Skip to main content

Posts

Showing posts with the label art tutorial

Window Shopping - Cityscape in Watercolor Tutorial

3.5 * 5.75 inch Inspired by this miniature painting I did of this street scene I thought I would tackle a 1/2 sheet version. Starting with the largest color masses I started to block in some local color, deepened the shadow side of the pillars and places the first wash of neutrals in the middle line of windows. and this is where I am right now. Popped in some more color in to the 2 remaining flags, some reflective shapes in the main cars window and added a little crimson to indicate where my darkest darks will be on the cars. This serves a 2 fold purpose. It will serve as a mapping system if my pencil lines get smudged, it also gives we a constant under painting color, which will add continuity once the subsequent glazes are applied. The rich darks are starting to get placed now. Keep in mind that this is just the initial glazes. It will become allot darker in the future. A little more work done on the foreground shadows and the reflections have been started on the cars. The

Succulent textures- Watercolor Cactus painting step by step

Hi everyone, Its been a bit since I posted last. Been kinda down dealing with all the snow we have been getting. From 25 to -2 and blizzard conditions in 24 hours. EEk. But my garden survived and is thriving.. now i just want the sun to peek out again. Anyways, here is a small painting I did for the WDE over at wetcanvas. I was drawn to this photo for the twisting winding shapes and the textures on the yellow bulbous masses. Now to try and capture that. After I drew out the general shapes and masked out the yellow bulbs I started an under painting with some gambouge for the sunshine and turquoise for the shadows with a little rose madder thrown in for good measure. ;) Next I came back with glazes of sap green for overall continuity. And some more glazes of turquoise and gamouge.. making sure the layers are dry. After the masking was remove I came back in and stippled in some lemon yellow, gambouge, lt red and orange. ** special note, take care not to cover the entire white space

"Lad" Border Collie in the Country Garden - Pencil Demo

Hi everyone. Well summer is quickly moving in in this neck of the woods so I have been busy digging my garden beds and planting some vedgies. I already have onions, radishes, spinach, carrots and beets coming up. :) As well I have been busy with getting 3 back to back commission pieces - in pencil. Kinda funny since I usually work in watercolors. hmmm. Thinking maybe I should rethink my focus. LOL Anyways this is my latest. It is a picture of "Lad" a border collie with a wonderful story behind him. In the reference picture one of Lad's eyes was closed - so I opened it up and added a stick in the foreground - I guess he is a fetcher. :) Working with black fur is not easy. Even though it looks black there are 3-4 values within those darks. Good morning. :) So in this installment the fur is starting to "fluff" up and you can start to see the many shadows involved in the underside of the puppy. Also the woodwork is starting to get some texture in it. I am also go

How to draw demo- Horse and Rider in Pencil

Well it is finally done - thank heavens! And over the next few days I will be posting what I have been working on over the past 2 months. This is a double portrait- kinda - of my second cousin and her favorite pony out in the field. This was NOT the easiest piece I have ever done and it was definatly a challenge going from color to black and white again. On with the show. Stage 1 is the line drawing and the most important of all stages. Careful planning at this stage will guide you through the rest of the process with ease. Remember every line is an opportunity for a value change so plan.. plan.. plan. Hope you can see these first 2 steps Now its all relative.. LOL ;) I tend to bounce around allot when i work because 1. I get bored easy. 2. I tend to see how one area works against another. If you see in this stage I have started placing some of my darkest darks - the lightest lights will be the paper itself. Any other value that i put in will be in between these 2. So far there is

Xander Watercolor Portrait Tutorial

HI all, I would like to introduce you to my youngest boy - i couldnt resist trying to capture the toothless grin that he is famous for. This started out ok with the line drawing and the diox purple underpainting - but now it has got to the ugly stage and i am forcing myself to work through it. His skin tones were painted using rose madder and yellow ochre. Way to yellow for him so i am going to add a layer or 2 of perm rose just to try and tone it out a bit. If there are any portrait artists out there I could really use some help trying to correct these issues. The next installment of Xander is here. It is starting to pop, I started this session by masking out his eyes and a few highlights in his hair before i proceeded to start adding a large wash of his skin tones focusing on transitions between the yellows and reds. After a few layers to build up tone, I went back in with a very light wash of cobalt blue and started "carving out" some shadows. Still looking p

Triad watercolor study One painting 3 Ways

In this mini demo, I decided to test out some colors from the bottom of the paint tub. Using 3 colors 1 red, 1 yellow, and 1 blue and all the mixes that fall in between, no reference and painted with my left hand( I a righty) These quick 15 min studies show how color really influence the overall feel of a painting. From top to bottom RED- perm rose BLUE - Phalo and YELLOW- lemon all of these colors are quite cool in temp and very staining. Feels like late day - very hazy not a bad little color study Painting 2 RED - Crimson BLUE- turquoise YELLOW- Cad Med- Feels like mid day storm approaching. Dont like the painting its self and if i was to do another one i would add more contrast in the sky, reserving some whites while adding more yellow-orange. Also would strengthen the RED - VanDyke YELLOW- Burnt Sienna Ans BLUE- Ultramarine Really love this painting-stong contrast, which makes it feel moody. Gives a definate time of day, and the composition isnt to bad either.

March of the clowns Watercolor tutorial

Well I have been meaning to paint this for a while now, as you can see it is a little intimidting. In this watercolor demo I started with a detailed line drawing and then started bouncing around adding some local color to the clown faces with a wash of yellow ochre and cad red. After that dries i start placing some shadows using a thin wash of cobalt. The darks of the eyes are a mix of cad red, hunter green deep and paynes grey. Worked a little on the upper portion of the painting today. Really like the oranges against the blue. Just makes that litle portion sing. This painting reminds me of "paint by number" and with all the little variations i almost have to treat it that way. Day 4 and aprox 15 hours into it.. hmm i may be able to get this done by the end of the year. ;) This time around i worked a little adding my oranges (grumbacher red and gamboge) deeper values were made by adding a little burnt sienna. This will be heightened even more later on in the painting when