art secret 21 - maryellen minute #5

Landscape Artistic Stretchies

art secret 19 - creating the black value: acrylic

Mickey Mouse looks good in black but black is not always the best choice in a painting...so let's create the illusion and mystery of black without actually using it.

I used a combination of colors sometimes just mixing two and sometimes all of them. The first one in the top row is Dioxine Violet and Burnt Umber mixed together and directly underneath is a tint (adding white) of that mixture. 

 

So you'll see that the top row is a mixture of colors and the row directly underneath is that mixture's tint. Try mixing them yourself and add new colors. It is a mystery and one for you to solve, so go create the black value!

art secret 14 - inspiring creativity using watercolor or acrylic

....and Helen Frankenthaler

Suffering from painter's block?? Out of ideas? Time to loosen up and and be freeeeeeee!

1. Get a piece of watercolor paper 12x18" or larger, some watercolors or acrylics, water, brushes and a spray bottle. Then.......

2. Without thinking about it, start painting random shapes using random colors and the only rule is....there are no rules, right or wrong.

3. You can overlap shapes and have them go off the paper, use your whole body as you move the brush, stand up if you want.

3. Turn the paper upside down and continue painting. Turn it on its side and paint some more. Keep painting because Helen Frankenthaler said:

"For me, as a picture develops, color always comes out of drawing. I start out as a spacemaker on a flat thing with four corners. But color is the first message on the picture plane."

"Color is extremely important to my process. It's born out of idea, mood, luck, imagination, risk, into what  might even be ugly: then I let it tell me what might/should be next, until I get the light and order that satisfies to perfection. The result is color and space and, I hope, a beautiful message."

Helen Frankenthaler  1928- 2011

Here are some spontaneous studies that my students are working on:

As you can see, everyone has a different way of expressing their creativity.

Give it a try and have some fun!

art secret 6 - Raoul Dufy

Raoul Dufy (1877-1953) was a French Fauvist painter who explored joy and optimism in his very colorful work. 
For more about him click here...  Raoul Dufy

Below is a Raoul Dufy inspired project we did while 
working from an unusual orchid:

This orchid displays a very rare blue color.

Step One: first we did a very loose sketch using dark, watered down acrylic. 

                                                          

Step  two: After the acrylic was dry we added very loose, watery color with watercolor. You can add acrylic, too.

These are two paintings done in this style.

Doing studies in this manner is GREAT for getting the creative juices flowing. It's fun and fast.

     

 
  

art secret 4 - yellow and red don't make orange...

Well okay they do BUT...they also make light orange, yellow-orange, red-orange, violet-orange and you get the idea. Here's a sample.

And, of course, if you add the complementary color of blue to orange, you get a beautiful earthy color perfect for casting shadows. Depending on how much of each you add, you can adjust the  earthiness.

art secret 3 - red and blue don't make purple...

They don't?? Actually sometimes they do, but versions of those red and blue hues often make so much more like: maroon, blue-violet, red-violet, dark violet, light violet, pink, rose and so on. You can control your color and be a better painter if you mix your colors together to create a color instead of using a "tube" color. And if you add the complementary color you will create some beautiful muted, earth tones that a will defy description. Check out some of the color mixing that my students did. We had so much fun doing this.

acrylic

watercolor

acrylic