Graduation Advice please
Niall
First off I must thank you guys (You know who you are)
for answering my questions regularly
I am probably one of the most enthusiastic people
on the group (Due to my learner status!)
and am always very grateful for your input.
Anyway here I go again!
I want to do a painting with the effect of a tunnel.
So basically i want to blend from the foreground colour
back to a very dark colour, giving the distance effect
I primarily use acylics but also oils on top sometimes
for smoother stuff. It was tricky in the acrylics to
get smooth blends.
Should I use a thin wash of the desired dark colour
and layer and layer, or should I use a blend of the
foreground colour and the desired dark colour and
add the darkness gradually
Any tips? Advice on either medium welcome!
TIA
Niall
Artboy from Oz
Two methods come to mind:
One, you can mix all the major tones between light and dark, apply them as concentric circles from
mouth of tunnel to the dark bit, or however you want it. Then use a fan brush or big soft dry brush
and work the paint from light to dark. This is a method I've seen in articles....I'm too impatient
to try it myself.
Two, put down your basic shapes and colours, then glaze your deeper tones in, putting more coats of
glaze towards the dark bit. This would be better with acrylics....you'd grow old waiting for oils
to dry.
All this from a bloke who uses pencils and pastel.
Let's know if any of this works.
Cheers,
Greg
Bedges
that would work fine with oils, but impatient or not, you'd have to
paint like the Roadrunner to get acrylics to behave properly. still a
good method, though.
> Two, put down your basic shapes and colours, then glaze your deeper tones in, >putting more coats of glaze towards the dark bit. This would be better with >acrylics....you'd grow old waiting for oils to dry.
absolutely - this would be my advice too, although as you mentioned
you use both, i'd lay down the initial tonal variations in acrylic,
without worrying about the colour too much. then use oil glazes on top
for that smooth, coloured finish.
blending with acrylics is a subject i had to tackle a while back. for
large areas, get yourself a garden spraygun for misting plants, or a
thoroughly cleaned detergent sprayer. make sure it's one that gives a
fairly fine mist. then you just lay down your bands of (fairly thick)
acrylic paints, and spray 'n' blend, spray 'n' blend until it's all
smooth. this works equally well with smaller areas, adding clean water
with a smaller brush, but when you get down to hair-on-a-stick sized
areas, control is very very difficult.
you might try the pointilist(?) technique - lay down the main tones,
then at the edges, just sort of fray the boundaries. let the viewers'
eyes do all the work for a change...
acrylics obviously have their own qualities, but being a water-based
medium, they tend to favour watercolour treatment. subtle use of
washes and wet-in-wet blends can give really rich, dark and vibrant
tones while being soft-edged. again, quite hard to control.
it sounds patronising, but only practice will give you the knowledge
about how to pull a certain effect off.
personally, i'd just cheat and do it in Photoshop...
Artboy from Oz
required, although I've used jar colours successfully that way.
I do find that, if you go crazy with the water, the binder tends to break down and it all turns to
soup.
A useful thing I discovered...I use the lid of a plastic icecream container for a pallette and keep
an inch or so of water in the tub, then place the lid back with the paint facing down.
It'll keep for weeks.
Greg
Niall
Thanks for the advice
I tried both methods on the acrylics last night
While practising, I used Burnt Umber to Cad yellow.
I mixed four variations and it worked Ok
I found the blending still a bit tricky though
I used "X" strokes with a dry brush over the join
The speed of work required was a bit scary
Maybe a job for drying retarder!
The wash style was trickier as my brush left
heavy lines on the edges of the stroke
Wrong Brushes? Paint too thin?
I also loaded a flat brush half with each colour
and made a stroke, then went back & forth over it
which had a surprisingly good result
I didnt think it would work, but they behaved
reasonably well.
Maybe an acrylic base with oil blends is the way to go
Anyway it was a good exercise for me.
Thanks
Niall
"Artboy from Oz" <greg@NO_ONE_HOME_gregsart.com> wrote in message
news:3d2ad658...@news.optusnet.com.au...
Artboy from Oz
I use camel or sable if I can afford them, or a nice alternative is taklon,a synthetic fibre, nice
and soft. This might give you more control.
Cheers,
Greg
Niall
I did use a cheapo synthetic sable w'colour brush
I assumed that a hog would leave brush marks.
(See, I am learning something!!!)
I want to lay this with no brush characteristics
I will try a better acrylics brush that I have later
Cheers
Niall
"Artboy from Oz" <greg@NO_ONE_HOME_gregsart.com> wrote in message
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Artboy from Oz
Good luck to you.
Greg
Niall
Im hoping to be famous or wealthy, or both
before I'm dead! ;-)
But seriously, Its my nature, I really get into my interests,
I feel I get the most from them by researching and being enthusiatic
and trying to excel at them
Only problem is that I often get into something, milk it, and
then on to something else!
The painting should last though as it is fascinating and the fact that
Im self-taught makes discovering new things even more rewarding
I have always been into Creative things
Hobbies: Guitar, Songwriting & music Composition, Cooking,
Gardening, Graphics, Interior Design, Painting (Recently)
Golf (Odd one out)
Emailing alt.art while I should be working ;-)
Oooops, here comes the boss!!!
Niall
"Artboy from Oz" <greg@NO_ONE_HOME_gregsart.com> wrote in message
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