cliff impression

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Permalink Reply by Arlene Haggerty on January 9, 2009 at 12:10am

Hi Ash! Well I'm no expert but maybe you could try Jerry Yarnell's technique. I have a few of his books and one of the lessons was a lighthouse atop a cliff. He starts by doing an underpainting of a mix of Ultra Blue, Burnt Sienna, Dioxazine Purple in various choppy strokes filling in the area of the cliff. (Or whatever colours you have in this range) Use thick paint and try not to overblend. Then he takes a loose mix of white with touches of orange and yellow and drybrushes rocks and craggy cliffs in. Shaping them and picking them out with these mixes. You could give it a try on a test surface first to get the hang of it. I haven't been on his website in a while but maybe he has some ideas there too. It is www.yarnellart.com
I did the exercise and it turned out just great but I don't have a photo of the finished painting to show you!!!
Good Luck!!!

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Permalink Reply by ash on January 12, 2009 at 6:09pm

hi, thanks for that tip but im not getting it right, im blockjing in the cliff shape but creating the rocks im having trouble with, firstly i had a go at tapping the shapes of the rocks, i want sure how that looked, then i tried dabbing on the white paint here and there but im not getting what i would like. help!

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Permalink Reply by Bill Littleton on January 9, 2009 at 4:01am

The ONE advantage I have found for acrylic over watercolor, Ash, is the ability to go from dark to light OR from light to dark -- with transparent w/c, one has to start with the lightest tones of finished painting (which may be white paper) and build up the darker values. Not sure what type of rocky cliff you're painting, but my suggestion for acrylic is to do a rough block in of your middle value, scrubbing in darker values before the ground painting gets dry. The opacity will let you lay lighter values over what you have so far -- from here on it comes down to playing back and forth with the key colors, using some drybrush technique for texture if that is called for.

There are basically two approaches for acryllics, with a number of variations: use it thick like oil, using palette knife and/or bristle brushes, OR water it down and use it essentially like you would watercolor, ALTHOUGH be careful to not let anything you don't want to be there for four hundred years to dry!!! I've had good luck using a Tupperware-type bacon keeper with a couple of layers of paper towels in the bottom for an acryllics palette. Wet the paper and keep it wet; squeeze out the pigment and mix it with the brush on the wet paper towel, picking up what you need to appy to the painting surface. The effect my be sorta dull, but it can be aided by overlaying the same or slightly different colors. I've seen paintings of Indian beadwork that entailed dozens of layers of pigment, each quite thin and each dry before another is added. The Tupperware keeper will seal and the acrylic pigments are still wet and useable the next time ... well, not a whole LOT longer, but the waste is much less than squeezing acryllic out on a flat board, unless you paint REALLY fast.

My default personality leans toward transparent watercolor (and I LOVE leaving oodles of white daisy petals in the foreground, painting around each one!), but there are times when my soul needs opacity and it's fun to lay white daisies right down on greenish-black tufts of grass with many tones of green leaping up. It just comes down to who we are and how we go about doing what we do!!!

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Permalink Reply by ash on February 4, 2009 at 4:33pm

hi, how are you? sorry not getting back to you, i have had a go at painting an impression of a cliff with a lighthouse ontop, however im still trying to get it right, see what you think? theres two to show you, which do u prefer?

ash

Attachments:

• lighthouse cliff.jpg, 61 KB
• lighthouse.jpg, 45 KB

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Permalink Reply by philip o byrne on February 4, 2009 at 7:49pm

Hi Ash, I much prefer the second picture. Much more defined.The colours in the first one look as if the are blended more than the second one. Using raw clolour thickly in bold strokes can be very effective. Here is one similar to yours. Its one of my first paintings. Let me know what you think

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Permalink Reply by Arlene Haggerty on February 8, 2009 at 5:28pm

I agree Ash! I like the second one better!! Keep trying and posting your results. Everyone here will be a terrific help!!

Arlene

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Permalink Reply by ash on February 26, 2009 at 10:49pm

hi everyone, here is an idea of the layout for the painting i want to do on a larger scale, but im not sure whether it would work/ lookright biger on say a 14 x10 canvas board. its only rough but that the layout i was thinking, having the foreground at an angle, what do you think?? thanks

ash

Attachments:

• lighthouse sketch.jpg, 59 KB

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Permalink Reply by Suzanne LeBeau on July 27, 2009 at 10:18pm

Hi ash, I'm a newbee here. The foreground is good, but it makes all the rocks look like one big layer. Your background rocks need to be a bit paler because of the atmosphere.

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Permalink Reply by Josie Tapp on July 3, 2009 at 12:08pm

Following on from Bill Littleton's tip about using a Tupperware box. I use this too, for acrylics, but I put a cleaning cloth in the bottom (the one's I buy come in packs of 3 in different colours and look like felt), with a layer of ordinary greaseproof paper on top. Keeping the cleaning cloth moist, I have had paint still workable after 3 weeks.

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Permalink Reply by Suzanne LeBeau on July 27, 2009 at 10:14pm

What do you mean by greaseproof paper? Like freezer paper?

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