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Harlan's Easy Painting Course in Acrylics
Play #6: Paint with white and another color.
Try an abstract painting for this exercise. The repetition of vertical brush strokes creates harmony in the painting. Variety of values and brush strokes helps create some excitement.
I used the same simple color combination to paint a sky and distant mountains. I angled the clouds for a more dynamic sky. Notice that the sky is darker at the top and much lighter at the bottom. The mountain range is a flat shape topped with white paint for snow.
A simple, bold design is often more effective than a complex, detailed composition.
Play #7: Paint with black, white, and another color.
Using only a few colors is called a "limited palette." I like doing this because there's less to think about in color mixing. And it creates a kind of automatic color harmony. I got the idea for the penguins from a thumbnail sketch, which you learn to do in Play #9.
Once again, I tried for simplicity in this painting: black outlines; white bird bodies and white dots for eyes; and a mostly flat sky. Notice the variety within repetition among the birds. For a good explanation of visual design principles explained simply, go to this site. Understanding those principles will help you create more interesting paintings.
I painted the sky first, adding more white to the blue as I quickly worked down the painting. The rock face is a silhouette, easy to paint. I added the climbers for a sense of scale. They are really almost cartoon shapes, not much more than stick figures, painted carefully with the tip of the small brush. If you copy this painting, you can make the climbers larger. You may want to first practice painting the two figures on scrap.
This little painting is 2" x 8". It's fun trying different formats.
Play #8: Paint as many colors as possible in one painting.
Before painting a realistic painting in full color it's helpful to see the variety of colors you can get from the three tube colors and white. It's also good practice in color mixing.
Play #9: Draw thumbnail sketches.
The first lesson my high school art teacher taught me was drawing small composition sketches before making a painting. Draw them from memory or imagination. They can be representational or purely abstract. Think of them as creative doodles.
I've included a pdf file of thumbnail boxes for you to fill in. Print the pages and draw your designs with a black felt pen or pencil. I've kept the thumbnails small so you're inclined to work on overall design. Again, a simple bold design packs more punch than tedious detail.
Draw many, many thumbnails. You'll like some and reject others. I drew dozens of these during Winter Olympic commercials on TV. Again, have fun and play!
Go to the next page for Play #10.
All art work Copyright © Harlan Simantel
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