Welcome back to my studio.
Can you guess what's the number one
problem in getting good, strong color when painting in acrylics?
If you're not sure. Stick around, because I'm going to answer
that today and I'm going to do a little demonstration to prove it.
OK, to me, the number one problem with color and acrylics is using white paint.
All too often, beginners put in white paint straight away.
And the result is a sort of cool and pasty color.
And the whole thing ends up looking
a little chalky, a little cold, just hasn't got that oomph that they wanted.
In fact, when painting acrylics, you need very little white paint,
yet everyone throws in way too much white paint.
And I think maybe one of the reasons is that student acrylics are generally quite
thin and it just seems like it's too transparent.
And the transparency actually scares a lot of artists.
But as soon as you accept that fact about the acrylics,
the transparency becomes actually a real bonus.
So I'm going to show you in this little
demonstration, just focusing on part of the painting
and what it looks like with too much white paint and what it looks like when I'm
using the color and maybe a little bit of white paint
at the end, but mostly sticking to the color and using that transparency.
Let's have a look.
Firstly, I'm going to draw
a picture of some peaches hanging on a tree, and I'm going to do two versions.
One on the left, one on the right.
And this will demonstrate the two techniques.
Just using some Amsterdam acrylic paints,
quite good quality student paints, pretty much my usual palette of acrylics
and some brushes as well, some Daler Rowney's Cryla brushes.
But now on the left, I'm adding white and straight away with my colors.
So using some Sky-Blue with some whites to get the background sky in.
And I'm going to do a couple of the peaches.
Bit of red, some white, touch of yellow, some white.
This is pretty much the approach which most beginners are taking
and you can see straight away I'm getting this pinkish peachy color.
Now, you may think,
well, that's the right color to use to paint peaches, but,
you'll soon notice the difference.
Adding a bit of Azo yellow there to warm things up, bit of a white again
and I just get that cool peach color and it drives me crazy.
So even though I'm deliberately following a process, which I wouldn't normally,
I'm trying to just get this principle that I see being used
so often by artists painting with acrylics.
Warming this up a little, I'm adding some yellow, some orange keeping,
using the whites to change the values and make it opaque.
But of course, what I'm ending up with is
a cooler acrylic paint that is not
as saturated. And I'm missing some of that vibrancy I want.
Still trying to push a little, even the Greens are putting some white.
So it looks OK,
you may be happy with that, but let's see, version two, instead of just white
and blue, I'm putting in some lemon yellow and I'm just warming up that blue.
Now, it might not be
as easily apparent on the video as it is
to me painting it, but that little bit of yellow in the blue
gets a slight greenish tinge, which is more realistic.
I'm going to get some leaves and paint that.
Before I get into the peaches.
Now, notice I'm using lemon yellow, I'm using Azo yellow,
I'm using a little bit of ultramarine blue to get the green, no white paint.
And the white paper actually does help a little to add a bit of that glow through
it, because this color is pretty much transparent.
You can even see some of the Sky-Blue showing through on the edges.
And it's that transparency that I am after.
So starting with color for the peaches, just the color, yellows, reds, magenta.
No white.
And I'm getting - immediately,
you can see it's not that cold pink color, it's powerful red, oranges, yellows.
Right from the very first layer.
And as I add layers,
as the paint dries and I add more transparent layers on, the richness
and the depth of color builds up in a natural way.
I don't have to try and force it.
And this is, as I said, students
acrylic paint, but I'm getting the most out of it.
You don't need very expensive artist acrylic paint if you think color first.
So I'm kind of enjoying the painting in the second version a bit more.
I'm going to press on through to the end, but I'll show you the end result.
And you can compare for yourself.
And just see which you prefer.
The difference may look fairly subtle on the video, but I can assure you.
In front of me as I'm painting this.
There's very little comparison,
the second version, which is color rich and saturated, works the best.
Now I'm adjusting the values, getting a bit of shaded color in there, just using
a bit of magenta, a little bit of
Ultramarine blue to cool it down, because shadows are cooler in sunny
conditions, so I use blue, which is a cool color, the natural color of shade.
So now continue to build up these layers,
even the twigs of the tree, I'm just using burnt sienna and a little red,
but yellow for warm or cool for the shadow part of the twigs.
The greenery of the leaves also very much just color yellows and blue.
So you may wonder, am I ever going to use any white? Well I will definitely use it.
But only a little bit,
and that's to get those highlights, the rim lighting or spots of highlights.
And those little spots are certainly important.
And they they work so well off the rest of the painting.
But if it's all whites, all highlights,
it all ends up being really nothing except cold.
Now, these touches of white into the sky,
give me these nice sharp little spots of light and that adds to the whole effect.
So you can compare for yourself and but I encourage you to try it out. You only
really appreciate when you actually try it for yourself.
Here is the finished result.
And I think more color on the right hand side.
Well, I hope this little tip is going to help you with your acrylic painting,
and I use a similar approach with oils, but oils are a little bit more forgiving.
With the student acrylics, use the colour. That's all about that strong color
and make it really stand out by using it, layering on the transparent layers
and only finishing off with a bit of white paint for highlights in the end.
And even that, try and make those highlights as colourful as possible.
And if you enjoyed this lesson and it's
helped you, why don't you share it with somebody else
who may also benefit from it. I'd appreciate that.
And of course, like and follow.
And we'll see you again in the next video very soon.