I was busy cleaning out my studio so i discovered this little square piece of canvas and I didn't
know what to do with it so this is an ideal opportunity for me to show Kelly and the others
that are battling to paint their bushes correctly a quick little demonstration so enjoy.
Let's take a look at the biggest mistake the guys make when painting bushes they
paint one bush here one bush there one bush here one bush there. Eventually it looks
like you have got chicken pox.
So what you need to do is: In nature things are more random because we have been taught
through the years to paint everything equidistant and measure everything, it becomes difficult
for us to do things randomly so I have a little story that I tell my students which seems
to work quite well and that is that everything in nature, just like me and you is lonely.
In other words if you are painting a Daddy bush there, you got to paint a Mommy bushy and maybe one or two little
kiddy bushes next to it. So now let's build a few more families, because each family is
different.
Maybe there is a Dad who likes lot's of McDonalds and there is Mum, she goes to the gym often.
Here we've got a Mom and a Dad and they haven't got TV so they have lot's of kids. Then you
have to remember that you always get a few bachelors living in between.
And when you paint your bushes, trees, rocks, everything in this way, you will never battle
to get your trees and bushes looking natural.
Now let's take it a step further.
So when you are painting trees and bushes the first thing you do is paint a random shape.
Maybe something like that. All I am interested in is building a silhouette of
the bush. That is what I use my darkest colour for.
Now we'll move on to the middle colour. The middle colour we use to paint our detail.
Now I am going to do my little family story that I was chatting about earlier. There is
a family there, there is a family there, here is a family here and over here is another
family.
At this point I am not worried too much about light. All I am doing is getting the detail
so always remember that we have always got a few bachelors living in between.
Now we are going to use our highlight colour to build new families on top of the previous families.
When building these families, build them on the sun side. in the painting we are busy
with, the sun is coming from the left hand side. So you see now how easy and random my
bushes look.
Don't forget the bachelors living in between.
The last thing we need to do with our bush is ground it, so our sun is coming from the
left hand side so I will extend my shadow out towards the right.
Without that shadow, your bush will always be hanging in the air. Like that.
See I told you painting bushes was easy. Now it's your turn to show me what you've learnt.