Acrylic Painting



Original picture

 Okay, I have to admit that this one made me nervous. The assignment was to paint a picture using the color we chose for our value scale.  I picked what I hoped was a relatively easy picture to paint. It is a simple flower in a small vase surrounded by a few rocks and water. The color I chose was red because that is my favorite color. Once the outline was sketched out, I decided on the lightest shade and started there. The picture went pretty smooth and easier than I expected because there were large patches of color rather than a lot of small patches.

Me concentrating



It was a bit difficult deciding which shade to use on the non-red portions of the picture but having my value scale nearby made it easier.  When I finished the large areas, I went and added shading and highlights. I then lined the different items in the picture to make them stand out. Once I felt I could not do anything else to improve it, I stopped.  I am very happy with the painting.

 



Final painting



This was my very first time painting with acrylics and I enjoyed it very much. In fact, I am already planning my next painting!

Oil Pastel picture

We are working on acrylic painting in class this week. I thought I'd try painting a smaller version of the same picture but with a different media. I painted this picture using oil pastels. After sketching out the picture, I filled it with the oils then went over portions of it with watercolors. I think it gave it a nice look. I changed the background a bit to make it look more like a water lily type flower, floating in the water. What do you think?

Branching out

This assignment was to draw a landscape wtih one tree or bush that has a personality. Well, I have no landscape and two trees. Believe it or not, this is the paneling inside one of the elevators in my office building. All three walls have this type of "wood markings". Makes for a very uncomfortable ride when you're alone in there! They remind me of the trees in Fantasia.

I plan to re-do this assignment.

Value Scales

Today's assignment was to create 2 value scales. The first one is a gray value scale and was created using photos from magazines. It was a challenge to put this one together because each time I thought I had 10 values, I looked closely and found blue or brown hues in the photograph. Once I had my values ready, I pasted them on a white bar then onto a black matte board. This keeps the values at the end from completely disappearing into the background. Looking at this picture, there are several values that look very similiar but in person, there is a greater difference in the tones.

Roller Coaster Contrast

This assignment was to draw at least 6 continuous bands of color. Each one needs to reach at least 2 sides of the paper and must cross or be crossed by at least 2 other bands.
I loved doing this one. it was a bit difficult getting the bands the same width throughout its path and deciding how to cross them but once I had that in place, the fun began. I like the colors. If you look very carefully, you can actually travel the path of each band. I used a darker shade to show where a band goes under another band. I'd like to try again using darker colors. The challenge there will be to show the shading and shadows.