- Titanium White of exceptional artistry. Even if you use student-grade paint for the other colors, invest in this white.
- Brushed Umber
- Blue Ultramarine
- Yellow Cadmium Light
- Alizarin Crimson permanentWinsor & Newton artist acrylic
- pen size 3B
- Kitchen paper
- a jam jar used as a brush holder.
- Small container or dipper for paint dilution
The Old Masters had it easy
Painting was regarded as a craft; you received training at an Atelier workshop or through an apprenticeship.
The vibrant, brilliant colors featured in today’s acrylics were simply not available, and the choice of pigment had a significant role in the painting process.
Frequently, the richer the sponsor, the bluer the picture. Legend has it that the ultramarine blue pigment once cost more than gold. Up until Jean-Baptiste Guimet, a French colorist, developed a synthetic substitute for lapis lazuli in 1828, it was produced from lapis lazuli, a semi-precious stone.
Too much choice
The number of available colors is in the thousands. Paint makers have a perpetual urge to create a new pigment type or hue.
I’m here to inform you that this is the “magic bullet,” the color that will make all of your painting issues disappear.
However, when we combine the fundamentals of classical painting with the cutting-edge acrylic painting materials, we are able to produce a painting technique that is both easy for beginners to learn and comprehensive enough for more experienced painters to continue their research.
Step 1. Apply a coloured ground.
This will give you a consistent tone to work with and a lovely undertone of color for this specific painting. See: How to apply a ground that is yellow ochre in color.
Step 3. Establish the darkest darks and lightest lights.
The darkest part of the image should be established with Burnt Umber & Titanium White. Instead of focusing on the details, you might strain your eyes at the image to make out each location. Check out: The value of contrast in painting.
Acrylic landscape painting- Free video Course |Part 1
The first steps I took to begin the acrylic landscape painting are seen in the video down below. To stay up to date, make sure to subscribe to my YouTube Art School Channel.
Video transcript
How to create this artwork at home so that you may do it yourself. I have a list of all the colors and brushes I use on the website, but this video only demonstrates how to start and set up your drawing so you can make a beautiful landscape like this to hang on your wall at home.
Step 1 Therefore, the first step in beginning this landscape painting is to block out your canvas so that you can paint on top of a colored background. You can view a how-to video on how to apply a colored ground for an acrylic painting to see what I already did here.
Step 2 Okay, the next step is to sketch out the fundamental forms that we have available. We only want the line drawing. The 3B pencil I’m using in this instance is easily erasable, won’t smudge too much, and is dark enough to leave a mark.
Observe how the canvas may be marked pretty simply without feeling the need to exert much pressure or risk denting the canvas.
Use a scrap of paper and align its edge with the edge of your canvas to create what amounts to a set square in order to ensure that you get a beautiful horizontal line. Line that up, then.
Step 3 The third step is to evaluate the picture’s tones to choose where to start and the lightest and darkest sections.
You’ll notice that this makes the dark appear darker, the light appear lighter, and all these so-called halftones kind of vanish, leaving only the fundamental structure of the image, which is what we are interested in.
I’m going to start by painting this region of the field with burnt umber because it is the darkest part of the scene. My other video, or a list of additional supplies, including all the details on the brushes I use and how to choose a brush for acrylic painting.
So if you notice, when I’m painting, I’m resting on the canvas. This gives you leverage and support, making it simpler to achieve straighter lines with the finer lines than if you were trying to balance the painting by hovering your hand in the air.
I’ll switch to this brush to block in that area once I’ve put that in.
You should make sure to remove the paint I have on this surface since acrylics dry so quickly; otherwise, it will solidify on your brush and you won’t be able to use it.
In order to rub it into the kitchen roll, I’ll first dip it in some water.
If I put that on there, nothing comes out as you go through a lot of kitchen roll with acrylic and then squeeze it at the end. Simply by looking at plain water, you can tell that it is perfectly transparent.
It’s usually preferable to have extra water and change it frequently rather than using the same pot since it will get dirty and then all the dirt in your water pot will mix with your colors when you’re mixing them, preventing you from getting a good, clean color.
Even though we’re using brown, it’s still important to maintain things tidy because it reflects well-mannered work habits.
Okay, let’s use the filbert brush now. That’s all right, really basic. I’ll paint here because I frequently paint around the edges of my paintings.
You’ll see that I didn’t go overboard; you can still see some of the lights underground, which is really wonderful. I also left a few areas where I wasn’t fully solid since I wanted this region to have some texture and movement.
So that’s all I do for this specific burnt umber painting. As we look at the photo, I’ll now add some of the highest highlights to the area that is the brightest. The place where the sun shines through will be this one.
Now I’m just going to block in the brightest parts with the Titanium White.
You can see that I’m keeping it quite wet and loose. You’ll see that it won’t be as thick as this if you’re not using artist-quality titanium white. It will have much more transparency. You might need to apply several layers.
I always advise beginning acrylic artists to invest in the highest-quality paints they can manage.
Try to invest in an artist-quality white if you can’t afford to use it for everything because it will have much more opacity and you will be able to see how it covered over the color underneath very quickly. This will be really helpful in your future paintings.
Since it’s not as strong down here as it is everywhere, I’ll dilute it with some water and scrub it in with my finger.
Now that we have the lights and the darks, we can return to the colors we were blending earlier and begin blocking in some of the colored sections.