How to Loosen up your Acrylic Paintings – Impressionistic Apples Tutorial

How to Loosen up your Acrylic Paintings - Impressionistic Apples Tutorial

Morning class, this week we’re going to look at how to paint fast and loose with your acrylics in this two-part apple study.
I get lots of emails from students who want to develop a more painterly impressionistic style but find when using a photo reference; they get too obsessed with the details, and the whole piece gets a bit overworked.

So in the first lesson of this two-part still life, I approach the drawing out of our apples in a bit more detail. The method I demonstrate is sometimes called ‘Envelope Drawing’ and is an approach that helps you to draw something more accurately.

In the second lesson, we approach the painting without pre-mixing the colours using our intuition and being a bit looser with our brush marks I’ve used a limited palette and simple painterly techniques with just two brushes and four colours.

Why are we drawing more accurately when we want to paint looser?

Well, it depends.

It depends on your skill level of drawing.

If you’re pretty good at drawing, then ideally you’d go straight in with your paintbrush and draw and paint at the same time, so you’re essentially drawing with your brush. That’s how you get the loosest, freshest paintings.

But if you’re a complete beginner, then spending the time getting the drawing accurate is a more failsafe way of creating a painting that looks loose but captures the subject. It gives you the confidence to paint more loosely knowing you’ve got a good structure underneath.

I paint this study with acrylics, but you could also use water-mixable oils.

So grab a brew, a couple of biscuits, and you can download a reference image below to follow along with the video.

How to paint loose with Acrylics – Part 1 – Drawing

How to paint loose with Acrylics – Part 2 – Painting

Downloading the reference photograph

The photo below can be downloaded, so you can use it as a reference image, print it out and follow along with the steps below.

How to Loosen up your Acrylic Paintings - Impressionistic Apples Tutorial

You can download a larger 30 x 30 cm version of the image here.

Materials you will need:

  • 30 x 30cm canvas or board or you could work on a smaller square

Paints:

I use Artist Quality acrylics but you follow along with any brand.

For the coloured ground:

  • Raw Umber (Golden Paints)
  • Ultramarine Blue (Golden Paints)
  • Titanium White (Golden Paints)

For the painting:

  • Titanium White (Golden Paints)
  • Cadmium Yellow Light (Golden Paints)
  • Ultramarine Blue (Golden Paints)
  • Burnt Umber (Winsor & Newton)

Brushes:

  • Isacryl Filbert, 6572, Size 6 (Isabey)
  • Small round synthetic (any brand is fine)
  • 1 1/2 inch XL Elite Monarch decorators brush (Purdy)

Extra tools

  • An HB Pencil – (I use a Kuru Toga Roulette Mechanical Pencil 0.5mm Uniball)
  • An Eraser – (I use a Putty Eraser by Faber Castell)
  • Burnt Umber chisel nib acrylic marker (Liquitex)
  • Delacroix Charcoal & Pencil fixative (Sennelier)
  • Acrylic Glazing Liquid Gloss (Golden Paints)
  • Palette Knife (I use a diamond shape size 45 by RGM)
  • Metal dipper or small pot for mediums
  • Jam Jar for water

I’m using a 30 x 30 cm cotton canvas and I toned my canvas by applying a diluted grey mix that matched the colour of the linen in the reference image.

A coloured ground helps to take away the glare of the white canvas and gives me a head start – if you want to learn more about the benefits of painting on a coloured ground see: How a prepared canvas can drastically improve your paintings

Line drawing

Here is the line reference image from the end of Part 1.

How to Loosen up your Acrylic Paintings - Impressionistic Apples Tutorial

 You can download a larger 20 x 20cm image of the line drawing here:

Finished Painting

How to Loosen up your Acrylic Paintings - Impressionistic Apples Tutorial

I really hope you enjoy the lesson, have a great festive week!

Cheers,

Will

 

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Thanksgiving Thanks!

Thanksgiving Thanks!

In the spirit of Thanksgiving, I’ve been reflecting on all the positivity and creativity that has come through the Art School blog this year.

It has been such a hugely challenging time for us all, and it’s been so uplifting to hear about students that found painting a positive focus during lockdown.

It puts my day on a real high when I open my mailbox to see beginners painting successes, the progress that students make daily is fantastic; you are all such an inspiration!

Have a great weekend,

Will

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Acrylic Painting Tutorial – Fishing Boats in St Ives Harbour

fishing-boats-st-ives

Longing for the sea during lockdown, I decided to have a look through some of my old travel photos from trips around the coast.

sketches-for-fishing-boat

I did a few thumbnail sketches looking at different images; I liked the diagonal composition in the first sketch. I used an Acrylic Marker by Daler Rowney (FW Marker) filled with Sepia High flow acrylic (Golden Paints).

I settled on an image looking down on some fishing boats, moored in the harbour of St Ives, Cornwall.

You can download a reference image below to follow along with this acrylic lesson, hope you enjoy it!

Continue Reading Acrylic Painting Tutorial – Fishing Boats in St Ives Harbour

New! Absolute Beginners Water-Mixable Oils Course

water-mixable-oil-course-beginners-600

New! Absolute Beginners Water-Mixable Oils Course

Have you ever fancied trying Traditional Oil paints but the thought of using strong-smelling solvents in a small room put you off?

Then you might find that Water-Mixable Oils are a perfect balance – the blending time of oils with the super easy clean up of water.

Water-mixable oils are real oils, they are water mixable, not water-based. They can be mixed and applied using the same techniques as traditional oils but whilst wet they can be removed from brushes and palettes with soap and water rather than using a solvent.

Don’t water and oil repel each other?

Well, yes they do. But water-mixable oils have an added ingredient that acts as an emulsifier, so the oil droplets are suspended within the water.

Water-mixable oils are relatively new to the market so I wanted to create this new Absolute Beginners Water-Mixable Oil Painting Course, to address some of the most commonly asked questions and help aspiring oil painters understand the theory and practice of painting in this medium.

Water-mixable oil paints can be mixed with water, low odour mediums or natural drying oils so if you paint in an enclosed space without good ventilation or you’ve developed a sensitivity to turpentine, working in a fume-free painting environment makes them really appealing.

They have a lovely buttery consistency, a long working time which enables you to make changes over a longer period of time, blending colours, adjusting shapes, or working wet-into-wet with thick impasto marks.

What does the Water-Mixable Oil Course Cover?

On this course, we’ll cover the best oil techniques to use, the different mediums and levels of sensitivity of some products that have been specially developed, so you can take a safe approach for you.

With over 5+ hours of tuition, you’ll slowly and methodically be introduced to the theory and practice of painting in water-mixable oils.

The course covers materials and setup, absolute beginner basics, moving on to more advanced classical oil painting methods from underpainting to impasto. I want you to fully understand fat over lean, know when to work alla prima or indirect – practice palette knife techniques and introduce classical oil mediums.

And also oils can get messy! So throughout this course, you’ll see me demonstrating clean working methods.

You’ll complete 3 paintings tutorials, with downloadable reference images for you to work along from and each look at different techniques and methods. I show every stage from drawing out, colour mixing, brush handling and edge control, always being aware of the handling of the paint, drying times and toxicity.

  • The first is an impressionistic alla prima cloud study where we compare and contrast acrylics and water-mixable oils.
  • The second is a master copy of a section of a Vermeer painting ‘The Little Street’ where we build it up in layers with an indirect approach so I can demonstrate the fat-over-lean principle.
  • Our final study is a classical still life painting bringing all the principles together, working through the underpainting, colour mixing to creating form and edge control.

Designed with the Acrylic Painter in Mind

If you’ve ever painted in acrylics and have struggled to achieve lovely smokey blends because the paints dry too quickly – then using water-mixable oils will make the blending process so much easier. And this course has also been designed with the acrylic painter in mind.

We look at how water-mixable oils compare to acrylics, the pros and cons of handling and opacity and how the speed of acrylics drying can be used to your advantage in underpainting, blocking in and canvas preparation. Utilising the best of both worlds.

Sensitivity to Solvents

Because there are varying degrees of sensitivity to consider from painters with multiple allergies and asthma – to painters who can tolerate low odour solvent or others that work in a well-ventilated studio space, I’ve designed this course bearing 3 different levels of sensitivity in mind.

  1. Hypersensitive with allergies – We create a completely solvent-free painting, just diluting with water and oil
  2. Less sensitive and can tolerate low odour solvents – We mix our own mediums using a low odour water-mixable thinner
  3.  Low sensitivity/paint in a well-ventilated room – Discover advanced pre-mixed mediums you can use to manipulate the drying time of the paints

Over 5+ hours of tuition

This is a simple, easy-to-follow downloadable video course with over 5 hours of tuition where you will discover the essentials of how to create an oil painting aimed at the absolute beginner.

It has been designed as a step-by-step rounded learning experience bringing together all my knowledge as a student, painter and teacher.

What’s in the Course?

  • 3 x water-mixable oil paintings demonstrations taking you step-by-step from drawing, mixing and matching colours through to the final brush strokes.
  • 9-downloadable video lessons, split into separate chapters that follow on sequentially.
  • Over 5 hours of detailed video instruction so that you can follow along at your own pace.
  • Downloadable reference jpeg images, line drawings, and a full materials list.
  • Lifetime access, downloadable on separate devices.

So why don’t you grab a brew, maybe a couple of biscuits and join me on this New Absolute Beginners Water-Mixable Oils Course and discover your inner oil painter!

New! Absolute Beginners Water-Mixable Oils Course

p.s Let me know if you have any more questions about the course and I’ll add them to the FAQs

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Studio Notes // 003: Art, Fear & Paint Stories

 

Studio Notes // 003: Art, Fear & Paint Stories

Every few weeks, I share my top art inspirations that I’ve read, experimented with or listened to. Here’s this weeks edition of things I’ve enjoyed, with the hope they might inspire your own work too…

I’ve enjoyed watching:


TED Talk: Do Schools Kill Creativity – Sir Ken Robinson

In August 2020 Sir Ken Robinson sadly died. His TED talk was one of the first I enjoyed when I stumbled across TED nearly 10 year ago. It was a funny, heartfelt and poignant message on the way that schools can kill creativity in children who don’t quite fit the standard academic mould.

‘For most of us the problem isn’t that we aim too high and fail – it’s just the opposite – we aim too low and succeed.’ – Sir Ken Robinson

I’ve enjoyed listening to:

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How to Dilute Acrylics vs Water-mixable Oils (Comparison Video)

How to Dilute Acrylics vs Water-mixable Oils (Comparison Video)

Morning class,

Over the past few months, I’ve been experimenting with various mediums, recording drying times and noting the handling of water-mixable oils – all in the process of creating a new course.

Amongst the copious footage, I wanted to share this introductory lesson where I compare the dilution of acrylics to water-mixable oils.

Simple but fundamental observations.

You may find there are times when acrylics dry off too quickly or are difficult to blend especially when you’re painting in thin layers. Using water-mixable oils can be fantastic because they give you that extra working time. Painting wet-into-wet is one of the significant advantages you’ll notice because you gain a lot more time for smoking together colours.

But how do they both compare when diluting with water?

Continue Reading How to Dilute Acrylics vs Water-mixable Oils (Comparison Video)

Simple Acrylic Still Life Tutorial – Painting Morning Sunshine

orange-segment-acrylic-tutorial-wkas

Morning class, this week I’ve been enjoying taking my breakfast outside onto the terrace which gets great mid-morning sunshine. Because the angle of the sun is lower at this time of the day, it can create a lovely backlight for translucent subjects.

I really liked how the sunlight coming from behind the orange segments gave them this wonderful backlit glow and thought it would work well as a little weekend acrylic study.

You can download a reference image below to follow along with the lesson, hope you enjoy it!

Continue Reading Simple Acrylic Still Life Tutorial – Painting Morning Sunshine

Acrylic Still Life Painting Tutorial – Terracotta Plant Pots (Free 1 hr video tutorial)

terracotta-pots-acrylic-tutorial

“No one is an artist unless he carries his picture in his head before painting it, and is sure of his method and composition.”
Claude Monet

Morning class! This week we’re taking inspiration from around your home.

You might have always wanted to capture the corner of your sunlit living room or an interesting collection of books stacked up on your coffee table or a section of your garden or patio with all the vibrant greens and spring colours.

But when faced with a new painting subject, where do you begin?

How do you decide on the pigments to use or what’s important to focus on?

The tendency can be just to get started and ‘work it out’ as you go along.

But without adopting a systematic approach to your painting, you can be faced with frustration with your colour mixing, wasted time on your drawing and an unsatisfying result; I want to show you an easier way.

In this acrylic still life tutorial, I go through the steps of how I think through my colour composition from choosing the coloured ground to introducing the pigments and then slowly building up the piece before putting brush to canvas.

So let’s grab a brew and any remaining biscuits you may have left and let’s get painting!

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Edition // 001: Notes from the Artist’s Studio

Edition // 001: Notes from the Artist's StudioMorning Class,

My name is Will and I am an obsessive notetaker.

I get sidetracked easily.

If I’m listening to something that has piqued my curiosity, it can send me down a rabbit hole of research….usually halfway through a painting.

And then the copious note-taking follows.

It got so bad at one stage, Vanessa had to prevent me from buying new notebooks because after furiously filling them with fascinating insights, I’d annoyingly lose where I’d put them or worse couldn’t decipher what my own scribbling all meant.

On a positive, my last birthday present was The Remarkable Tablet (an e-ink notebook that feels amazingly close to writing on paper) which has helped add order to the chaos and made the kitchen table decidedly neater.

Some of my research notes do come back to inspire my practice and if they bring me a new understanding or appreciation, I figured they are worth sharing.

So here are my top 5 art inspirations that I’ve read, experimented with or listened to this week, when I should have been at the easel, with the hope they might inspire your own work too…

Continue Reading Edition // 001: Notes from the Artist’s Studio

Peonies in Water-Mixable Oils (How do they compare to Acrylics?)

Peonies in Water-Mixable Oils (How do they compare to Acrylics?)

Will Kemp, Peonies (Detail) Acrylic & Water-mixable Oils on Canvas, 60.96 cm x 60.96 cm (24 inch x 24 inch)

Over the New Year, I’ve been in the studio working up a large scale floral still life painting, from a series of sketches I did over the summer. The original composition had been inspired by the dramatic oil paintings of the Dutch Golden Age (you can see the progress of my painting further down the article).

To achieve the soft blends between the petals, delicate smoked edges and the ability to work across subtle shifts in hues, oils would allow me a longer working time. Then I could build up the painting as a whole piece, adjusting tones, working wet-into-wet.

But being in the middle of a British winter and the studio doors firmly shut with little ventilation, the thought of having a pot of thinners or strong solvents in an enclosed space was discouraging me from getting started.

After a prolonged period of procrastination, it occurred to me, maybe it was time to break out the water-mixable oils.

Continue Reading Peonies in Water-Mixable Oils (How do they compare to Acrylics?)

How to Choose a Colour for a Tonal Ground (My Top 5 Pigment Choices)

How to Choose a Colour for a Tonal Ground (My Top 5 Pigment Choices)

Inspired by the dramatic, dark Flemish oil paintings I saw in Antwerp; I’ve just started working on a still life set up of some fab oversized pink peonies. I’m going to begin simply with acrylics then build up the piece using water-mixable oils.

Yesterday, I talked about the importance of a coloured ground and how this very simple step of preparing your canvas, can transform your working method. And I received lots of emails asking
‘How do you go about choosing a colour for your tonal ground?’

Well, the first thing I do is make a decision.

What is the most important thing or the most important problems that I can foresee within the painting I’m going to be working on?

For this still life, judging the values of the flowers and getting the drawing right are going to be the two trickiest areas –  but get them right….and they can pull the whole painting together. Choosing a sympathetic tone for the coloured ground will help me achieve this.

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Inside the Artist’s Studio, Ruben’s House & the Art of Antwerp

Inside the Artist's Studio, Ruben's House & the Art of Antwerp

Peter Paul Rubens, Detail from The Assumption of the Virgin, Oil on Panel, 1626

The rhythmic sound of African drums echoed through the vast interior of the Cathedral.

It was an unexpected acoustic experience, and the historical tour we’d seen advertised was looking increasingly unlikely.

There was just Vanessa and me waiting patiently at the back of the Cathedral when the tour guide arrived; she was getting extremely agitated. She hadn’t known the performance was on, the volume was too loud, a new musical set had just started, and her tension was building.

She was miffed.

But then our saviour came, a gentleman from Romania. Our tour of two had become three. We were off to the races.

I was in Antwerp (just last month) exploring Ruben’s home and studio, but nothing had prepared me for the pure brilliance of his works that lay only a few steps from our hotel lobby, hidden behind the doors of the Cathedral of Our Lady. 

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Urban Sketch for Beginners – Ink & Watercolour Garden Sketch

Morning class, this week I’ve been in Corsica exploring the North Coast of the Island.

Sketching your surroundings can be such a fantastic way to create a visual diary of your travel experiences, so when I’m walking around the streets of any new town or city, I always carry a small sketchbook in my backpack.

A couple of tonal sketching pens and a brush pen is usually all I need, always trying to keep my kit as simple and minimal as possible.

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