ochre Archives - Artisan HQ

October 25, 2012 By Thomo

Jan Blencowe: How To Mix Natural Greens For Your Landscape Oil Paintng

Jan Blencowe is a professional landscape painter and delivers this fine demonstration on how to blend natural greens within a landscape painting using Chroma Interactive Acrylics.

It is always impossible to find a green direct from the tube which can be used directly �in your landscape paintings, this is because they are not natural greens due to their hue, chroma and intensity all being particularly artificial. In this tutorial you will learn using a basic palette of transparent yellow, yellow ochre, white, blue, orange and mars black the ways to mix and form the natural greens essential for your painting. Many painters do not use black because it is a non color and tends to dominate a painting with its heavy void qualities, however, Blencowe is happy to use mars black because it has a warm brow undertones which really set off the greens which you will learn to mix.

She guides you through the different shades and values you can attain with a clear and concise reasoning so your much better prepared for when you hit the canvas next time around. Mint greens, spring greens and olive greens amongst others are all products of her mixing so with these new shades under your belt you can expect a much more organic and natural piece of art for your next piece.

October 13, 2012 By Thomo

Will Kemp: How To Apply A Colored Acrylic Background For Beginners

Artist Will Kemp teaches us in this art tutorial how to create a colored canvas for use with a still life or landscape painting. He selects the acrylic color ‘yellow ochre’ for its tonal qualities and unimposing colour to feature as the background paint. He also advises against the use of this color in portraiture because it is too close to the skin tones.

With a decorator’s brush you paint the sides of the box canvas evenly making sure you are quite rough to get into the grain of the canvas so there is no white primer showing through.Once you are happy there are no drips you can leave the sides and join the surface of the canvas working quickly so the paint doesn’t dry. In a horizontal motion drag the brush slowly side to side making sure you over lap each horizontal stroke to make extra sure the whole canvas is covered. Then that’s it, you’re ready to go with your painting.

September 20, 2012 By Thomo

Chris Saper: How To Paint Skin Tones In Oil Paints

Saper uses three models in this video art tutorial to highlight how to paint and notice subtleties within skin tone. The models are a young blond haired�Caucasian, brunette Caucasian and a lady with dark skin containing red tones.

She approaches all three models with the same strategy which is having them pose in the directional light of her choice to then literally mix up her oil paints in front of them and match the hues to the subjects. She uses a small trowel palette knife to mix a variety of colors including raw umber, cadmium yellow medium, ivory �black, and ochre amongst other paints to attain her desired palette before logging them in her sketchbook for reference when she takes on the painting from the photograph back in her studio.

She talks around the models allowing you to see which areas are of greater cool tonal value and which areas are more relevant for illuminating with a highlighting hue. The whole procedure is very professional and is a great starting block for her to project her eventual oil paintings.