Emily Paints Figs and an Onion - wet in wet from life

in this video my wife Emily is going to paint an onion with some figs and I thought the painting came out very nicely and she's going to comment along as she paints this and I thought it would be nice for you guys to sort of have a student's perspective so to speak and also before she starts to paint I wanted to show you this painting of a horse that I had finished I had painted the head in a few videos ago finally I delivered it to the client and wanted to show you the finished painting so here's that painting and now without further ado here's Emily painting the figs with the onion so first I mixed up some colors and I use the color checker checking my colors making all my rows all my steps so there's my drawing and I start always start with filling in the background it's just this one it was all black so it's really easy nothing to see there and then I started filling in the tablecloth the front of the tablecloth always always always I start with the darkest shadows first and I'm not at all worrying about being exact basically I just want the colors and the value really just the values to be right with the front of the tablecloth the shapes and such don't really matter that much and filling in the dark dark steps starting with the black and then working up to the lighter steps and not really worrying about how how much bigger my shapes are than the actual tablecloth trying to paint with bold strokes trying to just fill in the fill in the space this it was kind of fun because you know I didn't I wasn't really worried about I knew that this was not the star of the show at all so just blobbing it in not not blending trying not to blend too much and then getting lighter and lighter sorry I need to get to the fold of the tablecloth at the top now this entire time I'm using my color checker which this is actually the first time I've ever used a color checker I've always for whatever reason I've always painted from a photograph and I've never used the guy I've never painted from life and had to use the color checker so this painting probably took me longer than if I'd been used to the color checker but it was great it was it was very much a learning experience and I enjoyed it it was fun using the color checker for the first time and I usually you know my steps are really big and I just needed to mix up some in-between colors that's what I'm doing here and I usually do that with with paintings I usually make my steps bigger than I don't know bigger than I'm supposed to and I go back in and and mix the in-between colors and you know sometimes is in between colors actually you don't just lighten them up or darken them sometimes you need to add a little bit of a little bit of tena blue or you know something sometimes you don't notice there's a tiny variance in the color shift is not just a difference in the value and filling the top of the tablecloth which you know if you just look at this tablecloth i without using the color checker you don't really notice that it does change value is at least three different steps the back is the darkest and then there's that sort of in-between color on the right and then it gets pretty light right around the onion where the the light is hitting the tablecloth and making it the brightest and if you'll notice the so I painted this over a couple of days and over those couple of days the the fig the the fig in the middle started to rot and I had to replace it with a new fig so the fig that I drew is actually not the fig that and I started to paint the fig the middle fig then it started to rot so I had to replace it with the fig that you see in the photo now so you'll see me I initially paint it and it looks really different so don't be confused by that because I do go back in and fix it and try to make it look more like the fig that you see now and that that is that is the problems with painting from life at least painting you know organic materials organic items such as fruits or vegetables or flowers is that they they do rot and they do they die they wilt whatever it is whatever it is you're painting so you have to go pretty fast or you take a photo and you paint from the photo but I really wanted to pay from life and I did it worked out you know but you can see very clearly now that the my fig that I drew is not the same as the fig in the photo but it's okay still fig and by the end of the painting it they all look like figs so I can't stress out about it if it happens to you just keep going alright so this plate really really vexed me I am not good at seeing an object as a simple two-dimensional shape like mark teaches I think drawing is for sure my week one of my weak points probably my weakest I have no confidence in drawing I do use the proportional divider in a big way but I still really struggle with drawing so anyway you know mark just is trying all he always tries to tell me okay see try to see the object as a two-dimensional shape and so I sort of put my eyes out of focus and I try to see that plate as a shape instead of a plate and I still like it is so wrong you can tell the plate is so wrong anyway I go back and fix it later because I just got frustrated and I just saw it and it was so wrong and I've just moved on I moved on to the figs which is fun the figs were way more fun than the plate so the fig as you can see I started with the dark darkest shadows first and always reminding myself not to pollute the shadows do not pollute the shadows Emily have to keep them dark and all and usually if not always paint those shadows larger than they actually are because you can go and go back in and easily put a lighter color over it it's way harder if your shadows are not big enough and you try any and then you paint the light color in you have to go back and try to darken it it's just way more complicated so I go it I always shadows first and make them bigger than they actually are and also trying to see the fig as just blobs of color so I'm not I'm trying not to paint them as figs I'm just seeing them as color shifts like here's this color painted there here's that color painted here I'm trying not to blend just putting the colors in laying them in boldly and then later what later I'll go in and sort of work on the details but I paint better I paint in two steps in my mind at least first I put the colors where they belong I don't think about it looking like a fig I just think about it as sections of color just put it in don't blend put it in lay it down and then coming back later to fill in the details and make it look more like a fig and again the colorchecker you know I'm really using the colorchecker a lot you can't see that but but I am because like I said I'd never paint it from life and I don't know why I hadn't I guess I you know we have a good printer so I've just used use the printer and I just took have always had taken a photograph you know mark taught me to paint about nine years ago when we were married and I didn't think I was really an artist at all I always you know had friends that it was always my friends that I thought were really good at art not not me because I was a nurse just had been a nurse for several years and still am but I love I do love painting it's it's a different user different part of my brain and I really enjoyed a lot when I have the time to do it and the colorchecker was just a new experience in that in that creative realm so I really enjoy I really enjoyed this painting except for the figs that that rotted on me because I was going too slow let's see what am I doing here so just fill it in the stem I'm pretty much finished filling in at least filling in the first layer of colors on the figs on the first figs and you can tell the stems are especially different but I'll go back and modify my painting later but I'm still painting like Marc teaches or at least I'm trying to laying in your colors not over blending not polluting your shadows one thing that I do that's really different than mark is I typically only use two brushes mark will sit there and he'll have an entire handful of paintbrushes and I don't even understand that I can't keep up with all the paintbrushes I have a light color I mean I have a paintbrush that's sort of my light lighter highlights and then I have a paintbrush that's for my darker shadows and that's it I have two and they're you know sort of on the figs I used a fairly large brush I guess because I just wanted to not focus on the DJ it helps me not focus on the tiny details I did change brushes here and I had got a little smaller because I needed to fix that stem but I try not to paint with tiny paintbrushes because it makes me sort of over obsess about the details so I use a little bit bigger brush initially at least to fill in the color lay in my colors makes me paint more boldly and not blend I just lay in the colors with sort of a you know a brush slightly bigger than the one you see there and I have a dark brush and a light brush and then when I come back for the details I use a smaller brush and I break a lot of rules too because I sort of go from dark to light and I'm not supposed to do that but so this play like I was saying before was it was really hard it was so hard for me for whatever reason it's just hard for me to do shapes that are precise like like a like a you know a shape like a plate and then yeah so I mean it's so obvious to me now how different the two sides are like the right one is like this fat Roundy thing and the left side is a little bit better but I just couldn't see it I couldn't see it initially I got so frustrated and it took me forever to finally see it and fix it at least halfway fix it to where it was presentable and you know a good thing about painting figs versus like painting a portrait which I've done no more portraits lately I haven't painted a still-life in a while but so it's a lot less pressure to paint a still-life because you know those figs and the onion you'll see I did not draw them perfectly not even close to perfect and it does not matter it's not matter just go go for the the values have to be right and the overall shape has to be right but otherwise you know the little details the little details sort of make it yours you know like what am I going to emphasize or just leave alone and still working on the plate and then I noticed oh wow okay the right side is way fatter than the left side so I've got to fix it and I'm constant when I paint I feel like all I'm doing is painting problems that I have to go back and fix so I'm like okay I just painted this other problem because I just smeared this dark color and I have to go back and fix that and then I have to go back and I've got it yeah so the shine on the front of the plate anyway that's what I that's painting it's a chat it's a constant challenge it's like I'm laying in my colors creating products II just created that problem oops the paintbrush I should have used a needle brush and I didn't because I was too lazy to change my brushes but I know okay I'm just I'll have to go back and fix that and that's why I see I went I fixed it and then I noticed that my shadow was the wrong shape I go back and I fix the shine again oh and there was a little shine underneath that fig you can't really see I think I was sitting slightly higher then that photo shows so I had to go back and put a shine in there so now I'm fixing I'm fixing the figs I fix things not really the right word I'm going back yeah so I'm fixing the shapes but I'm also asking myself what's the difference what's the difference what's the difference over and over and I'm skipping around you know I see oh this I need to fix that my shine is not light enough so I add a little bit of white in there and I finally get the needle brush finally fix the shine a little bit more and I think I actually leave the figs like that for a while because I'm just sick of looking at yeah so I move over to the onion because I'm just like okay I'm sick of looking at these figs I want to look at something different I think I probably like take it to our break because I'm just sick of looking at the painting in general so I start with the the darks always always always lay in the lay in the shadows of the onion for me it's always good to have fresh eyes I cannot paint for long periods of time I get and I'm not good at sitting still either so I have to you know I'll paint for an hour at most and then I have to get up and walk around and get the blood flowing again and my muscles so that I can sit there I'm not good at sitting still so I take a lot of breaks but I think it makes me paint better because I'm not I don't get bogged down in one thing just move on move on keep going keep going and then I come back and I see all the problems and I start to fix them so laying in laying and laying in those dark shadows trying not always always telling myself don't pollute the shadows make sure they're big enough if not a little bit too big paint them in a little bit over paint them and as you can see the shape of my onion is totally wrong well I don't know if totally is the right word but it's wrong but I don't I just don't care I just left it because I knew it still look like an onion maybe I'd wanted it to match the figs I really don't know but it's still it's still yeah still an onion so huge optical illusion here you know you look at the the onion and you think there's no way this it's this dark but the color checker it'll show you the color checker will not lie you have to just trust it check your colors check check check and slowly step by step and I'm noticing I'm having to you know mix some extra colors some in between steps so my steps like I said are usually a little bit too big or not exactly right which is not a big deal you just mix up some new colors so I guess my colors weren't really red enough some of my initial colors that I mixed up and especially with this onion even more than the figs I did not initially when I first laid in those colors I was not looking at all of those details in that onion the flaky parts the veins the little cracks the creases I was just laying in the colors trying to put my eyes out of focus and see that onion as blobs of color as sections of different colors so put that I just put that in first starting with starting with the darkest shadows and working working my way up and I don't think I mixed any of those green colors on the right side of the onion initially I had to go back and mix a lot of those green colors for whatever reason it's funny you know you just don't really sometimes you don't notice what you've skipped over at least I don't so I was trying to I was going to go back and fix that shadow I mean that a sort of shine on the left side I started to and I was like no I'm just going to leave it move on move on keep moving on and then there's that little skin that's flaking out on the bottom I was trying to match that color oh and then I have to yeah I had to mix a lot of these greens because that I didn't mix them initially I didn't see it as so green over there and I also didn't see oh the pink yeah so that I don't know I think I just completely ignored the right side of the onion with the color checker at first I don't know I just got tired of mixing colors and just stopped mixing colors and so I didn't notice that was so green and pink over there on the right side which I love I love those colors and their beautiful colors but I completely skipped over those so if you see on my pal you don't see those on my palette initially and that's fine if you ever skip them just mix them up so I'm still trying to paint in these shadows these word we're weird little shadows some of them and I'm trying to see them as shapes you know like a little crescent or a triangle or simply seeing them as shapes of color not this is not an onion to me right now at all painting it as shapes of color and not blending ever or well not much the line the line between your background color which is black in this case and the object you're painting that's something I fixate on sometimes it just drives me crazy if that's just sort of if it's a really bold line I like it to be more soft I always have to go back and soften that line because it just drives me crazy if not you know I could have gone back and really made this onion sort of more hyper hyper realistic but I like my paintings to look like paintings I like them to have the quality of you can see the brushstrokes obviously you want to bring out the beauty of the onion which most of that is in the colors and the values of those colors however all those little details you know you just have to choose yourself how much of those details do I want to try to go back and paint and fix because you I mean I could sit there for a long time just over obsessing about every single little vein and you know a little cut and little flaky things but I did not but if you want to then I'm sure it would look great too and for whatever reason I did choose to use a slightly smaller brush for the onion I really don't know why I mean it's not tiny but I used a smaller brush to paint the onion and I think I only used one brush the entire time which is would drive mark crazy I just started with the you know the darkest shadows and this slowly worked up and in between you know I'm using my paper towels and wiping off but I don't know it's just so much easier for me not to have to think about switching my brush out with every color shift it would take me a lot longer to do that and I guess I never got in the habit of doing that so it's hard it would be even more hard I'm probably stopping to use my color check hold up my color checker compare my color see how see how big that that color actually is because you know sometimes you'll think okay it goes from here to there and you'll paint it in and then you'll check again you'll think oh shoot no it doesn't it actually stops it actually stopped way down below so you know like I said before and I'm sure mark says all the time you just have to trust your color checker so I'm painting in the highlight I'm starting the sort of the base colors of the highlight you want to start with those darkest highlight colors and then work up to the light the lighter ones and the lightest ones and trying not to blend just laying in those colors on top of each other and beside each other and that highlight is kind of weird it's sort of you know there's it's kind of diffused it was hard it's hard to say where it ends where it begins and initially I think I paint it way too big and I go back and fix it so that's that's still not the highlight you know the lightest highlight that's the base of base color of the highlight and yes I notice it needed some more pink and I love I just love that pink color in the onion so pretty try not to get caught up in the details still I think I made that even more pink I think I put mixed in yeah I mixed in some a little bit more red a touch of red into that color I had before to make it even more pink so then see it's the exact same brush I think it is and I just went from pink to black okay this is a different brush okay so I had black and then I okay I knew I was going to the highlight oh yeah I finally changed my brushes I'm painting in the heil some of the highlights I'm trying to I painted it too big and then I'm trying to go back and fix it now but still not blending and then I got a new brush sometimes for the for the details I like a bigger brush to make make it softer to make my strokes a little bit softer and so I'm using this bigger brush I'm trying to see the details still pretty big picture you know a vein here a shadow there some skin here and there mixing some different colors that I didn't have on my palette before you have to keep it subtle but you know I I did want some details in there because that's what makes that's what makes the onion look like an onion pitting in that little shadow the very top of that's the bottom of that little skin piece and it's hard it's hard to keep it at the right subtlety because you want it to be settled but you also it has to be there and painting in a few more of those veins that run up and down the onion oh yeah I had to go back and fix that shadow as well so at this point I'm pretty much done with the onion pretty much moved on and now I'm back to the figs because I was sick of looking at the figs now I'm back looking at the figs and just asking myself what is the difference so initially I didn't put any of the little details those little dots or anything in oh and now I'm looking at the new fig and I don't super obsess about making it look exactly like the new fig on the in the photo that you see because I had to switch it out because the first one was rotten or I don't know what just rotted like overnight but I do I do change that my old fig quite a bit I bring some of those lighter sort of orangey colors down into the shadows more I changed the stem I mean I could have left it I really could have and no one would have known but just for the for the sake of the video I at least wanted it to match a little bit better and then I noticed that the fig on the right overnight I don't know it just what for whatever reason I didn't see all this green before and or maybe I just left that highlight out because I go back in and I paint in the highlight better and I'm trying to put in these little dots the thing with the dots it's hard like you have to keep them subtle but you want them to be there at the same time you have to make sure they're not like perfectly in line they have to be random painting in the China pain in the highlights so yeah the fig in the photo is way more has a lot more of the orange and that black shadow on the right is it's a lot smaller in the new fig that you see in the photo so I'm trying to sort of fix it but I'm so scared I'm always scared I'm going to over blend because you know mark is just always harping on don't blend so I'm scared it's like I'm scared and tentative to to mess with it too much but I need to mess with it I mean I do not have the confidence that you know a very experienced painter has I do try but I for sure do not have the confidence of mark he has a lot more experience than I do and you know since I did learn to paint nine years ago I have not painted constantly I you know I'll take six months off and I won't paint anything and then I'll for whatever reason become inspired to paint something else and I'll do it or I'll paint maybe two or three in a row or I'll get a commission for a portrait and I'll do that and then I'll take a year off so and I don't mind it like that you know I really don't I think maybe I paint better because I am NOT doing it all the time and I'm not tired of it it's it's fun it's still fun for me most of the time it really is I still really really enjoy it so see right here I'm like oh no my polluting my shadows yikes I'm trying to fix fix I'm always fixing the problems that I made before oh so here I noticed that the back fig sort of blended with the front fig and then I went back and made the fig on the Left have anyway I made it sort of stand apart from the other fig and then I was sick of the fig so I was like okay I think the figs are done I don't need to keep messing with it messing with it messing with it just leave it alone they're fine so then I moved back to the onion and I do that a lot I go back and forth like I'll focus on one part of my painting I'll work on it really hard and then I'll just get to a point where I just can't even see it see it anymore you know I just don't even know what I'm doing anymore and so I move away from that and start working on something else so this was good it was like you know there's two little sections there's the figs and then there's none Yin I went back and forth I don't paint well if I can't see it with fresh eyes or relatively fresh eyes so now I'm just trying to fix that highlight it's it's kind of a it's very diffuse highlight how to get it just right oh yeah now I notice that the shape of my shadow is totally wrong so I go back and fix that I'm pretty much done pretty much oh and then I have to go fix my stem and there you go if you go to draw mix paint calm you can find links to all my free videos if you go to Geneva fine art comm you can find out all about the paint that I use to paint with that I manufacture myself right here in Austin Texas and thank you so much for watching you

Channel: Draw Mix Paint

Views: 148,293

Rating: 4.8692698 out of 5

Keywords: mark carder, carder method, oil painting techniques, realism, fine art, learn to paint, how to paint, brushwork, artist, geneva, geneva fine art, geneva fine art supplies, geneva paint, color mixing, limited palette, alla prima, paint, painting, paintings, painting demo, mix paint, mix color, mix pigment, mixing color, mixing paint, mixing pigment, color theory, color wheel, color paint, color painting, oil paint, pigment, method, technique, emily

Id: O1tOexil798

Length: 38min 25sec (2305 seconds)

Published: Wed Sep 28 2016