Still Life ~ Getting to Know Colour

People who just started painting (including me) always look for a hope of succes that someday we might be really good at it. We sometimes think that only if we could control everything, we could be such great painters like so many great artists. But the only formula of success is Hard Work and Practice.

Painting is about colour on a flat surface and you use to do it to express what you feel and describe what you see. Still life has one of those. You paint still life and describe anything you see, from tones, textures, value or light. But in order to do that familiarize yourself with colors.

It sounds untrue but it really is hard to recognize a color especially at your first look. I discovered that fact from the book I read and I realized that sometimes when you look  at an object first, take for an example a tree, you know their leaves are gream but if you examine carefully and look at it for many times, it is actually quite yellowish green. But when you practice and practice, you become better and it will train your eyes to make fine judgments. So you need to train your eyes to carefully look and to really see, to identify and sort a colour. A person who is at first time of painting can also do this because there are only some of the basics to become good.

I found this simple exercise from the book I read about getting to know color. everybody can do this even for those who don’t really paint or draw. Maybe this will encourage you  to pursue painting. This exercise is just using shapes, colors and examinations.

Take a simple subject. I am taking a banana as my subject.

TIP: Take a your own subject. A subject that will be challenging for you to examine colors.

What you need to do is to paint your subject flat, ignoring the shadows, texture, light or dark sides of it.

You can use watercolor, acrylic or any medium you found easy to use and not too complicated with colors.

First Thing: Outlining the area of colors with your brush.

Second Thing: Fill it with the colors. Before painting on the area, test the color on any scrap paper your find because the color can look different on the paper and on a palette.

Third Thing: Finishing the painting, look carefully on the detail but ignore those dark and lights. Touches of color will complete the painting.

After that, you produce a color that was seen by your eye. Look carefully at the painted banana, it is flat because I disregarded the shadows and the light to dark tones.

That exercise only train your eyes to recognize colors. Do it often or regularly and soon your eyes will be good at recognizing colors.

TIPS:

Use two  bowls of water. One to mix colors and the other to clean your brush.

Don’t worry about shades, texture or anything. Of course that is needed to make a great painting but that is not applied in this exercise. It is not what the picture looks like but what you have learned in this article.

Step one

Step two

Final

How to clean your oil pastels!

Hey Everyone. I just found out how we can take care of our oil pastels, I mean, cleaning them. Simple and inexpensive! Maybe you have this at your home or in the groceries.

I found this fact from youtube, and I would like to share it to you. You can clean your pastels just with the use of cornmeal!

I am sorry I could not make it bigger. This is just the available size.

Ok, as what I’ve studied, it is a flour ground from dried corn..I know everyone knows that ) haha anyways, you can clean your pastels just with the use of that. Very inexpensive, right?

So, what you need to have is your pastels, and a bowl of cornmeal. When you have that, all you have to do is put your pastels into the bowl of cornmeal and spread your pastels there. Do clean the pastels like you are washing them. After that, you can see your pastels not very clean but clean! Your cornmeal will look dirty and muddy after cleaning but don’t throw them away because there are still clean parts. When you can’t see anymore clean parts in your cornmeal and looks really really muddy, you can throw them away.

That is how simple you can clean your oil pastels. I hope this is a helpful information for you. Have a great day!

images from wikipedia: www.wikipedia.com and from google about pastels: www.google.com

Simple Tips I know to Make Realistic Watercolor Painting

Hello again friends! When I am painting, I usually paint with watercolor. My first thought about it was “Hay, I need to buy poster paints because watercolor is for kids only”. But I was wrong. Actually it is a good media in painting because it is very challenging to use. Why? simply because it is hard to make watercolor look realistic. At my first time painting, it was hard to make watercolor look real and it took me long hours to finish until I realized simple things to make it look realistic. You should consider shadows, shading and many others. Don’t paint so accurate sometimes because SOME can look realistic only with one to two stroke of your brush.

First, sketch. NOTE: Don’t depend too much on sketching. At your first point of painting, try sketching until you can do it with no tracing lines.

Second, examine your sketch. Think of the colors and how to put it in your painting. Also think of colors to mix. This will help you to avoid muddy colors while painting. Keep your water clean to avoid muddy colors!

Third, paint with light colors first. Or you can wash the area with the colors you wanted.

When you finish washing them with light colors in the area you wanted, go with detailing. Remember to use the appropriate brush to do the details. If you need to darken the color, do so. But don’t paint the area with only one tone of color. Use different tones to make it realistic. Try to mix colors to make some more good-looking details. Make the edges or traces of your drawing clear so that the painting will be understood. You must not stroke your brush in random directions so examine carefully the drawing that you are painting. In that way, if finished, you can see all the details, shadows, lining, and how you stroke your brush in proper direction. Then you could create realistic watercolor painting.

It is really simple try it! I hope this helps you and I hope you like this information because I just shared you how I do with my paintings using watercolor