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Medium: Oil
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butchart gardens gem
AN OIL DEMONSTRATION-PROJECT by JULIE GILBERT POLLARD
" If you want to become a good painter you must paint--and then paint some more. You must put a lot of mileage on your brush. Try not to be upset when your paintings fall short of your mental image of how you hope they will turn out--mine always do fall short. Remember that your skills have to catch up with your vision--and that our personal vision is the prize that makes us persevere!".
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COLOR MIX CHARTS
ACRYLIC COLORS USED
Place the following acrylic colors on your palette as you need them. Use a brush to create the mixes shown in the chart at right. Thin to transparency as required in the upcoming instructions.
Pyrrole Orange
Dioxazine Purple
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OIL COLORS USED
Place the following tube oil colors on your palette. Use a palette knife to create the mixes shown in the chart at right.
Titanium White
Lemon
Cream
Yellow Grey
Orange Grey
Caramel
Yellow
Deep Yellow
Jaune Brilliant
Orange
Cadmium Red Hue
Rose Grey
Purple Lake
Light Magenta
Rose Violet
Mauve
Lilac
Lavender
Blue Grey
Prussian Green
Cobalt Green
Ice Green
Green Grey
Yellow Green
Leaf Green
[Most are Holbein Duo Aqua Oils brand]
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Reference Photos
I chose a picture of ducks I had taken in a nearby park in Victoria. Luckily, the water is the same color and the photo was taken close to the same time of day with the sun filtering through the foliage. The photos work well together. Of the five ducks in the photo, I chose three for the painting that I felt made an attractive grouping.
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Begin with an Acrylic
Under-Painting
1. Darkest Shapes
With acrylic mixes A1 and A2 begin by painting the tree trunks, branches and twigs, then the dark parts of the ducks and the negative dark shapes between the various plant shapes and rocks in the plant edging.
When I tell you to paint the "negative shapes" I simply mean to paint around the positive shapes. Take a look at the tulip bed. The stems and flowers are "positive" shapes--the dark spaces between and around them are so-called "negative" shapes. If you look at step 4, you will see that I painted the light yellow-green background around the branches and twigs. That is "negative painting" with light color rather than dark. So remember that "negative painting" merely refers to painting around shapes.
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2. Cast Shadows, Reflections and Plant Forms
Use mix A2 to give the brushes and trees a bit more depth than was achieved with just the darker accent shapes in step 1. This is easiest to see in the bush mass above the bed of tulips. I also used mix A2 to establish reflections in the water and the shadows cast by the tree at lower right.
The composition is now locked in--time to bring out the oils!
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PAINT IN OILS TO FINISH
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3. Tree Foliage and Branch - With Caramel, Rose Grey, Cobalt Green and Green Grey, begin in the upper left corner to "smear in" some tree foliage. Then with Jaune Brilliant, Purple Lake, Lavender and oil mix 7, paint the large branch in the upper left.
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4. Tree Foliage - Apply oil mixes 8 and 11 over parts of the previously painted foliage area as shown. Some mixing will take place between the two layers. This is called "wet into wet" and produces desirable results when you learn to control the mixing that occurs. Continuing with mixes 8 and 11, paint across the top, not covering up the twigs but painting around them. Add mixes 2 and 3, plus Lilac, to the pink foliage.
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| 5. Pink Flowering Tree - Continue in the same manner and with the same colors, adding mix 4 for the darker areas, and work your way down into the large foliage clump of the big tree. |
6. Pink Flowering Tree - Add some Lilac and Lavender in the shadowy areas of the same foliage, then use mix 1 for the lightest and topmost leaves to indicate that the sun is hitting the tree from high in the sky. Add mixes 9 and10 to your greens. |
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7. Background Foliage and Water Reflections - Work into the background beneath and behind the pink tree canopy with the same cool colors plus Ice Green and mixes 10 and 7. Begin defining some of the branches. Darken the deepest area with Prussian Green with Blue Grey directly beneath. Then pull a Blue Grey reflection down into the water, also with Blue Grey. Create a water line with the chisel edge of your brush and mix 10.
Pull down reflections of colors into the water to the left as well. Add a leaf or two over the darkest area just above the waterline. |
8. Foliage and Tree - Work into the upper right foliage and twig area, using the same colors and methods, following the acrylic pattern already laid out.
Bring the water down closer to the foreground. Further define the trunk, branches and twigs of the pink tree as you go. Use a variety of colors that you have already used. Pure Lilac is used for the sun spots.
Jump over to the left side and begin painting the leaf branches that are hanging down over the water using mix 13. Begin painting the bushes to the right of the water also with mix 13.
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9. Leaves and Background -- Add lighter value leaf shapes to the hanging branches and some lighter colors to the top of the bushes behind the pink tree. Add mix 12 to your greens. Work on the right side of the pink tree and the background down to the top of the mass of orange tulips.
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10. Pink Tree, Bush and Water -- Define the pink foliage and the bush a bit more. Paint the water on the left farther down, then paint some reflection color and value down into the water under the bush--the water and reflections must be painted down to the top and around the sides of the ducks' heads and bodies.
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11. Bush -- With mix 8, add some very light leaves to the top of the bush shapes to indicate where the sunlight is hitting the strongest.
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12. Orange Tulips -- Using Deep Yellow and Orange, start painting the mass of orange tulips starting to the left of the pink tree trunk. Paint in a dark basecoat on the bushes directly under the orange tulips using Mauve, Blue Grey and Prussian Green. Add lighter reflection strokes under the green bushes using mix 11.
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| 13. Tulips, Bush and Water -- Add Deep Yellow to the right side of the tulip mass and a few dabs into the shadow area. Add More color to the small bushes beneath.
Back to the water: work it around the ducks and the ducks' reflections and down to the top of the foreground flowers. Suggest some movement in the water around the ducks with a few swirly strokes of a lighter color.
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14. Tulips, Small Bushes and Reflections -- Starting on the left side of the tree trunk, suggest some stems and leaves under the orange tulips and start fleshing out the small bushes, using Blue Grey, Leaf Green, mixes 11 and 13, plus touches of Lavender. Pull some of the same colors down into the water reflections. |
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15. Water Movement -- Some horizontal strokes of a light color, mix 8, combined with the vertical strokes already in place will give the water a wet glossy appearance. It's important to remember not to use only horizontal brushstrokes when painting water--combining horizontal with vertical is the key! Using horizontal to slightly diagonal strokes, sweep from left to right, painting across the vertical reflections, both breaking them up and softening them for a more natural look.
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16. Tulip Stems -- Now go back over to the right side of the canvas and paint the darker values into the tulip stems using Mauve, Blue Grey, Green Grey and mix 7. Leave some orange-toned canvas showing for some of the stems.
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17. Large Leaves and Rock Border -- Add some light sun spots to the tops of the tulips on the far right. Paint some broad leaves up over the tulip stems. Paint a few spots of Deep Yellow in behind some of the stems. Continue painting the patch of foliage beneath the tulips with Lavender, Blue Grey, Ice Green, and mixes 8, 10 and 12.
Add some very light strokes to the tops of those same leaves. Now paint the rock border and sunlit ground directly under, using mixes 1 and 4, Rose Grey and Purple Lake. Paint the ground around the cast shadow.
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18. Ducks -- Start painting the ducks with Cream, Yellow Grey, Rose Grey, Purple Lake, Lilac, Blue Grey and Cobalt Green.
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19. Flowers and Rock Border -- Refine the duck on the right with mix 7 and Lavender on her wing, and with mix 1 on the top of her back.
Begin painting the mounds of flowers under the tree, the rock border and cast shadow. Use Orange Grey, Rose Grey, Lilac, Lavender and mix 7 for the rocks and shadow. Use Lavender, Blue Grey and mixes 5, 6 and 7 for the flowers and foliage.
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20. Flowers and Rock Border -- Continue the rock border and ground with the shadows cast upon it. Add sun spots on the tops of the rocks. Add Jaune Brilliant, Light Magenta and mix 1 to the flowers.
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21. Dappled Light -- As you carry on with the business of painting the mounds of red and purple flowers, pay close attention to how the light spots of color in the appropriate places works in concert with the cast shadows on the ground to create a dappled light effect.
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22. Purple Flowers -- Block in the shadow shapes of the purple mounds with mix 7.
[Step 23 continues below Color Lesson]
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Color Lesson: USE PAIRS OF COMPLEMENTS TO CREATE COLOR CONTRASTS
| Here's a lesson on using complementary colors to create brilliant color contrasts. The painting utilizes two outstanding pairs of complements, with the red flowers, the pinks of the cherry tree and reddish-brown rocks surrounding the greens of the foliage and water--the red/green duo--being most prominent. The color swatches shown below are some of the reds and greens from the Color Mix Charts above.
Next in importance is the orange/blue duo--notice how your eye bounces back and forth between the orange tulips and the blue
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flowers, which pulls your attention even more to the ducks than it otherwise might. If you examine the painting you will find many warm/cool contrasts that may not be exact complements, but nevertheless provide color excitement.
With every single complementary pair, one of the colors is warm and the other cool. For example, in the red/green complementary pair, red is on the warm side of the wheel and green is on the cool side. So there you have two contrasts: color and temperature.
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23. Purple Flowers -- Add some definition to the purple flowers with suggestions of foliage and some lighter color--Lilac, Lavender and Cobalt Green--on the tops and some darker strokes in the shadowy recesses.
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24. Flowers -- Continue to add strokes of color and value as needed. Mix a little Lavender into some white and add just a few lighter spots of this onto the tops of the purple flower mounds, a few dabs of mix 2 on the red mounds, and mix 10 on a few of the leafy areas to suggest dappled light. These are small touches, but they do add to the feeling of sunlight.
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Finish
25. Check Your Work
Now we're in the nitpicking stage! After stepping away from my painting for a while, I came back, studied it and decided to make a few tiny changes.
First I added a few more leaf shapes to the foliage under the tulips to give it more dappled light.
Then I added some horizontal light streaks in the water to the right of the ducks, taking care not to lose all of the vertical strokes that are already in place. Finally, I added a few more spiky leaves to the left of and behind the tree trunk to create more depth. Now I think we're done!
Butchart Gardens Gem
20 x 16 inches (51 x 41 cm), oils over acrylic on canvas
by Julie Gilbert Pollard
Please Visit Her Web Site
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Artwork and Text Copyright 2012 by Julie Gilbert Pollard, All Rights Reserved.
Please respect copyrights
Julie Gilbert Pollard's book, Brilliant Color: Painting Vibrant Outdoor Scenes is published by North Light Books,
an imprint of F + W Media, Inc. Reprinted with permission of the artist and publisher.
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