How To: ABSTRACT LANDSCAPES Painting Techniques - TUTORIAL!

[Music] hello and welcome to the demo today I will be doing a mixed-media painting on a 24 by twenty dollar e-wrap stretch canvas so you can see that back sides and now back to the front and the palette there on the right is just some leftover paint okay and you will see this is how I'm going to tone the surface and just start rubbing that in really good and if you have leftover paint at the end of a session this is a great way to use it you can put it on canvas obviously paper whatever surface you have around and you want to tone but a really good way to you know get some arbitrary colors a little bit of an abstract beginning of course it's resourceful because you don't waste any paint so just rubbing that in really good important to do that because if you don't rub it in well enough it can easily flake off later on so just be sure to put a little bit of elbow grease into it and you should be fine and now just you know working the sides to the sides are for me whenever I use canvas which I don't use a lot I tend to forget about the sides and I end up having to paint them you know some generic color but if you're toning the surface it's good to use the same hues on the sides as well and then that way you have a little bit of unity there and I think it has a little more harmony and continuity so now the used a mr. bottle and paper towel here and just blending that in a little bit and what that does to is it kind of fills in some of the ruts this is a you know average grade canvas so I'm not dealing with linen or anything like that this is a fairly inexpensive canvas so the the canvas itself isn't tightly woven or created so there there are it can be a little bit of ruddy so I'll find whenever I use a paper towel and tone it down like this it'll help smooth it out a little bit so that's uh kind of doing two things at once really okay so toning it and then also getting a little bit more of a smoother surface so that when I start to move into the painting it will flow a little bit better so we'll some acrylic ink there and all that's gonna do is just add a little bit of pop I'm really doing this because the inks have been around for a while and they're starting to dry up and there's just not a lot in there so whenever your inks get down to where it's just a few drops on the bottom they has a tendency to dry really quick so I had a few bottles laying around that were kind of fit that description so just get rid of it before they end up drying up and this is a good way to do it and I'll add a little bit of a pop to this toned surface okay and that's all all this happened there so anyway I'm just using a brush now as you can see a large fan brush and kind of mixing that in a little bit and now the key is to let this dry okay alright good and dry here and now I can start to move into the painting top right hand side you can see my inspiration so I have a main seascape landscape however you want to look at it and that's basically a design that it's pretty straightforward and I think it's kind of ready to go there's not a lot of tweaking that needs to be done I may leave out the lobster pots you know in the bottom left hand corner and create more of a pier or something simple there but anyway I have some two large round brushes they're synthetic brushes and I just went directly into that cerulean blue and notice smear it on the canvas and sometimes you know that's all the needs and that that's going to establish the background for me and so now this is some decent gray drawing paper and I've used used it for some demos and there are some nice marks on it some good random arbitrary type colors things like that and I'm just going to just sprinkle that in the background a little bit and that's going to start to bring out some of the dwellings and lobster shacks and things like that that are back there and I'm not trying to duplicate anything really that is there so I'm not trying to copy it but I want to get a feel for some homes and different things happening back there so anyway if you're curious when I'm using there to adhere the surface that's just some Mod Podge and a little bit of that on the back even into the wet paint will help in the wet paint itself will almost act as a glue sometime so yeah once I do this and you know I'll be ready to kind of move into the next phase but for now just kind of removing a little bit of that heavy blue paint just so I can get a little bit of a texturing going on and it's not too heavy and as I do this you know continue to look at the shapes so if you look at the paper you know I'm not just doing it to random I'm trying to mix different shapes and sizes so everything is not the same or too predictable all right tidy up the mess here and I can start to move in with some this is how this is a white excuse me acrylic paint and as you can see directly into the surface and again that blue back there is wet still so nothing is really dried back there and now a little bit of a loser and crimson and I'll just test that on a piece of paper here just to remove some of it mainly and then just to make sure my eyes are kind of tuned and to the hue that's gonna go on there and so basically just chiseling out a few shapes adding a little bit of interest some you know brushstrokes and trying to make a little bit of sense out of what's there make it more of a shapes of homes and cottages and things like that that are hanging out back there and that just breaks up the blue and gives uh gives that background you know a start anyway I now have some yellow ochre and again working directly into the canvas so no pretty mixing or anything going on here my fan brush is still has a little bit of that alizarin crimson and blue on it so I know mixing that paint on my brush with the yellow ochre is gonna create some very variation some the subtle changes basically in the yellow so that was kind of purposely done there there's a time to clean the brush and then there's a time you know that I kind of use what's there because it's not really going to hurt anything and possibly even help out the cause so now to smearing that yellow ochre around pulling pulling it into that bottom left-hand corner which will I decide it will be a pier or a dock and now again working directly into that cerulean blue and doing a little bit of negative space painting here to define your the background and then also to start to put in this water and it's fun and if you've never painted directly like this onto the surface it's really freeing freeing I should say and then it's a very spontaneous away painting and all oftentimes you know it's traditional or common to just break out a pallet and premix everything and you know so just changing it up a little bit is always fun so no same thing as I did with the background paper towel here to just blend that hue a little bit get some soft edges break up a little bit of the brushwork just so there's some variation all right now you can see I'm using a hairdryer and I want to get this surface really dry and that's gonna keep my colors very crisp a lot of times if you work in wet and wet and then you get too many layers going on then it can easily get muddy on you so getting that dry surface puts me back in control of my colors and it also allows me to do a little more of collaging here and that's pretty much what's gonna happen I'm going to start to zero in a little bit on these boats and just add a little bit of the next layer to this painting okay so basically start with the background getting everything blocked in and then the background is just simply a support so there's no sense of spending too much time back there so now I can kind of look at this the boats which will basically be some of the focal points so now I'll just relax here and let you guys watch the process put it on a little bit of music and let you enjoy the ride a little bit and then I'll tune in later when I feel there's something you need to know I'm moving in with a little bit of acrylic here and this is titanium white cat orange that is burnt umber or raw umber rather yellow ochre and then CAD red light and now you know but doesn't my palette so I will cue the music and let you guys enjoy the painting for a little bit and I'll chime in later [Music] [Music] [Music] so I'm using a small pointed round there and at this point I want to start to make some some shapes some definition to the boats so I'll use a little bit of the blue there and that is with some Viridian green just to give it a nice change of pace so everything is not just that one shade of blue and as you can see just we're going around those boats the edges trying to make some of this a little more believable so that the eye well go to it with those nice hard edges and a lot of that was set up whenever I added that blue if you remember right and then I use that napkin or paper towel to smooth it out and then I gave it a nice blend oh you know kind of a soft edges so and over the color is just enough to where I could come back with that nice pop more saturated color and add those nice intense values and hues very saturated and then create that definition - that is just a liner or signature brush there and I just want to scream start to add some details things that are no synonymous and what you would see with boats like this these are just some old lobster boats and having some verticals as well I will break up a lot of the the movement that's going on so you always want some more good horizontals good verticals in your landscapes and seascapes so they're there you just have to find them sometimes and these little antennas and different rigging and stuff like that helped out in that case so yeah I'll just continue to use this a small liner and a few details locate some edges that are lost like the bottom of the boats anchor them a little bit of water and kind of work my way through it so it is balancing things out as I go okay so cue the music and enjoy the demo and I'll chime back in later on [Music] [Music] [Music] so as you can probably see they're a little more collaging to bring out the dock area and again having those verticals is a great way to kind of lead the eye right into that water into the boats having that kind of in the foreground creates a little bit of a layering aspect to the painting too so always kind of thinking about composition it's okay to improvise make things exaggerate things add other elements that probably aren't in the image there just to enhance the composition if it doesn't work then you can always paint over it but I try to kind of visualize this stuff before I get into the painting so I kind of know where it's going so here are just some nice earthy Browns adding a little bit of shadow and some believability to the dock and start hitting a few highlights and you know it's a foreground it's really just a way to leave the eye in so important not to take it too far unless it's used for a focal point but for this you know really the you know the painting is more about the atmosphere the the way it's done the style of the painting and then just the scene itself which the boats and the homes in the background and and things like that so it's not a strong focal point here but it was just more for I think the expression of the scene because the composition is not bad it works so anyway yeah just using that little liner still and a few details always being careful not to you know of course take it too far and now I'll move in with with some darker greens some earthy greens things like that to add some foliage in the background and that's just gonna break up some of the blue - I mean if you remember right I use that blue in the background in the beginning of course I use it in the water so I want things to be too heavy and on the blue so how using that green will kind of break that up so again how cute little music here and just let you guys enjoy it and I'll see you guys as I get near the end of this particular demo [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] okay well it's coming together as you can see I'm just going to anchor the chimneys a little bit here and add a little bit of a you know darker side to it and a few details but at this stage you know the paintings been worked pretty good and you know you know don't want to take them too far it's so easy to ruin the abstract qualities you have to remember with painting loose you want those imperfections and the common mistake is to let let yourself cover those up meaning your brain gets in the way and you start to see the inaccuracies and you're like oh I've got to fix that I've got to fix that next thing you know it's it's overworked and it loses that that quality which is that kind of carefree attitude and spirit of painting loose so just don't go too far so just bringing out a few trees in the background and I think we are good to go here so I am going to show you the finished painting here image was taking in a natural light so you get a good feel for it and now I'll give you a close-up here of some of the texturing and details and that pretty much wraps it up okay so I hope you enjoyed the demo hope it inspires you to break out some acrylic and mixed-media and do something fun thanks for watching

Channel: Painthog

Views: 23,877

Rating: 4.8795562 out of 5

Keywords: Tips For Painting Abstract Landscape With Acrylics And Collage

Id: 7xPVo7e639A

Length: 27min 16sec (1636 seconds)

Published: Thu Oct 03 2019