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Acrylic Painting Techniques - How to lay out an acrylic painting palette technique

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10 mistakes beginners make in Acrylic Painting  -  Painting Tips w/ Lachri

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Today I'm talking about the top 10 mistakes I see Acrylic artist make when trying to get certain results. Are you a beginner and having trouble getting smooth blending? I've got the answer for you! Are your paint brushes getting damaged quickly? Are you not sure which canvas is right for your painting?

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Brush Stroke Techniques | Acrylic Painting

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8 Acrylic Painting Techniques | Acrylic Painting

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Watch more How to Paint with Acrylics videos: http://www.howcast.com/videos/497953-8-Acrylic-Painting-Techniques-Acrylic-Painting Hi, I'm Linda. I created a company called Paint Along. Check us out at paintalongnyc.com. We have really fun painting workshops in Nashville and New York. How to Paint with Acrylic Paint: Acrylic Painting Techniques We're going to talk about some painting techniques.

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New Technique! Loaded Paper Towel Swipe Acrylic Pour

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DO'S & DON'TS: How to Paint with Watercolor

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Getting Started: A Quick Way to Understand Brushes (video) | will kemp art school

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Mink, Squirrel and Pig This may sound like the beginnings of a fairy-tale but it's a quick and easy way to think about brushes. Most traditional brushes are made from animal hair and the quality of the brush - its bounce and feel, is dependent on the quality of the hair used.

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Huge Cells

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(20) Acrylic Pour - Huge Cells with No Silicone on Large Canvas - I'm Closing in on a Theory

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preparing your canvas
how using a colored ground can help!

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The number one mistake all beginners make is buying a pre-stretched canvas or canvas board from a discount bookstore and not unwrapping the cellophane from it.

The number two mistake is leaving the canvas white when they start painting.

The first technique I always teach in painting (and a technique I use on 99% of my work) is to cover the white canvas with one solid paint colour which is called a ' toned ground'.

This is short for 'toned background' and is No. 1 of my painting principles.

It can be called a 'toned ground' or 'coloured ground' as it can be used in drawing and painting.

Using a coloured ground does a number of fantastic things that are not to be underestimated when starting to learn how to paint.

It can transform your paintings by making them look more professional, increase the speed in creating your paintings and give you a fool-proof method of creating a tonal mood in your work...Different artists throughout the ages have used toned grounds in their work, from Turner to Jack Vettriano.

Turner used pre-coloured sheets of watercolour paper with different hues (colours) of browns, blues and greys.

When faced with a scene he would look through his pre-painted watercolour sheets and select the most appropriate colour.

For example, a warm brown for an Autumnal tree scene.

You can apply a toned ground (also called a coloured ground) opaquely or as a transparent stain (called an Imprimatura)

For our initial purpose an opaque finish is best as it stops the acrylic painting looking too 'watercolour'

Pro tip: It is applied after priming a canvas with gesso if you're working on a raw canvas.

What colours do you use for the toned ground?

It depends on the mood and feel you're after in your painting. You're trying to imagine what's underneath the painting and then build opaque layers of colour ontop of this.

My preferred choice for landscapes, still life's or portraits nearly always stem from one of the Earth colours. See: What are my paints made from?

Usually either Burnt Umber + white, Raw Umber + white or Yellow Ochre.

For the absolute beginner, I recommend using Yellow Ochre.

Why?

It's usually included in most beginner sets and can be used diluted with a little water.

It's also brighter than you think so is good at taking you out of your comfort zone.

Using Yellow Ochre can cause some hesitation if you are first starting painting as the yellow can seem too strong, but you just need to have a little faith!

For example, if you are painting a blue seascape the warm undertone of the yellow can balance perfectly to the cool blues in the scene, adding the feeling of the sun hitting parts of your painting.

Pro Tip: If you try using the Yellow ochre straight from the tube but still find it a little too strong in intensity for your taste just add some Titanium white to the mix to mute it down - it will give you a colour close to Naples yellow.

Are your watercolour techniques ruining your acrylics?

If you're coming to Acrylics or Oils from Watercolour you will naturally use too little paint.

Watercolour is based on diluting, Acrylic is based on adding.

If you combine scratchy, watery paint onto a white canvas your painting will look amateurish.

If you have the same scratchy watery paint on an opaque ground colour your painting will look rocking!

The coloured ground is doing all the work for you.

How does a coloured ground help me?

Bought canvases and boards are nearly always white.

When you have a white canvas any colour you paint onto it looks drastically different because of the optical effects and tricks colour plays on you.
As a beginner, this can be disconcerting. For example, if you paint a light grey onto your white canvas it will look black.

With an untrained artistic eye, it's really hard to judge colours and tones accurately because of the effects of 'Simultaneous contrast.'

Have a look at the video half way down this article to see the effects of simultaneous contrast

How much do I dilute my Acrylics? (and do I just use water?)

It depends on the brand of paint you're using.

Heavy body paint will need more water than a soft body paint. As I use this technique on most of my paintings I use a fluid acrylic from Golden paints. This has already been mixed in the factory to a thin consistency and has a good level of acrylic binder in the paint and a really nice strong saturation of colour. You can add a touch of water into it and it will still hold the acrylic bond really nicely.

If you're just starting with the technique using standard Acrylics will work fine.

Pro tip: Some manufacturers recommend you don't dilute Acrylics with more than 40 - 50% water due to diluting some of the acrylics adhesive qualities (as you are diluting the amount of acrylic 'binder' in the mix). However, for this stage of the painting this doesn't matter, as we're painting directly onto the canvas. We want the paint to 'grab' onto the canvas and soak it. If you mix in too much medium at this stage it can cause a resist to the further layers of paint adhering onto them as easily. Keep the mix thin and 'lean'.

Pro tip: If you are finding the paint is pooling in small droplets on the surface when you are just using water you need to add a dash of 'flow release medium' to the paint. This will help to break down the surface tension and make the thin layer of paint soak into the canvas.

How do I apply an Acrylic Coloured Ground?

Time :10 Mins

Level: Absolute beginner

Materials:

Yellow Ochre Acrylic paint ( I demonstrate with Golden Acrylics Heavy body paint) white canvas or canvas board, decorators brush (I use a Purdy 2 inch decorators brush), kitchen roll (paper towel), water, newspaper, Cranked handle palette knife ( I use a number 45 RGM palette knife)

Pro Materials: (Tear off the disposable palette, Cranked handle palette knife ( I use a number 45 RGM palette knife), water mister, Golden fluid Acrylic.

So here's what you do:

1. Lay old newspaper on the floor, or work on a really old floor or table.

2. Mix the Yellow ochre in a jam jar/old mug or plastic tray with water until it's the consistency of milk/single cream. Student Quality paints will need less water than artist quality paints.

3. Grab some kitchen roll in your left hand (because your bound to get some unwanted drips when you first start).
Pick up the canvas. Paint around the edges first, trying not to get too much overflow onto the front of the canvas. Angle the brush to minimize bristles sneaking over the front of the canvas. Apply the paint with a scrubbing motion to 'push it' into the canvas so it soaks into the canvas.

4. Place the canvas on the floor or low table. Then working quickly brush the paint from left to right to cover the canvas.

5. When you paint there will be darker streaks of paint on the edge of the canvas because the bristles push it out. You have to keep working backwards and forward to smooth out the indiscretions.

6. squeeze the brush in the kitchen towel to take out most of the moisture and then gently go over the canvas again working from left to right, overlapping strokes and lifting the brush at the end rather than working back and forth.

Watch out for drips on the side of the canvas and if your too enthusiastic watch out for spray from the brush.

Pro Tip: I premix a whole airtight plastic container with a ground colour so I don't have to mix the perfect consistency every time.

Pro Tip: If you are mixing the paint and the water together don't use the decorators brush, it will pick up too much of the paint and be tricky to mix together. Try using a plastic kitchen spatula, old paintbrush
: I Use Golden Fluid Acrylic paint as it has a stronger staining effect than watering down Heavy body paint.

Pro Tip: If using Acrylic ground for oil paint make sure you add water to the acrylic. As acrylic is plastic based it can cause a skin that the oil paint will sit on top rather than sinking into the canvas.

Pro Tip: If you add too much paint to the initial layer the paint won't behave the same on the weave of the canvas.

So where do we go from here?
You've unwrapped your canvas and got a lovely coloured ground painted. Now we need to have aquick understanding of brushes so we have the right tools for the job.

Resources

These brushes are off the hook, brilliant for decorating at home as well, come with a little cardboard 'brush house' to keep the brush in shape between uses. Look out for sets for sale as these can be really good value.

I predominantly use Golden paints as I find the colour saturation really good and the Titanium White has some amazing opacity. They also have a huge range of mediums, Gels & varnishes.

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Getting Started: How a Prepared Canvas can Drastically Improve your Painting | will kemp art school

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The number one mistake all beginners make is buying a pre-stretched canvas or canvas board from a discount bookstore and not unwrapping the cellophane from it. The number two mistake is leaving the canvas white when they start painting. The first technique I always teach in painting (and a technique I use on 99% of my ...

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resources, tips, tutorials, lessons

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How to...

A series of 'how to' articles and videos on some of the most common questions and simple video tutorials.

Varnishing & Isolation Coat

How do you varnish an acrylic painting? What is an isolation coat? And do you even need to varnish your oil painting at all?

Colour Mixing & Understanding Pigments

Inspiration, Travels, Exhibition Reviews & Art History

Exhibition reviews and painting travels looking at the exhibitions with an artist's eye

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A series of 'how to' articles and videos on some of the most common questions and simple video tutorials. How do you varnish an acrylic painting? What is an isolation coat? And do you even need to varnish your oil painting at all?

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PDF

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what are they and how to use/make them

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When you first start painting, the vision is of squeezing out bright vivid paint colours, a handful of paintbrushes, maybe a beret?

But often this approach is an illusion, an artist myth.

To get professional results you need a professional approach.

If you want freedom and expression on the canvas, a bit of premixing can help you achieve more pleasing results, especially if you are trying to achieve a more realistic effect.

If you spend a little extra time in preparation, your actual time at the easel will be more efficient, quicker and rewarding.

Let's enter the world of colour strings...

What are colour strings?

When painting, you can either mix your colours as you need them using the raw pigment colour straight from the tube or premix your most useful tones.

Some artists prepare batches of colours in advance, others only prepare a few, others don't premix at all preferring to mix on the fly - and this is the approach that beginners usually favor.

It really is personal preference but premixing is definitely worth practicing.

When trying to create the subtleties in portraits, it can be practically essential.

Traditionally, colour strings are used with oil paint because you have the luxury of a slow drying paint, so you can premix all your colours and tones one day and the paints will stay wet for weeks (depending on the size of the blobs of paint and pigments used)

However, you can also use the same approach with acrylics.

You have to work a bit quicker but I often premix colours I regularly use and either:

1. Keep them in small resealable plastic tubs or empty paint tubes.

2. Premix paints with a palette knife on a tear-off palette then transfer these piles of paint to a stay wet palette. This acts as the loading bay and you can keep them on here for about a week.

Then use a fresh tear-off palette to layout the colours you need for each part of your painting. Although the second method sounds a bit laborious it can become quite therapeutic and will mean the actual painting time will be quicker and easier.

Pro tip: make sure the stay-wet palette isn't too wet, or the paints aren't all student grade paints. They will be too thin so will soak up the water and mix into each other on the stay-wet palette.

How to mix a colour string?

A colour string is a group of premixed piles of paints with different tonal values.
You usually start with the darkest colour in the string (say a pure ultramarine blue) and slowly add progressively lighter 'steps' to the mixture.

The lighter steps can be added with any lighter colour but are usually made by adding white as it is easiest to keep the tones as a clean tonal shift.

What does premixed colour mean?

Premixed: Sometimes you can buy a colour that has been 'premixed' by the manufacturer say a 'mid-tone grey' or a 'flesh tone pink' but I favour staying away from these and using the basic 5 colour palette we've used before.

This will teach you both about the tinting strength of each pigment and show you how very subtle earth colours can be mixed from bright hues, using the principles of colour theory and complementary colours to help to dull and mute colours down.

Split colours into zones

You can premix strings for certain areas of a painting, just spend a few minutes looking at the subject and trying to split a painting into different zones.

So for example, in a simple landscape the sky can be a string of three to five colours, say start with an Ultramarine Blue with a touch of white, make a pile, then add a touch more white to create the next tonal step, make a pile, then add a touch more white for the colour nearest the horizon line.

The mix above starts with a dark blue of Phthalo blue (green shade) with a touch of Ultramarine blue - then gets progressively lighter. This will help to create a soft, blended finish due to the ability to quickly intermix the mixtures with confidence, knowing that the mixes are already very close in tone to the finished scene.

Using colour strings in black & white paintings

Even though they are usually called colour strings essentially the process stems from working with black and white tonal values. Often called a value scale or tonal range. For black and white paintings a value scale of 9 or 10 mixtures is used. I prefer to use 9 mixes as it becomes easier to split lights, mid-tones and darks.

Each 'step' in the colour string has the same jump in tone when you flick your eyes between them.

You can download the above value scale and practice matching the tones with paint or pencil.

The power of 3

Using nine values can be useful when first modeling form because you can use the darkest 3 tones for the darks, the lightest three for the highlights and the middle 3 as the halftones.

The trick is having the willpower to only use those three premixed colours for that area of the painting! It will be very tempting to try and use the other tones.

If you keep them separate it will really improve the realism in your work.

In this portrait I worked on the basic 3 tone underpainting, it was on a raw umber and white ground, value 3 or 4.

The dark shadow tone is pure burnt umber, this lies in the darkest 3 tones. This second stage I use Raw umber and Ivory black for the neutral dark grey and I also use flake white for the lights.

I then work up the painting using the full 9 tones I've premixed (painting 3 above) This stage in a painting can sometimes be called a grisaille - a monochrome tonal underpainting.

I have found it saves me a lot of time in the later stages of colour if I take the time to make a complete value painting in grisaille first.

The painting is still rough at this stage but I am now ready to start modeling the form knowing my tones are in the right ballpark. Adjustments will be made, but this just gives a great starting point.

Below is the palette I used the darkest grey is a mix of Ivory black and Raw umber to create a neutral dark. I then added Flake white progressively.

Using colour strings and experimenting with tonal shifts can help to give your paintings a variety in contrast whilst helping to create a harmonious painting.

The below video shows how to apply the colour strings to a blended sky using acrylics

1. The Importance of Contrast
2. Are the 3 myths about Black Paint holding you back?

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A Beginners Guide to Colour Strings (and How to Paint Quicker) | will kemp art school

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When you first start painting, the vision is of squeezing out bright vivid paint colours, a handful of paintbrushes, maybe a beret? But often this approach is an illusion, an artist myth. To get professional results you need a professional approach. If you want freedom and expression on the canvas, a bit of premixing can ...

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The Types of Paint Oil Acrylic Watercolor the Pros and Cons

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Acrylic Painting Tips for Beginners: Blending

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Colour wheel complementary colours: Blue & orange complementary colour mixing

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Acrylic Painting Tutorial: Layering Paint

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youtube
This has many tutorials to try and follow along with.

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A small sampling of Acrylic lessons, tips and tutorials from ArtTutor.com

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How to Paint a Simple Landscape with Watercolors

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How to Paint a Simple Landscape with Watercolors

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How to paint a simple landscape in watercolor

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Watercolor Painting Tips: Using Salt with Watercolor

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The Complete Guide to Masking Fluid for Watercolours

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youtube
This has many tutorials to try and follow along with.

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Watercolour Painting Tutorials - YouTube

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A selection of watercolour tutorials from www.ArtTutor.com

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Are You Unwittingly Creating a Compositional Cardinal Sin? - will kemp art school

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Ever looked at your drawing composition and something feels wrong? You just can’t put your finger on it, 90% of the piece looks great but somethings not quite right. You could have fallen prey to an easy slip-up, you might have drawn a ‘tangent’ by mistake. A few simple changes can transform your d…

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'And after drawing comes composition. A well-composed painting is half done'
Pierre Bonnard

Imagine a lovely drawing of a house with a path meandering up to it, trees either side in careful balance, a classic landscape scene that just 'works'.

Where is this masterpiece? The Tate? The National?

No, stuck to your fridge door, created by a 4-year-old.

As a young child, visual harmony and composition comes naturally.

Children seem to start out with a near perfect sense of composition if you have small children or are lucky enough to have any of your old drawings you created as a child I'm sure you'll find the same to be true.

Younger children see the edges of the paper as a whole frame to fill, and they often fill them with a great sense of balance.

When you start to grow up, you know - really old like 9 or 10, that's where the drawing problems start. The focus shifts and is aimed away from composition to the pursuit of something far more important, where the accolades are huge and respect even greater, the quest for the ultimate prize ...... realism...

A reframing of priorities

The importance that was once placed on the edges of the page, the 'wholeness' of the piece are disregarded in favor of singular objects, and the representation of these objects as accurately and as detailed as you can possibly make them.

The prize is no longer for composition, a 10-year-old doesn't care, the focus is on accuracy and realism especially 'hard things to draw' like hands or faces. But the ultimate goal, the real award winner is this....If you can draw a crumpled can of Coke realistically you are king of the art room.

The simplest way to start

Once you have diverted from the path of composition in childhood it is hard to get it back, and you will have a natural tendency to place objects in the centre of a piece, this is due to the strong symbol systems formed in childhood.

Lowry embraced this simplistic quality resulting in his paintings looking childlike.

It is not only through the handling of the paint, but the composition of his painting where everything is biased towards the centre.
If you want to make the jump towards a more sophisticated composition there are a few things to consider.

Choosing a format, square or rectangle

A format is just another word for shape, and this comes down to personal preference. From squares, rectangle, panoramic. The easiest shape to create a balanced composition
is a rectangle, just like an A4 piece of paper.

The rectangular format: this is an absolute classic and extremely flexible format. When a rectangle is displayed with its shorter side across the top it is known as 'portrait format' and with its longer side across the top 'landscape format'.

The square format: This can work extremely well or very badly. You very rarely see a square old master painting. This is because it is harder to balance a painting that has lots of elements within, for example, a collection of figures in a landscape within a square format. It can look awkward very easily. However, using a square format for a more contemporary subject, an abstract or a minimalist seascape, can be very effective.

3 is the magic number

Composition is about variety just "don't make any two things the same"

The "Rule of Thirds" can be key to creating balance in landscape painting

Make sure the shapes, spaces and gaps between objects are all different.

com·po·si·tion/ˌkämpəˈziSHən/Noun
1. The nature of something's ingredients or constituents; the way in which a whole or mixture is made up.
2. The action of putting things together; formation or construction.

Composition can be confusing and hard to pin down, you don't really notice good composition in a painting it is just there, which is why it is one of my . The dictionary definition above doesn't necessarily help us. ' the action of putting thing together ' well, this is true but the actions of putting things together so they 'work' is harder to explain.

If colour mixing is about relationships, the warm to the cool, the bright to the muted then composition is about variety- busy to calm, large and small.

Don't make any two things the same. If you've got a row of fence posts going into the distance - check the gaps, they should all be different.

If you have a simple still life with a jug and some fruit - check the heights, they should all be different, check the width, they should all be different.

This seems very straightforward, and it is. It is just a simple way of analyzing your initial set up. Is this method true for all paintings? No, but the more you look, the more you will notice this to be true.

The rule of thirds

What is the Rule of Thirds?
The rule of thirds is very commonplace in photography. It instantly helps to add tension, balance and interest to your photograph but applies equally to the composition in painting. When creating a landscape composition this is what you do:

1. Divide your page horizontally into 3.
2. Decide whether to have your horizon on the top third or the bottom third (the bottom third is always easier to balance, it helps to make the sky look vast and imposing).
3. Split the vertical into thirds.
4. Align areas of focus at the intersection between the lines.
5. Marvel at your genius

You can see in the Chardin painting above how there are numerous examples of aligning objects within the rule of thirds, the top of the jug aligns with top horizontal line and sits butted up to the vertical line, even the top of the funny little pot on the far left side sits on the bottom horizontal line, to name a few.

Pro tip: If you have a mac, iphoto does all the work for you. It can change the size and the rule of third lines are already on the screen for you. Align, resize, repeat.

How your digital camera can help your composition
Your digital camera probably has a viewfinder function built in, often called grid. It again overlays the rule of thirds over your image, just align important compositional elements along these lines or their intersections and voila... instant painting.

A word of warning
Rule of thirds can work very well within a rectangle, however, for landscapes squares can be a harder to create a balanced painting even when sticking to the 'rules'.

A Brief History

The rule of thirds was first written down by John Thomas Smith in 1797. In his book Remarks on Rural Scenery:

"Rule of thirds", (if I may be allowed so to call it)..., in a design of landscape, to determine the sky at about two-thirds ; or else at about one-third, so that the material objects might occupy the other two : Again, two thirds of one element, (as of water) to one third of another element (as of land); and then both together to make but one third of the picture, of which the two other thirds should go for the sky and aerial perspectives."

If you put the principle of 'no two spaces the same' with the 'rule of thirds' you can create pleasing compositions very easily. If we analyze the quote below by Sir Joshua Reynolds we can see how both these points are touched upon.

"Two distinct, equal lights, should never appear in the same picture : One should be principal, and the rest sub-ordinate, both in dimension and degree : Unequal parts and gradations lead the attention easily from part to part, while parts of equal appearance hold it awkwardly suspended"

This last comment is the key, nobody wants a painting 'awkwardly suspended'. He also comments on the importance of contrast when creating a harmony to your work:

"And to give the utmost force and solidity to your work, some part of the picture should be as light, and some as dark as possible : These two extremes are then to be harmonized and reconciled to each other."

The golden mean

Classical paintings had a very scientific and structured approach, with lots of confusing things like root rectangles and golden means. They are often more mathematical and planned out than you would ever imagine....whooahh there, we are moving into complicated classical territory which deserves a proper explanation, which I will address in a future post.

The key point to remember with composition is about variety - just " don't make any two things the same " and start with a rectangle canvas.

You might also like:
The rule of thirds in landscape painting

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The Secret of Good Composition | will kemp art school

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'And after drawing comes composition. A well-composed painting is half done' Pierre Bonnard Imagine a lovely drawing of a house with a path meandering up to it, trees either side in careful balance, a classic landscape scene that just 'works'. Where is this masterpiece? The Tate? The National?

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The Rule of Thirds in Landcape Painting by Will Kemp

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Acrylic Mediums : How to use Acrylic Gels and Mediums

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http://www.willkempartschool.com How to use Acrylic mediums and gels to improve your painting techniques. In this painting lesson professional artist Will Kemp shows you step-by-step how to use Regular Gel and Extra Heavy Body Gel from Golden paints.

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A close look at the oil painting techniques used by Rembrandt, and the lighting used in his studio in Amsterdam

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Step 1 of 4...
link to YouTube for more...

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"Painting is very easy when you don't know how, but very difficult when you do"
Edgar Degas

A step-by-step approach to acrylic painting

In this series, I will be posting a weekly video on my YouTube channel that you can follow along at home. It's free to subscribe to the channel so you can keep updated with the painting progress.

The image below can be 'right clicked' and 'Save image as', so you can use it as a guide. Materials you will need:

10 x 10-inch pre-primed canvas. -I'm using a Winsor & Newton deep edge canvas

Size 6 Isabey Isacryl acrylic brush - filbert

Size 10 Isabey memory brush - round - Available from Jackson's art

Paints

Artist quality Titanium White. - Invest in this white even if you use student quality paint for the rest of the colours.

Burnt Umber

Ultramarine Blue

Cadmium Yellow Light

Permanent Alizarin Crimson - Winsor & Newton Artist Acrylic

3B pencil

Kitchen roll

A jam jar for cleaning brush.

Small for or dipper for diluting paint

The Old masters had it easy

Painting was seen as a craft, you had an apprenticeship or trained in an Atelier workshop.

Colour choice was limited, the vivid bright colours that are found in acrylics today just weren't available and pigment choice paid an integral part in the painting process.

Not just aesthetically but as a sign of power.

Often, the bluer the painting, the richer the patron. The pigment Ultramarine blue famously used to be more expensive than gold. It was extracted from lapis lazuli, a semi-precious stone, that was used as the raw ingredient until the colourmaker Jean-Baptiste Guimet created a synthetic alternative to lapis lazuli in France in 1828.

This is why it is often referred to now as French ultramarine.

Too much choice

These days choosing paints to start with can be a tough choice.

There are literally thousands of choices of different colours. Paint manufacturers have the urge to constantly produce a new variety or shade of pigment.

To tell you that this is the 'magic bullet' the wonder colour that will solve all your painting problems.

It won't.

However, when we combine the principles from classical painting with the new modern materials of acrylic painting to create a method of painting that is both simple for the beginner to create pleasing results and broad enough for more practised artists to continue their study.

3 simple steps to begin:

Step 1. Apply a coloured ground.

This will help to give you a unified tone to work onto and give you a nice under glow of colour for this particular painting. See: How to apply a yellow ochre coloured ground

Step 2. Draw out the image.

Using a 3B pencil sketch out the image to work from. Don't worry if it isn't completely accurate it is just a guide to get you started.

Step 3. Establish the darkest darks and lightest lights.

Using Burnt Umber & Titanium White establish the darkest area of the picture. You can squint your eyes at the image to help to distinguish each area rather than getting hung up on the details.
See: The importance of contrast in painting

Acrylic landscape painting- Free video Course |Part 1

This video below shows the first steps I take to start the acrylic landscape painting. Make sure to subscribe to my YouTube Art school Channel to keep updated.

Video transcript

Morning class, I'm Will Kemp from Will Kemp Art School and this is part one in a free series showing you how to get started in acrylic landscape painting. We're going to start with this image, you can download it straight from my website and I'm going to show you how to make this.

How to get this painting from the photograph so you can do it yourself at home. On the website, I've got a list of all the colours you need, the brushes that I use, but this video is just how to get started, get your drawing laid out so can create a lovely landscape like this to have on your wall at home.

Step 1
So step one in starting this landscape painting is to block out your canvas, to put acoloured ground onto it so that you can work your paintings on top. I've already done that here and you can watch a how to do it video on my how to apply a coloured ground for acrylic painting video.

Step 2
Okay, the second step is to draw out the basic shapes that we've got here. We're just after the line drawing. I'm using a 3B pencil here which can be easily erased, it won't smudge too much yet it's dark enough to make a mark.

See how it fairly easily it makes a mark on the canvas without feeling that you have to really press into it and dent the canvas.

So a quick tip to make sure you get a nice horizontal line is just to use a piece of scrap paper and you line up this edge to the edge of your canvas so it's like a set square really. So there, line that up.

Step 3
Step three is to assess the tones in the picture to see where to start and where are thelightest and dark areas.

So the first thing to do is to squint your eyes at this picture.

Are they squinted?

Half close them just so everything slightly blurs a bit.

What you'll find this does is it makes the dark look darker, the lights look lighter and all these what are called halftones kinda of disappear and what you really get to is the basic structure of the picture and that's what we are interested in.

So for this, the darkest area is this area here of the land so that's what I'm going to paint in to start with the burnt umber. All the information on the brushes that I use and how to chose a brush for acrylic painting is on my other video or a list of other materials is on my website.

So if you notice how when I'm painting I'm resting onto the canvas which helps you give leverage and support so you can, with the finer lines, erm it's a lot easier to get a straighter line than if you're hovering your hand in the air trying to balance it.

So once I've got that in I'm now going to swap to this brush to block in that area.

The paint that I've got on here because acrylics dry so quickly, you want to make sure you get that off otherwise it will go solid on your brush and you won't be able to use it.

So I'll dip it into some water and then, you know, rub it into the kitchen roll.

You get through loads of kitchen role with acrylic, and then just squeeze it at the end and you see how if I put that on there, nothing comes out. You know it's completely clear, that's just with plain water.

It's always better to have more water and change it regularly than use the same pot, it will get mucky and then what will happen that all that dirt in your water pot will come into your colours when your mixing and you won't get a nice clean colour.

Even though we're using brown it's still worth it to keep it clean, it's good professional working habits.

Okay, so now with the filbert brush. Okay as simple as that. I often paint around the edge for my paintings so I'll paint around here.

You'll notice how I haven't been too heavy handed, you can still see some of this underground glowing through and that's really nice and I've left little bits where I've not been completely solid because I want a bit of texture, a bit of movement in this area.

So that's all I do for this particular painting with the burnt umber now I'll put in some of the highest highlights in the brightest area which is going to be when we look at the picture. It's going to be this area here where the sun is shining through.

For this, I'm just going to use titanium white.

So now with the titanium white, I'm just going to block in the very brightest areas.

You see how I'm keeping it quite loose and quite watery. You'll notice if you're not using an artist quality titanium white it won't be as thick as this it will be a lot more translucent. You might have to use a couple of layers.

When you're first starting with acrylics I always recommend buying the best quality paints you can afford.

If you can't afford to go artist quality for everything, definitely try and invest in an artist quality white because it'll have so much more opacity it'll be able to, see how it covered over the colour underneath really easily, this will be really beneficial in your future paintings.

There's a slight bit of lightness down here but not as strong as the others so I'll just dilute it with a bit of water and just scrub it in with my finger.

So now we've got the lights and the darks, now we can back to the colours that we were mixing before to start blocking in some of the areas of colour.

Mixing the Colours

The video below shows how I premix and match a few key base colours to build the painting.

You might also like:
1.Part 2. Blocking in the sky - Acrylic landscape painting
2. How to choose a brush for acrylic painting
3.How your hairdresser can teach you to mix colour.

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Acrylic landscape painting techniques - Lessons for an absolute beginner - Part 1 of 4 (video) | will kemp art school

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"Painting is very easy when you don't know how, but very difficult when you do" Edgar Degas A step-by-step approach to acrylic painting In this series, I will be posting a weekly video on my YouTube channel that you can follow along at home. It's free to subscribe to the channel so you can keep ...

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