The final part of this 4 part series – Beginners Acrylic Landscape Painting
This is the final stage of the painting. I now add some of the pure Ultramarine Blue and Alizarin Crimson to achieve the richer colours needed.
The pink in the sky is just a mix of Alizarin Crimson and White. Make sure you start with the white (Titanium White) and add the crimson to it, little by little.
You will only need a small amount to create the pink…
“With a limited palette, the older painters could do just as well as today… what they did was sounder.” Pierre-Auguste Renoir
Lessons for an Absolute Beginner
Part 3 of this 4 part video series for beginners to acrylic painting
The first thing I do is block-in the bottom half of the sky with the pinky tone; I’m not worried about too much detail, just getting a general tone blocked in.
This helps you judge relative tones and assess the next layer of colours that need to be added.
The ‘block in’ is still using the same premixed colours that we used for the sky and the clouds.
By using a limited palette, it makes it easier to create a visual balance and harmony.
“Painting is very easy when you don’t know how, but very difficult when you do”
Edgar Degas
Lessons for an absolute beginner
A step-by-step approach to acrylic painting
In this series, I will be posting a weekly video on my YouTube channel to follow along at home. It’s free to subscribe to the channel so you can keep updated with the painting progress.
An uneven finish in your painting, some parts matte, other parts glossy can be very off-putting to the viewer.
A unified finish enhances the colours and is a great way to add both a professional finish to your paintings and add dollars to the sale price.
No one technique for varnishing suits every situation. The texture of the paint surface, the desired finish, speed of completion, etc all affect which technique is best to use.
On a side note, it’s also the number 1 trick to making your acrylic paintings look like oils…
PLEASE NOTE: This course is currently being updated, you might be interested in this online still life painting course that looks in depth at how to glaze with acrylics.
Or secretly feel they are the missing ingredient to your work?
If you don’t use black whilst mixing colours, you could be missing a trick.
A tale from two masters:
John Singer Sargent and Claude Monet used to go out and paint together.
One day, Sargent had left his paints behind and asked Monet to lend him his to work with. “Where’s the black?” asked Sargent.
“I don’t allow myself to use black,” replied Monet.
“It’s against the impressionist theory. In nature, all colours are made by mixing.”
Sargent refused to understand how anyone could paint without black.
Green paint is like peanut butter is for dieters, dangerously addictive.
I don’t quite know why, maybe the freshness, the feeling of a landscape, the memory of nature… whatever the reason it’s a bad one.
Step 1. If you buy a starter set of beginners paints, throw away the green that is included (usually this is Emerald green)
It is usually terrible and very unforgiving when trying to create harmonious colour in painting.
“Can’t I use it to tone down red? or use red to tone down the green? I know about complementary colours; I’ve only just bought it, I can’t throw it away!”
Time lapse preview for New painting course The Art of Acrylics with Will Kemp
“The Art of Acrylics” Painting Course
Developing your artists eye
When I was first learning to paint my results were often disheartening, the apple looked too flat, the greens looked garish and harsh and I was generally getting more and more frustrated.
I often took a large palette knife to the canvas and smeared the entire painting.
The result?
My new abstract period!!!
The problem with learning to paint is that you have an inbuilt ‘taste’ meter. You know a good painting when you see one. You don’t have to be art educated or have studied the classics, you just need to trust your own judgments.
So when you attempt your first painting and it goes wrong, you know it is wrong.
It was painted with Ivory black, raw umber (both Micheal Harding oil paints) and titanium white (Winsor and Newton) on pre-primed linen.
About the painting
Offscreen represents a conscious shift away from the formality of traditional portraiture.
It was inspired by the snap-to-capture culture in which we live, where everything from the mundane to the most important moments in life are a mobile phone photo away, I like the juxtaposition of an instant snap, taken in a moment, with the meticulous hours needed when painting a traditional portrait.
The portrait took over 50 hours to complete.
It poses the viewer the simple question – if the subject is not engaged in something worthy, does that make the painting less important?
The national exhibition runs from 14th October to 25th November at the King’s place gallery, London.
Perspective is one of the most common issues beginners have with drawing and painting.
Get it wrong and it can easily ruin a great start, get it right and it can instantly improve your work.
If you’re like most painters you are probably trying to create a sense of depth in your work.
Leading the viewer’s eye deep into the scene giving the illusion of reality.
But sometimes it just doesn’t look right.
The distant object doesn’t look so distant, your figures look out of proportion, a building looks like it is sliding off the page. And your still life just looks….odd.
But why does your colour mixing look wrong? or your pink looks salmon and not hot pink?
How to make a bright pink colour?
A quick look at the undertone of a few red paints can show you how mixing the perfect pink can easily elude you.
Cadmium won’t allow you to make a hot pink; this video will show you how.
This is not due to a lack of mixing ability, just the wrong red paint colour for the desired result.
Mixing a bright purple?
The right choice of red will influence your ability to make a bright purple, and Part 2 of this video (at the end of this post) will show you how easily purple can go muted and grey rather than bright and vibrant.
This is due to the ‘muting down‘ effect of complementary colours.
It’s all to do with the colour bias of the pigment hidden in paints…
A brief overview of Artists’ vs Student quality paint
There are usually two grades of colour available, artist quality and student quality.
But what is the difference?
And, is it worth the cost?
When first starting painting lessons it is often overwhelming to try and decide which brush to buy, what canvas to paint on and the biggest choice of all. What paints to buy!
Your paints can help greatly in your progress as a painter, what usually happens is a hesitancy on investing in the ‘good quality’ paints until you yourself become a better painter.
This is a mistake.
One of the key things to understand is the labelling and differences between artist and student quality paint and how better quality paint, can make your life as a painter much easier…
