Acrylic Painting step by step - Boat part 6

I managed to get this painting finished just in time for Christmas, and my stepdad was delighted with it! In this final stage I refined the reflections in the water, and blended them into the surrounding green of the sea. Then I just had to add all the finishing details - the guardrails on the front and sides, the ropes on the mast and fenders, and the lettering and picture of Ariel the Little Mermaid (!) For the long ropes I used a ruler on it's side and leant the paintbrush against it. I prefer to draw lines freehand, but a taut rope has to be perfectly straight, and I didn't trust my unsteady hand! Overall, a job well done for my first non-portrait painting, and also thoroughly enjoyable. But I think I'll go back to portraits for the next one, I miss them!


The Final Stage - finishing touches

Step 1 - Step 2 - Step 3 - Step 4 - Step 5

Tags: Painting, Acrylic, step by step

Acrylic painting step by step - Boat part 5

Here's stage 5 of my boat painting, it's starting to near completion now. The main addition in this step is the shadow on the white cabin, which gives the boat a more three-dimensional feel. The shadow is mainly white with a touch of Payne's Grey, but there is also a hint of warm Yellow Ochre in there, showing the reflection off the yellow dinghy, and giving a real feeling of bright sunlight. I also added the woodwork along the hull, and the mast, which are a simple mix of Burnt Umber, white and Payne's Grey. I first added lighter green reflections on the water, then White highlights. These need another coat with a hint of yellow. The white strip where the boat meets the water has a lot of light green reflections from the water, complemented by the bright white highlights which again emphasise the sunlight, and the curved shadows of the four fenders again enhance the 3D feel. Now I just need to touch up certain areas such as the flag and the water, before I can complete the finishing touches like all the ropes, the anchor chain and the handrails. I'm really pleased with my progress at this stage and confident I can finish it before Christmas.


Step 5 - warm shadows on the cabin and reflection in the water

Step 1 - Step 2 - Step 3 - Step 4

Tags: acrylic, painting, art technique

Acrylic painting step by step - Boat part 4

This is turning into a long process. I hope I can get it finished by next Thursday, when I'm going to my sister's for Christmas. Here's what I did last night. I've added the dark blue shadows to the hull, and painted the four fenders along the side. They look a bit wierd just floating there, but I'll add the ropes in the final stage as they are in front of everything else. Note the reflections of the fenders in the water. I need to add a little green to those, as they retain some of the green from the water. I then painted the anchor bracket on the bow, with a simple mixture of Payne's Grey and Titanium White. Next, a little detail on the windows and curtains in the back cabin, and I was going to finish for the day, but I just had a nice little blob of white paint left on my pallette, so I refined some of the edges on the cabin and sketched in the mast. Here, the white will show through later, ensuring the brown of the wooden mast remains bright. Finally I added the radar and little gadgets on the mast. Next I'll start to add some warm shadows to the white cabin and work on the mast some more.


Step 4 - More shadows on the hull, painting the fenders and mast.

Step 1 - Step 2 - Step 3

Tags: painting, acrylic, tutorial

Acrylic painting step by step - Boat part 3

After the third stage of painting, it's starting to look a lot more complete. I've worked on the sky gradient, blending from a lightish cobalt blue with a hint of green, adding more and more titanium white as it gets closer to the horizon. I've filled in the blue hull of the boat with a dark phthalo blue mixed with paynes grey. The blue is actually still a little too bright, so I'll have to add a darker layer with more grey. I've put down a base for the reflection in the water beneath the boat. Obviously the hull is reflected in the water, so there is a lot of blue in there, but it also retains some of the green from the sea, so the basic colour is a dark blue-green, which will be highlighted later with lighter greens and whites from the cabin. Now the sky is done, I can get to work on the mast.


Step 3 - painting the hull, reflection, and blending the sky

Step 1 - Step 2

Tags: painting, acrylics, art technique

Painting a boat step by step - Part 2

Well, I sorted out my previous mishap. The sketch is now correctly proportioned and I've started to apply some paint. I used a thin blue wash with a hint of green for the sky. This will be lightened later, and blended into a paler blue towards the boat. I've filled in a darkish green for the areas of the sea which reflect the sky. The rest of the water will reflect the boat, so that will be much darker. And finally I've applied a base layer of white to the cabin. A lot of this will be painted over, but it's good to get some paint on the canvas. Got to get this done in the next two weeks, so keep coming back to see the progress.



Step 1

Tags: painting, acrylic

Drawing on the Right Side of the Brain - Book Review

Drawing on the Right Side of the Brain by Dr. Betty Edwards is without a doubt the best instructional book on drawing I have ever had the pleasure to read! It's one of the few art books that I've finished and not gone away thinking "that was all very nice, but I don't really feel like I've learnt anything". The tagline on the cover reads "A course in enhancing creativity and artistic confidence", and I think it lives up to its claim. The first time I read the book, I noticed a dramatic increase in the quality of my drawings, mainly due to the fact that I felt I finally knew what I was doing. To this day I still have moments when I feel useless, and everything I draw seems childish and ugly, but I put this down to a momentary lapse of self-confidence. At these times, I often flick once more through Drawing on the Right Side of the Brain, and merely remembering the valuable lessons in the book boosts my confidence enough to get me drawing 'properly' again. So what exactly is in this book that is so amazing?

Drawing was first published in 1979, so there are no revolutionary new methods that nobody has ever heard of before. Just sound, practical advice to release your inner artist. Edwards' idea for the book came from working for years as an art teacher, and trying to find out why so many people find it particularly difficult to learn the skill of drawing. She states that it's all about the way we see, rather than the actual drawing technique. People tend to see what they think they should see, rather than what is actually in front of them. For example, we all know the iris of the human eye is round when seen from the front, so we create a symbol in our mind of a round iris. When seen from the side, the iris becomes elliptical, but because of the symbol we have formed, many of us will draw the iris round, or at least more round than it actually appears. So how can we break free from these mental symbols and learn to draw what we see? The answer, it seems, lies in the right side of the brain.

It is fairly common knowledge these days that the human brain is divided into two parts, the right and left hemispheres, and that each hemisphere is responsible for different aspects of human capabilities. Citing studies carried out by Roger Sperry, Betty Edwards explains how both hemispheres are capable of thinking, reasoning and complex mental functioning, but they utilise different 'modes' (which she calls L-mode and R-mode), L-mode being verbal, rational, and analytical, while R-mode is intuitive, relational and spatial. By purposefully shifting our brains into R-mode, we can silence the talkative left hemisphere, enabling us to see things not in terms of symbols, but in terms of space, tonal value, relationship and so on. This, she claims, is the key to seeing how an artist sees.

There follows a chapter full of exercises designed to get you into R-mode, by presenting the brain with a job that the L-brain will turn down, such as the classic vase, which looks like two faces facing each other, and upside-down drawing, which helps you to stop drawing what you expect to see. A lot of emphasis is placed on drawing 'negative space', that is, drawing the space around an object rather than drawing the object itself. Many of the exercises and examples in the book concentrate on drawing the human face. Edwards says this is because most people complain that the face is very difficult to draw. In fact, no subject should be any more difficult to draw than any other, because we are simply drawing what we see. But our set of symbols for the human face is very well defined - two almond shaped eyes at the top of the face, a mouth which turns upwards in a smile, and so on. So this is why many people struggle with drawing portraits; it's harder to switch to R-mode and forget the symbols. Drawing on the Right Side of the Brain aims to dispel the myth, which is why there is such emphasis on portraits.

Through learning the techniques in the book, I feel like I've not only improved my drawing technique, but also, by learning how to see clearly and objectively, the world has become far richer and more beautiful than ever before. When I take a bus in the morning, I am constantly observing people's faces and drawing them in my mind's eye. I favor caricatures, so I often look for the most prominent features of a person's face and try to see the caricature as I would draw it on paper.

If you are an artist struggling to produce realistic drawings, I cannot over-emphasise the value of this book. I guarantee it will bring out the artist within you!

The New Drawing on the Right Side of the Brain

Learn to draw the right way with Dr. Betty Edwards innovative approach to drawing what you see.

Buy now from Amazon.co.uk

Buy now from Amazon.com (U.S. customers)

Tags: drawing, drawing on the right side of the brain, betty edwards, right-brain, book review

Mr. Eko caricature finished

Ok, so it's not super-exaggerated, but I think it still counts as a caricature - just. Anyway, I had fun with the shading. His nose and eyes are wider in relation to his face, and I made his chin and jaw a bit smaller than they should be. The left side of his face was in bright sunlight, and I had fun with that. Some parts were left white, and in other areas there was some light shading, where I actually used my eraser to do some cross-hatching, because the light had a kind of stippled texture. Well, I think it came out ok . . . see the previous two stages here and here.

Tags: drawing, sketching, caricature, lost, mr. eko, Adewale Akinnuoye-Agbaje