Art with Cynthia

I've been looking for videos to post of the kind of loose brushwork we've been talking about and this one from Peter Wood Arts is fun. He starts with a dark blue underpainting. Another way to describe it is "Optical Mixing" rather than mixing on the palette. That was invented by he Impressionist painters like Claude Monet. Optical mixing eliminates perfect coverage and smoothly-blended transitions.  Claude Monet, Impression, sunrise 1872 Jackson's Art Blog describes it: "The Impressionist painters used layers of colours, leaving gaps in the top layers to reveal the colours underneath. The technique is achieved through hatching, cross-hatching, stippling, drybrushing, and sgraffito (scratching into the paint). Mixing of brighter colours is done directly on the canvas to aid in creating the broken colour effect and only darker colours are mixed on the palette." Next week: Bring an old canvas board to play on. We will paint abstract water together, just

Here  is my latest work, a larger version of my Rock Garden. Notice the mark-making on the bottom part that will become grass eventually, and on the central red and blue areas that will be soil and moss. (I'm using a dramatic underpainting of complimentary colors): Day one Day two Week 2 Here I've added in the greens of grass and plants, and rock-like texture with my palette knife. Week 3 And here I've lightened the whole scheme with pastel colors. The composition is beginning to feel a little static and at the same time too busy...  my next steps will be to  add a thicker, darker line of shadow under the bottom rocks to ground it and frame it,  Continue the darker line on the mid right upward, (then inward in a spiral?) Add a suggestion of more rocks behind the irises?

We've talked about brushwork in the past, but I found this tutorial , by Fine Arts Tutorials, very helpful. I've copied parts of it here, but try to check it out for its large photo samples. Techniques and tips for a ‘loose’ painting style Impasto technique The impasto technique involves thick applications of paint that retain visible brush strokes and texture on the canvas. Apply paint with a  stiff brush  or a  palette knife . You can also thicken paint with a thickening gel . Van Gogh often painted in short, impasto, loose brush strokes, varying in colour. When you get up-close to his work, you can appreciate the textured effect. Van Gogh: Wheat Fields with Cypresses Alla prima (wet-on-wet) technique To paint alla prima (wet-on-wet), build layers of wet paint on your surface. The aim of painting alla prima is to finish the piece, or the section of your painting, before the first application of paint dries. If you want to use this technique with acrylic, you will have to get