Paint Nite catchup
I'm actually on Maui right now, and will do a post about that at some point, but first I want to do a Paint Nite catchup, because I didn't have time before we left.
First up was this painting, which I did back in mid-June as a birthday gift for my mom:
I confess, I forgot to take pics along the way at first, so I got pretty far before I remembered. Oops.
First, we did a super-pale blue for the sky, and a deeper blue for the water. We added a tan strip at a slight angle across the bottom for the sand, some white streaks in the water for wave caps, and began adding some of the tall grasses in the foreground:
We then used a darker brown to add in the fence posts, and some darker green grasses.
Whoops - the fence posts weren't tall enough! We made them taller, added more grasses of different shades, and then the little sandpiper bird on top. We also added little seagulls flapping in the sky.
Then came the crazy month of July - three birthdays (mine, MiniPlu's and my SIL's), and the trip to OR, plus getting my dad settled into his memory care place. And I was still taking my summer course (Children's Lit) until the middle of the month, as well. Oh, and I drove Two out to RI to visit JWU. All this meant I didn't really have time for Paint Nite again until August.
On Aug 9 I did this painting, to put me in the mood for my upcoming trip to HI (although the painting itself claimed to be Florida):
The teacher was from Toronto, not someone I'd had before, but I liked her. She was calm and helpful. It was a bit of a weird class, though. There were only 4 participants (not including the teacher) - and that's with the fact that I'd only signed up about 20 mins before it began. (My life can get crazy enough that I no longer sign up much in advance anymore - I wait to see if I'm ACTUALLY going to have time to do the painting that day!). Anyway, apparently one lady knew in advance that she'd only get to do about half the class, so midway through, she apologized for having to leave, showed the teacher what she'd done so far, and then left. The three of us continued the class. A little bit later, the teacher said she had to step away to use the bathroom for a moment, so she did that, and I amused myself on my phone while she was gone. When she came back, I got ready to paint again ... and then noticed that I was the only student left. Where had the other two gone? They had never turned on their cameras, but they had definitely still been there! There were no comments in chat, they hadn't spoken up, nothing. So for the last 30-45 mins or so, I had a private lesson!
We started by putting a deeper blue in the corner, and then brushing it down and to the left, adding more white, so it started fading, then adding a pale pink section for the rest of the sky.
And then I forgot to take pics for quite awhile - argh! But, anyway, we drew in the horizon line, and did first the orange-yellow section of water on the right, then the pink section in the middle and finally the blue section of water on the left. It was hard because we were not supposed to blend it really, but to have these sections that went in and out of each other's section, for overlap, if that makes sense, like puzzle pieces. We did the uneven "clouds" above the water line in light blue, and then a darker blue section under that, leaving the lighter section peeking out on top. We also added a few wispy yellow clouds in the sky.
Next we did the big multi-colored cloud in the middle of the sky, with first yellow, then orange, and red, and a deep pink, trying not to make each section too regular. It was towards the end of this period where I became the only remaining student.
After adding some purple to the top of the multi-colored cloud, we painted the black palm tree in the foreground. Done!
Overall I was pretty pleased with how this turned out.
Two days later I did another Paint Nite: a pretty stone castle tower in a thicket of trees, bushes and flowers:
The teacher for this one was only about an hour north of me, very VERY Jerseyan in the way she talked, which was pretty amusing. She was generally fine as a teacher but she didn't always seem to understand what we were asking about, sometimes answering the wrong issue. Like - I don't know if it was her screen or what, but her model painting, and the painting she was re-doing during class, looked more muted, like the greens were more like gray-green, and I think she thought we were asking if we should make them GRAY, rather than asking about a shade, whether the colors were MEANT to be gray-green. Stuff like that.
This is what her model pic looked like (it's a little bit blurry because I was in a rush) but you see what I mean about the gray-green?
Also, I wasn't really impressed with her blobby foliage, which didn't look anything like the original. However, this ended up not really being an issue for me, which I'll explain later.
Once again, I didn't immediately remember to take pics, and we'd finished the entire background before I'd remembered. We started off with a super-pale-blue sky, with deliberate white streaks in it, and then did a green for the lower half, curving it up a bit at the sides. Then we added a tiny bit of black to green, and painted that on top, especially along the lower section and the corners.
We next used a light-ish gray to paint the tower column, making it slightly narrower at the top to indicate it was further away, height-wise. We used small brush strokes of a deeper gray and a white to give it the look of variegated stones. Then we added the wider ramparts or ... whatever you call that bit at the top, and did the same for that section. What I wasn't too sure about was that we were supposed to use slightly curving strokes for the tower, in a mild smiley bent, to show roundness. But the rampart was done with the reverse, a slightly curving frowney stroke. Shouldn't they have gone the same direction? Or am I thinking about this wrong? Additional details: we used black to create the window mid-tower, and the small arrow slits in the ramparts. We also had (when we initially painted the tower column) used a slightly deeper gray at an angle along the top, and down both vertical edges to create shadows, and did some similar shading on the ramparts.
We painted the stepping stones by having the dark gray on the brush and a dab of white at the tip, so when you painted the stroke, it naturally had white reflection along the top edge and darker gray below. And then the only thing left was the foliage, which is where I had been anticipating a long, complicated process. But it wasn't!
We painted the first couple of tree trunks, and began adding leaves and bush foliage, and here's where I was able to make mine look better than the teacher's. The trick to creating a dappled foliage is to have a really old, stiff paintbrush that no longer smoothes out well, probably because it has dried paint in it. You dip this otherwise useless brush into the green - but only a little bit, not too much (this is where I felt the teacher went wrong) and then use it as a stamp to tap out greenery. Because the brush sucks, the paint goes on in little dots, which is perfect for this sort of thing. But you have to be careful not to have too much paint on the brush or you end up with blobs. For variegated leaf colors, you were encouraged to dip part of the brush into light green, dark green/moss green and a bit of yellow before stamping it all over your paper.
We added more small tree trunks to the right, more stamped foliage all over the green base, around the rocks, etc, then switched to white paint to tap on some white flowers here and there, with the same old brush.
And finally, we used pinks of different hues for additional flowers, plus more greenery as needed.
I was REALLY pleased with this one, especially the foliage (although I do feel like my tree trunks/branches could have been a bit better).
When we get back, my life will be nuts again and I'll be starting my fall classes almost immediately after, so God only knows when I'll get to paint again, but I'm glad I at least got in a few over the summer. Wish it had been more!
First up was this painting, which I did back in mid-June as a birthday gift for my mom:
I confess, I forgot to take pics along the way at first, so I got pretty far before I remembered. Oops.
First, we did a super-pale blue for the sky, and a deeper blue for the water. We added a tan strip at a slight angle across the bottom for the sand, some white streaks in the water for wave caps, and began adding some of the tall grasses in the foreground:
We then used a darker brown to add in the fence posts, and some darker green grasses.
Whoops - the fence posts weren't tall enough! We made them taller, added more grasses of different shades, and then the little sandpiper bird on top. We also added little seagulls flapping in the sky.
Then came the crazy month of July - three birthdays (mine, MiniPlu's and my SIL's), and the trip to OR, plus getting my dad settled into his memory care place. And I was still taking my summer course (Children's Lit) until the middle of the month, as well. Oh, and I drove Two out to RI to visit JWU. All this meant I didn't really have time for Paint Nite again until August.
On Aug 9 I did this painting, to put me in the mood for my upcoming trip to HI (although the painting itself claimed to be Florida):
The teacher was from Toronto, not someone I'd had before, but I liked her. She was calm and helpful. It was a bit of a weird class, though. There were only 4 participants (not including the teacher) - and that's with the fact that I'd only signed up about 20 mins before it began. (My life can get crazy enough that I no longer sign up much in advance anymore - I wait to see if I'm ACTUALLY going to have time to do the painting that day!). Anyway, apparently one lady knew in advance that she'd only get to do about half the class, so midway through, she apologized for having to leave, showed the teacher what she'd done so far, and then left. The three of us continued the class. A little bit later, the teacher said she had to step away to use the bathroom for a moment, so she did that, and I amused myself on my phone while she was gone. When she came back, I got ready to paint again ... and then noticed that I was the only student left. Where had the other two gone? They had never turned on their cameras, but they had definitely still been there! There were no comments in chat, they hadn't spoken up, nothing. So for the last 30-45 mins or so, I had a private lesson!
We started by putting a deeper blue in the corner, and then brushing it down and to the left, adding more white, so it started fading, then adding a pale pink section for the rest of the sky.
And then I forgot to take pics for quite awhile - argh! But, anyway, we drew in the horizon line, and did first the orange-yellow section of water on the right, then the pink section in the middle and finally the blue section of water on the left. It was hard because we were not supposed to blend it really, but to have these sections that went in and out of each other's section, for overlap, if that makes sense, like puzzle pieces. We did the uneven "clouds" above the water line in light blue, and then a darker blue section under that, leaving the lighter section peeking out on top. We also added a few wispy yellow clouds in the sky.
Next we did the big multi-colored cloud in the middle of the sky, with first yellow, then orange, and red, and a deep pink, trying not to make each section too regular. It was towards the end of this period where I became the only remaining student.
After adding some purple to the top of the multi-colored cloud, we painted the black palm tree in the foreground. Done!
Overall I was pretty pleased with how this turned out.
Two days later I did another Paint Nite: a pretty stone castle tower in a thicket of trees, bushes and flowers:
The teacher for this one was only about an hour north of me, very VERY Jerseyan in the way she talked, which was pretty amusing. She was generally fine as a teacher but she didn't always seem to understand what we were asking about, sometimes answering the wrong issue. Like - I don't know if it was her screen or what, but her model painting, and the painting she was re-doing during class, looked more muted, like the greens were more like gray-green, and I think she thought we were asking if we should make them GRAY, rather than asking about a shade, whether the colors were MEANT to be gray-green. Stuff like that.
This is what her model pic looked like (it's a little bit blurry because I was in a rush) but you see what I mean about the gray-green?
Also, I wasn't really impressed with her blobby foliage, which didn't look anything like the original. However, this ended up not really being an issue for me, which I'll explain later.
Once again, I didn't immediately remember to take pics, and we'd finished the entire background before I'd remembered. We started off with a super-pale-blue sky, with deliberate white streaks in it, and then did a green for the lower half, curving it up a bit at the sides. Then we added a tiny bit of black to green, and painted that on top, especially along the lower section and the corners.
We next used a light-ish gray to paint the tower column, making it slightly narrower at the top to indicate it was further away, height-wise. We used small brush strokes of a deeper gray and a white to give it the look of variegated stones. Then we added the wider ramparts or ... whatever you call that bit at the top, and did the same for that section. What I wasn't too sure about was that we were supposed to use slightly curving strokes for the tower, in a mild smiley bent, to show roundness. But the rampart was done with the reverse, a slightly curving frowney stroke. Shouldn't they have gone the same direction? Or am I thinking about this wrong? Additional details: we used black to create the window mid-tower, and the small arrow slits in the ramparts. We also had (when we initially painted the tower column) used a slightly deeper gray at an angle along the top, and down both vertical edges to create shadows, and did some similar shading on the ramparts.
We painted the stepping stones by having the dark gray on the brush and a dab of white at the tip, so when you painted the stroke, it naturally had white reflection along the top edge and darker gray below. And then the only thing left was the foliage, which is where I had been anticipating a long, complicated process. But it wasn't!
We painted the first couple of tree trunks, and began adding leaves and bush foliage, and here's where I was able to make mine look better than the teacher's. The trick to creating a dappled foliage is to have a really old, stiff paintbrush that no longer smoothes out well, probably because it has dried paint in it. You dip this otherwise useless brush into the green - but only a little bit, not too much (this is where I felt the teacher went wrong) and then use it as a stamp to tap out greenery. Because the brush sucks, the paint goes on in little dots, which is perfect for this sort of thing. But you have to be careful not to have too much paint on the brush or you end up with blobs. For variegated leaf colors, you were encouraged to dip part of the brush into light green, dark green/moss green and a bit of yellow before stamping it all over your paper.
We added more small tree trunks to the right, more stamped foliage all over the green base, around the rocks, etc, then switched to white paint to tap on some white flowers here and there, with the same old brush.
And finally, we used pinks of different hues for additional flowers, plus more greenery as needed.
I was REALLY pleased with this one, especially the foliage (although I do feel like my tree trunks/branches could have been a bit better).
When we get back, my life will be nuts again and I'll be starting my fall classes almost immediately after, so God only knows when I'll get to paint again, but I'm glad I at least got in a few over the summer. Wish it had been more!