- Lesson details
- Transcript
- Instructor
- Charles Hu
- Subjects
- Painting
- Topics
- Composition, Design, Human Figure, Landscape, Light & Color
- Mediums
- Oil Paints
- Duration
- 1h 56m 48s
- Series
- Introduction to Oil Painting for Beginners
Learn the fundamentals of oil painting with acclaimed artist and instructor Charles Hu.
This course breaks down the entire process of oil painting and is intended for beginning and experienced artists alike. Charles explains the important concepts of gesture, shape design, and composition. You will also learn what materials are needed, how to get set up, and the techniques used to apply paint.
After taking this course, you will be on your way to oil painting from life using a variety of different subjects and palettes.
In this lesson, Charles paints a live model in an outdoor environment. You will learn which elements are important to capture when time is constrained by changing light conditions.
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DiscussLaguna College of Art and Design. They're really kind letting us
to do this recording and we have this beautiful model, her name's Aurora
so we're doing an outdoor costume. I'm really excited. You guys
know most of the recording we've done so far is indoor
so I got a lot of interesting things we can talk about.
So let me just get started because since we're working on the outdoor we
got a time limit because the light changes pretty much every 15 minutes.
So we need to kinda get
get to it. So let me get the lay in
done. And then because, again, it probably looks like I only got maybe two hours
usually when you do outdoor paintings you got about two and half hours.
wanna go anything larger than that. And most of the time when I do landscape
I'm actually doing a lot of just on 8 by 10 canvases
which, you know, like I said those are quick
and mostly what I'm doing is almost like a color
comp. And then you take that back
to the studio and then to kinda to finish it up.
And then also
this is still our standard pallet for what we have been doing but
if I'm doing more of a true outdoor landscape
I'm actually have a little different pallet than this. Most of the colors are the same, I have
one more additional green and then instead of alizarin crimson I will use a
quinacridone red. It's more a little bit
purplish color than alizarin - a little bit more purple than
alizarin crimson.
(painting)
On location you're probably gonna see we swing my
hand because there's bugs around me. Even though I put the
bug repellent on me, they still chase after
you.
Okay so like I said I'm just gonna kinda treat
it as a comp.
(painting)
I love doing outdoor
because actually you learn
how to design the shape, design the,
you know, trying to achieve the
aerial perspective and then
also you got beautiful colors outdoor than indoor.
(painting)
Bugs.
(painting)
And then you notice I work on the white canvas.
You don't have to. I can tint a light yellowish color
if I want to and I - or yellowish green
that can work well too. But normally when I
work outdoor I don't think dark color because that's gonna
pollute all the beautiful, vibrant color that I have.
And something lighter
almost is like, imagine working
as a watercolor.
(painting)
You can see my drawing's not super tight.
(painting)
Well partly because I want to be able
to paint around it and paint into it and sculpt out
the shape because one of the benefits of costume is it's all about
shape. If you're painting nude obviously there's proportion issues
I have to be concerned about. But for costume it just, to me
they're just geometric shapes and then it's a curve
tube, it's a triangle, it's an oval.
(painting)
Diagonal relationship.
(painting)
I see some a little warm
I can really kinda sneak in some of those warms.
(painting)
I'm mostly - she's in the shadow,
I got little lights here, little lights there. That's all gonna change
and, like I said, in 10, 15 minutes.
And then
actually the way I'm setting up now in terms of my palette and my tools, this is not
a true - obviously it's not a true landscape set up. I think later
in the future I would like to do a landscape,
a tutorial, then I'll have more of a true landscape set up
because then you've always
you know, bring different stuff
and then...
(painting)
I love that tree trunk, this is
a, you know, you guys probably can't see the white shadow
this view. You got this beautiful historical sycamore trees
that are just laying horizontally, that's crazy.
Just grow out reclining on this grass field,
it's just epic, just beautiful.
(painting)
See I like this tree coming in, into her arm,
come up on her back, little stains. Probably
comes down, flows down.
(painting)
Got a silhouette, see how the
transitions. Got this darker
trunk,
slightly decayed,
that flows right away from
like behind her.
Be aware of this open space.
(painting)
Thicker, thinner.
(painting)
And then so I got my gesture, I'm always about gesture. I
first of all I love this open space right here which is gonna be all lush and green
and then let me finish out this part.
(painting)
This is gonna go out
(painting)
I like this - this tree trunk
right here. That almost like rooftop that carries over
that kinda frames her head, that goes this beautiful lush green
sometimes what you can do, again like
I can wash usually on landscape
I like to wash the most intense color first
(painting)
because
we're gonna start painting - one thing you wanna bring
when you go out landscape is a plastic bag because you don't wanna throw your
trash into nature, you wanna make sure
you have a bag collecting all your trash. Because I like
to start washing some of the intense colors and later
you can add the darker color on top of it, that way the intense color
still can transcend and glow underneath and
won't get polluted and you still have more have a pure color.
More intense, pure color.
(painting)
Another thing about nature is you just kinda have to cheat it
because there's so much information up there you just have to learn how to
group them, how to take things out. Putting things that will
benefit with your compositions. Like there's a lot of stuff I see in the background.
There's other plants, there's like, you know, little
pebble, rocks, ground it looks like. I don't
care about those, all I care about is that graphic shape, the value difference
the gradation difference, worry about the light. I'm worried about the darker
head against that light glow, light background
set her face out.
(painting)
So now I'm actually painting the shadow part
on the grass. And why I'm doing that because I want a quick
as I can because things are gonna change no matter what
but I want to capture, I want the essence about the composition,
the flow, major things that I want the
painting, the composition, to say.
And I want this, like I said, I want that flow.
I like this flow, but then I want a shadow to counterbalance it back.
So I wanna put some shadow right here. Just right now, just, you know, things -
my kinda instinct what I want to do, I just
gonna put it down quick as I can.
(painting)
I could
choose this kinda dirty olive green shadows which again is
a shadow they just kinda is darker, you know, kinda,
you know, it's just kinda darker, looks like
it had a little bit of this kinda darker accents in the shadows
compared to light. Light you can tell is a lot more warmer, has a lot more
vibrant colors. So I have two choices I can make
and the choice is if I wanna keep this painting I want the color more vibrant,
more impressionist palette, then I would
probably wanna use this kinda indoor olive green. But
if you do want it to have more of that indoor
feel to it then maybe that olive green can work.
Which that olive green I think, let me - I will put it here first because
like I said the decayed tree,
we're gonna need a vibrant color to explain that
so I'm just gonna put that down here.
(painting)
And then put the stroke
follow with the gesture. And so sometimes the strokes
can just take care of things for you. Like if you see that's how the
trunk grows, just follow that.
(painting)
Sometimes like that
lighter part of the tree trunk two ways you can do it, obviously we can mix the lighter color
or in this case if I wanna get also,
keep it a little bit transparent, wanna sit back in the background a little bit because
this should come out, maybe I can even just do a wash.
(painting)
Or maybe just do this at the beginning.
Just to get the value and later maybe I'll physically
mix a color and paint that light side.
I don't like - right now I feel this
thickness kinda quite even. I don't like that because it doesn't feel like
this part's close to us so I'm gonna add a little bit.
See now this feels like more closer.
And I want this kinda twist, again, twist away
from us. I need a darker value down here.
(painting)
I think that's shadows.
Just beautiful.
(painting)
Wow I'll come back later. I feel like
I don't quite like this shape here.
Let's get that shadow right
here. I'm a little concerned because I'm kinda slowing down,
looking at the detail now which I wanna remind myself don't do that.
Still a lot of stuff I need to do.
(painting)
Back to
(painting)
again this shadow part, right. So like I said I can either use that
dirty olive green or I will mix this more of a
darker
green.
(painting)
That compared to this - see now that's -
that looks more, again, dirty black green versus that.
It's still a dark value of a green but that looks - has a little more of a
taste to it.
(painting)
So also when you paint
landscape, the lighter part is equally important
as the darker part, right, that means the highlight part is also important
than the shadow. How much you gonna
leave those light spaces you also have to aware of because, like
I said, those also can serve as a
visual guidance.
(painting)
How you want
the viewer to follow.
let's get the shadow down, get that
get the gesture of the shadow.
(painting)
Always think about graphic shapes.
(painting)
How much
light you want to leave.
(painting)
I think I'm gonna open this spot
a little bit. Earlier I said I wanna
have that almost like a frame rooftop over her head but I
feel a little too compressed on top. So I can still - I will still leave this
but I'm just gonna cut it out the canvas
and then bring it back in.
(painting)
Just get a little
bit of space above her head.
(painting)
Always make sure, you know, make sure
to avoid symmetry. So you have large space here, less space here.
(painting)
Some shadow in here.
(painting)
The shadow looks
of the distance has a little bit
intense, a little bit greener. The reason is because it's a little more open
back there. We see a little more sun and also
the leaves are more behind her so you get this beautiful - the light
actually shining through the yellow green leaves and also kinda transcend
onto the grass. Behind her you can notice is a little more -
has a little more yellow to it.
(painting)
My concern is always how the parts meet.
How this meets that skirt, dark against light.
(painting)
When you're painting outdoor, for landscape,
always one of the things most important, although we're not dealing with
too much of aerial perspective, but we still always want to have
an idea where's your horizon line, where's your vanishing point.
If you don't know what that is, go back to your perspective
lesson. Actually
Erik Olson he's actually one of the New Masters Academy
artists, recording artists. He did a
perspective tutorial, you guys can watch that.
Really you have to know where the horizon line
and where's the vanishing point because what you can do is
because if you know how the things convert, for example the shadow
back here, you can create it.
So make sure - so they can feel actually coming toward
the foreground.
(painting)
Usually on the outdoor
it depends on the environment too, usually you want to think about
how you want to key your colors means
how do you want to create your color harmony. Most of landscapes are harmonized by
the sky, which is blue. So you're gonna see a lot of blue. But in my
our case, we're pretty much in the shade
and we got the sky is blocked by the, you know, by the
leaves. So we got actually influenced a lot by greens. So this green
grass, leaves, that influence her. So kinda keep that
in our head. So if I'm not quite sure where I'm gonna go with the palette, I'll go back to my green.
you know keep that color harmonized. And then -
and of course the burnt sienna,
or the transparent red oxide it's this nice, rich earth -
nice rich earthy color. That is - I use that for some, you can see
some here. And that kinda keeps some of - if I just use straight out
the greens probably is gonna be too - can't - and then if I want earth, you know, kinda tone down
a little bit I add a little bit of that, that will kinda help, you know, create that more of an earthy
green versus this more of a yellow green.
So I can play with the temperature.
Obviously some of the shadow, you can just feel, has a little bit of warmth
to it and probably because I think just
the dead leaves on - that fall on the
ground that give that warmth.
(painting)
Make sure
to vary your strokes.
(painting)
Those are the leaves
I'm just kinda making marks so later I can just see
what I wanna do with them. Again
keep reminding myself I want to keep this as just a comp.
(painting)
And you guys probably notice I paint wetter than I paint
in the studio. Well part of the reason is because I didn't tone the
canvas, I paint straight on the white canvas so I don't have that,
you know, that wash, which you know if I do
which is gonna allow the paint to flow better. So in this case I have to, you know,
use more while - more of my gamsol while I'm putting my
paint down.
(painting)
Okay so I'm gonna paint this tree trunk which is pretty much in the shadows.
I'm actually gonna paint a little bit darker than I see it
so again I can have, you know, help to focus
onto her face and also making this feel
brighter.
(painting)
I'm gonna use a little bit of a gray
because overall the tree trunks
have some more gray to it.
(painting)
Again trying to bring that over, this is the
trunk goes back and then kinda - I wanna keep that lighter
because I wanna sit that back in the distance.
There's
several ways you can mix gray, okay, I have a black in my palette
which normally landscape artists they probably don't use black, they mix their own black
and then since I do have black
I just pretty much start with the black and white and it can obviously
I can quickly get to the gray. obviously this might not be the right gray for
you know for the temperature
then I can add, you know, the other colors
to it and you want a more purple gray
or green gray or more pink gray
then you start kinda adding those colors
accordingly.
(painting)
.So I'm kinda just deciding how the shape relationships
I'm not quite liking what is happening here
because this side here, see how they look very similar,
so I might change that later
but I'm not quite sure what to do at this point so I'm just gonna leave it. I'm gonna come over here.
I like some of these break kinda, these kinda breaks
and it's more clear
than this. This feels a little - at this point this feels a little kinda muddy.
So I'm just kinda leave that for no we'll come back later.
(painting)
One of the things
that's interesting about painting is you can take some
of the existing color that you mix somewhere else - and I do that all the time too,
it also helps create this harmony to the painting.
For example I was mixing somewhere over here.
You know somewhere over here I think is this color. This color somewhere up here. But I
noticed - next thing I noticed, I can put some of that into the shadow area. Obviously it's not
dark enough, I need to add more, you know, darker value
to it to help turn that trunk but I kinda liked it how
this kinda this grayish, you know, almost kinda warm, slightly warm grayish
color, that can be part of the, you know, the part that peel the
skin of the tree trunk that's kinda peeled off. Then I can add some of the
darker color over it and I think it will give a nice - again have
a nice contrast. So now I'm gonna - so basically
then I start trying to remix that color, reproduce that color I'm gonna paint over on this side.
Obviously here,
its value here,
is even darker so I'm gonna mix a little bit darker
warm, kinda warm color and
actually still kinda light
because that darker gray it kinda plays tricks on
you. So I'm gonna actually mix similar to that.
So again most concern is
the darker tree trunk
against the lighter dress, right, because you
don't want to end up - the trunk itself looks kinda light gray and but
then you don't wanna, you know, end up painting a light gray and then there's
no separation of a dress and the trees
so now I'm kinda setting it up.
(painting)
Actually this gray, up there, looks
a little bit - has a little bit pink and purple to it so I'm
gonna add a little bit of alizarin crimson.
Might be now it looks a little bit too
purple and I add a little bit of green.
(painting)
That's better.
(painting)
Okay I can
mix, push some of that yellow into this gray.
(painting)
And over here I
want to create more of a lighter gray which
maybe slightly greener, again because
we see a little more of the light on this - on the other side.
(painting)
Big stroke would be good, back we can come in
with big strokes. I don't mind showing a little of the canvas, that can be
charming too, a little bit of the canvas. As long as the value is right, relationship is right,
I even like that more than this side, this starts looking a little bit flatter.
Right. But of course later we're gonna paint that white pattern of the tree trunk
to give a little bit of interest to it.
But now I just wanted to get this done so I can set up
too for her dress.
Here it needs to be a little bit darker, much darker.
(painting)
So right now
my concern -
you see there's always concern, which
I don't like how her hand is so close to the bottom of the trunk. I can either, probably later I'll pick it - I can
move that hand, probably I might do that. Because now I also I want to see
what choice I should make. Should I make this lower, should I make the hand
higher. But I think I'll make that hand higher.
(painting)
But also by making this a little bit wider, again
feel it comes up, up, out to our eyesight a little more. And I do
want this to overlap this guy
in the back.
(painting)
Each stroke important shapes,
important, kinda leads, you know, leads
your eyes down here.
(painting)
Again try to
cover those canvases.
(painting)
A little bit bluer, purple gets out here.
It's - there's a little more sunlight over here. Here it just
a little about - I would say probably,
you know, the weaker sunlight that got a little more blocked by, you know,
by the leaves here has a little more - I could probably even push it a little bit yellower.
But I just wanted to right now, again, to make sure all my shapes,
my light and darker, they all kinda work, kinda gesturally.
(painting)
So you don't want this light to push - come out too much.
Make it a little bit cooler and we can kinda mix, make it a little more
obvious. So let's say I wanna mix it a grayer green.
How do you mix grayer green? You add green with red, right, the complimentary
color you get a gray, right, that way that gray already has a green in it.
And you add a little more green, a little bit of a yellow
(painting)
that becomes a green light in this case.
(painting)
Tint her dress with this, again, this kinda
non color because it's kinda like a cream color right
I know it's gonna be - looking at the palette I know it's gonna be somewhere
in this. I just need to - you probably can't see my
palette but I'm just gonna mix this kinda cream color just
for a wash. But I'm gonna gear
to a little bit blue because she's in shadow, right, probably you know,
probably blue would be, you know, will be better to
explain shadow than orange, right. So I'm gonna, even
though I'm gonna wash, I'm gonna wash this probably not blue enough
so blue, purple,
but I don't want to get it too purple because I want it to,
you know, I'm thinking impressionistly but I don't wanna get it too
saturated color. The one other thing is about
sometimes the impressionist artists, they get
too excited and caught up with all the vibrant colors so
and then sometimes their paintings start looking a little too sweet.
And what happens is then we don't get that
value difference. A lot of times just - even here to start, you know
later I still have to organize, to set things up or
push things back.
Make it slightly
purpler, bluer.
(painting)
Keep it light.
(painting)
Got light here so I'm gonna say, you know, I'm gonna
save that.
(painting)
Here that's just in shadows, I can paint a little bit of...
(painting)
A little bit yellower.
Looks like.
(painting)
Here's really bright.
(painting)
Down here
I'm gonna use a tint of green.
(painting)
gonna probably disappear in probably twenty minutes.
So I like these lights to be right here because that kind of
contrasts nicely with that bucket. So I wanted to
you know to save that.
(painting)
Okay when I get to down here it gets a little bit greener on her skirt.
It gets more of the grass.
But right now I wanna make sure I get the whole silhouette in.
You got light on this side, shadow
on the front.
(painting)
That triangle coming down like this. So I wanted to kinda force that gesture.
I need to make it lighter here.
(painting)
A lot of times
the light doesn't seem lighter, it's not
because you're not adding enough white to it. If you, you know,
able to see my palette, I can't get any more lighter than that unless I use a pure white.
But that's not pure white up there, it's a yellowish light. So that
means I can't go any more lighter than that. So to make that -
make it feel lighter, of course you guys already know, we have to make the surrounding
darker, right. So I will make that tree trunk darker to help
to show her shoulder and also here I need to make it a little bit darker
as well and I will put that cast shadows underneath that bucket.
That's gonna help to pop.
(painting)
Go back to my gray area.
(painting)
See how that - right now
it pops up that shoulder right away.
(painting)
Earlier I said I don't like this spot right here. I'm gonna
open this up.
(painting)
So I just have that little corner
of the bottom tree trunk. I think that works better. I like this triangle.
(painting)
Leave out, I'll indicate that later. Verify that more. And I will
see this kinda nice
(painting)
dark green
coming around her face. I'll paint her face first and I'll
get the dark green to help set her face up. let me get this
thing in there first.
Whoops.
(painting)
Paint her
hands right here.
(painting)
In this case I'll
also block in her face too.
(painting)
This hand also looks cooler because this, again, it's
got blocked by the tree trunk. See where I wanna put it. I think it looks like
her hand is right here. So I'll probably just put it right there.
As long as it's lower than her face it'll be okay.
(painting)
Get
the shape in there first. Again I can paint the darker trunk around it
to carve out the hand.
(painting)
Soften some of those edges.
Break into the collar.
I got some highlight caught on top of the cheekbone.
I had to keep in mind her face is still in shadows so you don't wanna make the highlight too
probably too strong
(painting)
Shadow part of the
that shoulder part of her sleeve.
(painting)
Like all the light comes in there.
(painting)
Now there's more light now I need to try to capture that
moment, like I said, is gonna be gone. Like this part is all gone now.
And then probably after, you know, sometimes that's the
thing with painting outdoors, sometimes maybe after
an hour, half an hour, sometimes the light will come right over your
palette and then your palette got all, you know, that light is all kinda
shines across your palette and you start - also you have to figure out
how to paint around that.
(painting)
Again I wanna keep reminding myself time is
limited. This is just gonna be a color study, don't render.
Just a paint note.
(painting)
And
I think maybe those bugs that keep
bothering me that might help because it makes me want to get out here and paint faster
because it's very, you can tell, it's very
annoying.
Big strokes.
(painting)
I'll paint that shadow on that side of the sleeve, that might be a little
bit too green. I'm gonna add a little bit of the yellow.
(painting)
It's not even green up there, it's just almost -
it looks kinda slightly grayish color too. But
seeing some of the dress and stuff is kinda gray, I want my shadow to have a little bit
of color to it.
(painting)
I like how that light goes across her,
gives a sense of that bulge of her, like her upper torso.
(painting)
Sometimes the shape can be a little bit
wild, sometimes you wanna slow down to really
control that shape.
(painting)
Control the value.
(painting)
Switch out brushes.
What I was using, I was using these flat brushes here, I don't even know what the hair is
but I just recently got it.
But it probably is not those synthetic brushes but
I noticed one thing, the brush strokes tend look all kinda the same. It gives you a nice,
again it has a nice softness to it, so it kinda lays the paint nice -
kinda nice and smooth. Sometimes these hard brushes
they get hard and sometimes when you try to put it down it just kinda
picks up, you know, picks up the paint. Especially when it gets old. If it's new
it's still soft this will be okay but so
I have a variety of different brushes, soft brushes and these hard brushes. But these soft
brushes tend to have kinda similar strokes then I want to,
like I said, switch it up.
Especially if you wanna paint a
large area, definitely want to
switch it up.
(painting)
So again
I was painting this dark green here,
this is not even green up there of course but the reason why because I
wanna show that obviously her, you know, the silhouette of her dress,
So once I'm painting that and I'm coming over on this side
I noticed I need to paint this area darker.
I'm always painting with a ribbon. The same as you draw, I go right and I go left. And notice
I need to paint this part darker to set up, also kinda
set off her dress and also what's nice it can also set up that sleeve part
so I have to be more careful, come over,
paint that - basically carve that out
right. See paint it
flat. And all those, sometimes, all that paint I put down
at the beginning, you can leave some showing through.
I kinda again give a nice, have a nice
transparency to it. Some actually - some of these become light now.
It was supposed to be, you know, shadow at the beginning, now it can be, you know,
some other little light showing underneath. Again that's gonna give it a nice, that translucent feel
to it. But most importantly is how that graphic
shape relates, right.
(painting)
And then this stroke right here.
it flows with this bucket right here.
like this. And
it's up to you. You can decide to paint this nice and smoothly
and blend it in or maybe you can leave it impressionist like this, as long
as again I've already got my point, I already set this up and set this up, I already
get my rhythm, get my flow. Today if I stand back, 20 feet away,
I still get these gradations. Right. Maybe as a color comp
which is what we're doing now, maybe we can just leave it like this.
obviously the more time you spend
on the paintings, the more opaque the paint
is gonna get. Everything starts off more wash, you know, like I said
the paint gets more opaque so the paint lays onto the canvas.
You don't wanna be too wash because otherwise, like I said, it's just gonna be
a - you want the wash to show through in some degree, like I said
it can have charm to it. But then it just feels like it's just floating. The whole painting
just kinda, there's no ground to it.
(painting)
Again I want to
bring out that dress.
And now I see some of that green grass is over here too.
But I need to compare to her head,
look at this negative space
see where's the best place to put.
(painting)
Vary, change the temperature a little bit. Don't always use the same green. Add a little bit
of burnt sienna, warm that up a little bit.
(painting)
Change the stroke a little bit.
Blend it in, mix it a little bit, create a little bit different texture.
That's the fun thing about landscape.
(painting)
Let's move around to find
a part that I can anchor. This feels too
broken up maybe.
(painting)
And also it's fine to
layer a color. That's what I have before, that lighter gray.
Now I put that green, dark green, on top of it.
(painting)
I'm gonna get some little stronger contrast in here.
(painting)
Set up,
get those very dark values, set them up.
(painting)
Still need to be
concerned. Don't wanna take too much attention off her.
(painting)
Some
simple, some broken up.
We think about
sometimes you can - well sometimes you can just
slap strokes on there. But most of the time you probably want to
know how the strokes and how the shape benefits.
(painting)
Just again just tuning.
Keep it graphic.
(painting)
Sets up her face.
(painting)
Now I wanna leave those so
I'm gonna paint some of these
green a little more. I added a little bit yellow ochre, which has a little
white to it so it just feels a little bit slightly grayer.
(painting)
There's the light side of the branch.
(painting)
Now
today this is an 8 by 10.
This can work just as it is, as a color comp.
I blocked in pretty much all my field, my background, my foreground.
you know. and how she's kinda
setting her off from the environment. If I stand back,
stand way back, the painting kinda reads nicely in terms of
contrast. And as a color comp this, you know, this could work.
And small comp like this could work.
(painting)
And somewhat, most - some of my painting this
side is most the part that I
maybe the stage I love the most. It's just fresh, graphic,
spontaneous, not overworked.
But if you, you know, if you do have a little time
gonna keep working on this a little more to refine things a little bit and
hopefully we can still retain
some of those freshness.
(painting)
I want this to echo to that hair.
(painting)
Take some of that color, paint somewhere else.
(painting)
So you don't need to remind
color, just keep that harmonized.
(painting)
Mix back to my gray.
(painting)
I want to mix a fresh pile because
everything here is all
kinda mixed together. I can come up on here,
it's fine because I have my gray family here but I don't want
to take out the green area because green is gonna be dominant
color in this painting so I wanna have enough area for my green
mix.
(painting)
See all the bugs.
They're probably telling me
let's get it done. This is good. You shoulda stopped.
That's one
of the challenging questions for artists is when to stop and
(painting)
like I said I, you know,
probably what I'm gonna be doing now I'm just gonna screw up more of my painting
so I have to, you know, if my concept today is -
it's more about
you know getting the big information, which I think already did, I can
be happy with this. i can take this home and look at it, I can feel what's happening today.
And then
I can take picture reference of the model if I wanna do a larger
version of this I can still, based on what I did here, I could feel
physically here, even when I work in the studio
it's all the memories here I still would translate over.
(painting)
But
you have to physically
come in, involve yourself into
the nature. Because there's small nuances that just you can't
get from picture reference because picture reference tends to flatten things out as we know.
So if you, today especially if you want to paint water
there's no way you're gonna get that translucency or
the sense of water if you're just, you know, always painting from
picture reference. You really got to physically stand in front of the
water just to study the reflections, to study transparency, the color
variations, the ripple, all that.
The reflected light, the highlight on the ripple
you have to really immerse yourself in it and really
to study it and then you can be able to do it in your studio.
Actually I got that from a personal friends he's a
tremendous landscape artist, his name is Tim Solliday, he told me that because one time
I was showing him my paintings that I did, which
I'm, you know, painting mostly indoor at that time,
he saw my work and he just right away noticed
that water was done inside the studio and that's why he wanted me to
go out more. That was great.
That was great advice I got, but at that time
there wasn't that many bugs
as today.
(painting)
I'm gonna just pop out some highlights on her dress.
and then I
you know think I now just leave it like this.
(painting)
in some of the highlight and then like I said that highlight - those
sparks of highlight can also create this
rhythm, you know, again it's that visual
guidance. How you want the viewer to read.
So first of all let's get some highlight on her
dress first.
(painting)
Again change your temperature a little bit.
A little bit yellow here.
(painting)
Very bright here.
(painting)
Which I wanna use a
switch to another brush.
This big brush.
(painting)
I switched
to my filbert brushes. Most of the brush was done
throughout the paintings, most are flat brushes
again it covers the ground,
you know, it covers the ground
wider, more, and then so it allows you to think of
paint more graphically, think of more of the shapes and directions. Directions and gestures.
Filbert brushes will give you more unique shapes.
(painting)
I'm gonna clean here a little bit, that sleeve when it gets down
to here it kinda broken up.
(painting)
Again last touch of things.
Get a little bit of - again I'm
trying to tighten up my darks.
(painting)
Anyway I should stop.
Because right now, like I said, what I'm gonna be
continue doing now is just a refining
my elements but I, you know, that's not the purpose of
this tutorial. I wanna show you guys how to design
a painting and how to block in
as an outdoor, beside how to block in a painting
in terms of composition wise and gesture wise, and also learn how to
construct your value structures and also play with your color
temperatures and also know that you can paint thin and also
build opaque over on top and play with
color temperature versus intensity and also important when you stand back
and the painting is still able to read well. Okay, so
hopefully you guys will get
those ideas out of these lessons
and make sure to bring bug repellent when you go out and paint.
Aurora and also Laguna College of Art and Design
letting us use this wonderful, beautiful space. We wouldn't
be able to do it without their okay. So
hopefully you guys get a lot out of this
tutorial. Like I said I love outdoor painting, sometimes even more than
indoor although that's more of a studio painting but like I said you learn more
of design by doing outdoor.
Studio painting is more about draftsmanship and getting proportion,
value right. But outdoor you have to compose, it's more involved with
compose, aerial perspective, you have to understand how to
design and painting both with, you know, with color and
with shapes and also with gesture. Okay, so
again like I said please make sure you bring your bug spray because
I probably got a lot of protein by doing this painting.
Okay, so thank you guys for watching this
and I'll see you guys next time.
want you guys to paint landscape. Okay so same thing,
take your 16 by 20 canvases and tape them, divide into 6 frames, or
you can go out and buy, you know, small canvases if you want.
Take your easel out, hopefully you have a pullover easel
go out to, you know, it can be backyard it doesn't have to be
anywhere fancy it can be just your backyard. But I do want you to
paint from life. Because the thing with landscape, the photo is not gonna make the adjustment.
You have to really go out and get a sense of the real light in
the environment and then, like I said, do six studies only painting the landscape.
Okay. Good luck.
Free to try
Watch the whole lesson with a subscription
-
21m 39s
2. Laying in the Composition -
17m 43s
3. Lights, Shadows, and Graphic Shapes -
14m 9s
4. Setting Up For Subtle Color Separation -
24m 51s
5. Finalizing the Graphic Shapes -
24m 38s
6. Pushing and Tuning Color -
10m 50s
7. Highlights and Visual Guidance -
1m 9s
8. Final Notes -
52s
9. Assignment Instructions
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