, mix orange, cerulean and just a bit of white. This is also good for the shadows and for the inside of the cup and the silver caps for the brushes. If you need to grey out ochre just add blue or red.For the brushes we used yellow and dark blue and orange and a hint of alizarin crimson.

We were able to further develop the bottom book color. It was fun and frustrating. I am still unlearning things from acrylic and I find myself holding my breath trying not to beat the paint from drying out. Time is always a factor when painting in acrylics and it is a luxury to know with oil I have plenty of time.

The book got a treatment of cad red, yellow ochre, ceruelan blue. We worked wet into wet and worked from dark to light. Once that was done we mixed a bit of yellow and orange into the darker mixture and  added a middle tone. We held our brushes at a sideways edge and brushed the color in wiping our brushe with each stroke. Then we added a little more organge, ochre and white( a very little white since white can dull a color). There is a little jot of color under the edge of the book that is stacked on the one we were working and it was amazing what that little lighter stroke did for the book. Finally we added even more yellow and orange and red and tiny bit of white and worked the lightest areas. The book looks like a book, which is all anyone can ask for.

In learning about composition we learned there were four ways to achieve leading someone's eye.

They are:

Brightest color in the composition,

Most detailed area of the composition,

All points and lines lead to the object one wants to focus the eye on,

Lightest source placed next to the darkest source.

I have learned more in five classes than I learned in all my self-learning. 

 

 

Day four of Painting I

Mixing much mixing of colors. No more guess work of what will brighten and what will grey a  color. The color wheel is our friend dear ones.

We worked on the books and the canister, and vase of our composition. And the pages got thier own treatment as well. The bottom book received cad orange, cerulean blue and yellow ochre. This made a orangey color rather like my copy of "The Nile" by Emil Ludwig. Then the red book got a reddish mixture that was dulled with a bit (tiny) blue. Because red and blue are opposites. To dull green one uses red.To get black we mixed cad yellow and ultramarine and alizarin crimson. This was for the books that were blackish in color. Now for the pages and the canister: we mixed orange, ultramarine blue, aand white. Note to self start with white and orange other wise one uses too much blue and get green. We were then shown how to get our vase looking like a vase(more or less). Using the greyish brownish color of the canister and book pages we added the merest hint of dark blue and put in the shadows. Adding white to this mixture we put in the lighter areas and were show how to drag into the darker color and thereby mix the intermediate shades right onto the canvas. The trick is to clean your brush after each drag! The mysteries are unfolding and i am quite pleased to finally be able to paint( sort of) in oils. Wonder what next class will bring and will I succeed in grasping it?

The picture from day 3 of class

Day III Painting

I love the smell of mineral spirits.
Today we learned how to check our proportions on our still life. First we got a thin paintbrush. A fat one will be misleading.Then we measured at arms length how big the model's head is. From the tip of his chin to the top of is head. Our wooden model doesn't have a name. I think it should be Winston.Using that as a guide we coounted down the length of the body and then did the same with our painting. The two measurements should match if not then the proportions could very well be off.
Then happy day we got to block in adn firm up the lines on some of our objects. The wooden model, canister ect. I accidentally blocked with large strokes instead of drawing the model. Whoops.
Finally a little color. using ultramarine and orange we made a odd grey blue color. This we used to block in our cup. Then we applied the same to the background. The drapery got a coat of  the blue with the addition of alizarin crimson. Saitsfyingly rich. There is a box in the still life and that got an application of ochre, organge and touch of blue. The man also got a little white. It is starting to look like a painting. Our glorious leader says if we dont like it we are doing it right. Then mine is a masterpiece in the tradition of finger painter everywhere.
The colors we squeezed onto our palettes were alizarin crimson, cerulean blue, ultramarine blue, red, yellow, yellow ochre, cadmium orange, and white. The siena we had there already.
I also started a another painting to fill in the odd corners of time. I think he will be a Green Man. Then again maybe he won't.

Day Two of Painting I

I feel like I have been waiting to paint in oils my whole life. I am so excited. It is so different from acrylic. I even like the smell.
The class is demonstration style and there is a definite step by step process.
1. Gesso the canvas using broad loose strokes. Note: do not put on too thick or it will take a long time to dry.
2. We made a view finder which helps tremendously in composition . Little L-shaped pieces of paper to narrow your world to a small section of a still life.
3. We squeezed a small bit of burnt siena onto a freezer paper palette and using lots of mineral spirits we toned our canvases. Which means get rid of the distracting white.
4. Using view finder we were to make 'notes' of the positions of the objects set up for our still life.
5. Then we loosely blocked in our compostions and they looked like weird abstract pieces. Some looked like rock formations, others like city scapes of unknown origin.
6.If there are problems we could erase with a bit of mineral spirits and it was like magick.
7. We worked mainly on the books and the canister on the next step.
8. Ms. Aycock took us step by step and showed us how to make the next move forward. She took the drama out but not the excitement.




I canot wait until the next class.

Still Life First Day