Here are 5 tips and tricks for creating your own piece of artwork, whether you are new to painting, new to art as a whole or experienced. Here are some interesting tips that I swear by.
1). You don't always need to add fine details with a small pin pointed brush head. Try using a range of mediums and materials to achieve this. One of my favourite ways to add in details is to use a block brush and use dry paint- this creates fine details that can be layered to create different effects.
2). BLOCK BRUSHING - using dry paint, dab the brush very lightly into the hard mix of paint, usually I make sure that the tips of the bristles are some what evenly coated. Using a direct motion instead of a sweeping one add in those small details and "blobs" of colour using a packing motion, this allows you to layer up the paint and over time allows you to understand the material your working with. This does take a bit of practice but this tip is also good if you struggle with 'letting go' and trusting yourself to become more 'freeing' in your strokes.
3). This one might be an obvious one but ALWAYS have clean water on hand. Use two containers/glasses or whatever you can find to hold your water - sometimes I might even have 3 pots of water depending on the size of painting I am working on. One is your first clean - use this to initially clean all the paint off your tool, then use pot number two - This is the water that you then use to mix new paints or add onto your material. This water has to be clean to gain the maximum impact from your pigments. For large paintings where I am using a lot of tools I sometimes use a third pot of water and this is just to use as a back up incase my pot number 2 ends up contaminated, After pot two's clean I carefully dab my tool on a linen rag and then proceed to pot 3.
Tip number 3 I don't know if many of you would class as really a tip but it is a procedure that works well for me that I have come to realise over the years of painting with different mediums. Try it out and see if it works for you.
4). I find that having a clear vision of the subject that I want to paint or illustrate is so important for me, at times I have started a painting blind only to realise that it changes half way through, I tend to change my mind with what I want where and what the subject of the matter now seems to be. When it comes to the ocean I find it easier to go to the beach if there is one around, luckily I live only a short walk away from a range of beaches and have more if I want to drive - so for me it is easy to go and take photos for my own observation when I come home. Doing this and having a clear image to work from does wonders as it becomes easy to create a pathway to work from when painting in your layers. Alot of the time I paint from memory and a painting can come together from me mentally merging all of my thoughts together, I think I spend that much time down on the beaches and up along the clifftops over looking the waves gives me enough to work from memory. I still believe in having that "clear" thought/image to work from.
5). WORK BIGGER - yes, it takes longer - but painting is about patience. I find that working bigger gives a better opportunity to add in details that you never initially thought were there. For example - if you are working from a photograph try putting the photograph up side down or to an angle and paint from that, also - paint from the centre outwards so that your mind has something different to focus on rather than looking directly as a photo, This allows you to look more creatively at the small details and defects in the subject of the image itself - details that before this tip you might not have known were there. They create the painting and without them it could turn out flat.
Bonus - I thought I might just include this little one here.
- - Don't always assume that the ocean is blue just because it reflects from the sky. The best way to paint the ocean is to imagine how transparent it is. Remember there are so many colours in a rainbow and this goes exactly the same when it comes to light reflection. Use a vast amount of colours and blend appropriately and let me know if you see the difference.
Those are my 5 (and a little bit) tips and tricks to painting.
I hope you liked them. There are more coming soon
Now go get painting, see you soon, Hannah @HLSdesigner