Student Work: Lemons and Limes

 

by Jim

by JoAnn

by Nannette

LESSON - Lemons and Limes

 

Mix up a light wash of Lemon Yellow and Sap Green for the limes.  And Cadmium Yellow for the lemons.   Leave some white at the edges of the cut lime pieces.

When the fruit washes dry, mix a light wash of Burnt Sienna for the background.

Paint the shadow sides of the fruit with darker versions of the same colors.  Put a pale blue wash on the shadow parts of the knife.

Put in darker Burnt Sienna lines for the grain in the wood.  Darken the limes a little more with some Sap Breen + Ultramarine Blue.  Darken the lemons a bit more with Burnt Sienna.  Paint the knife handle with black (or mix from dark wash of Burnt Sienna and Ultramarine Blue).  Put some darker lines in the wood and paint the edges of the cut limes with a dark Sap Green mixed with Ultramarine Blue.  Be careful to leave those whites.  A little darker blue on the left side of the knife, and it's done.

Student work - Mothers' Day Flowers

by Peggy

                                                                 by JoAnn

                                                                by Margaret

LESSON: MOTHER'S DAY FLOWERS INK & WASH

This is a photo of my Mothers' Day flowers.  It's a bit complicated for a traditional painting, so I'm going to do a sketchy version in ink and wash.

I didn't draw in detail in pencil.  I just sort of indicated where each rose and each iris and each shape of the hydrangeas would go.  

I went right over the pencil markings, and drew in the main flowers and sort of scribbled in the hydrangeas and the white ??  My marker was very fine (waterproof of course), and running out of ink.  I would have preferred it a bit darker.  

I painted in the roses with a medium wash of Alizarin Crimson.

I mixed a light version of Lemon Yellow and Sap Green and painted in the pale greens for the hydrangeas and a few other places where I saw green.

I don't have an actual purple on my palette, so I mixed Permanent Magenta with Ultramarine Blue for the irises.  There are a few pieces of them sticking out here and there.  

I added some shadows in the white flowers with some very pale cobalt blue with a little bit of the purple to dull it.  I painted shadows on the roses and irises with darker versions of their original color, and darkened the Lemon Yellow/Sap green mixture with a little blue in random places for shadows.  I added an ink "frame" letting some of the flowers "break out".  

If you end up with spaces between the flowers that you don't want, just scribble in a few more hydrangea petals or make up a few little flowers to fill in the spaces.  This isn't an exact drawing.  I had to fudge some places to make it work.  

The "frame" is optional.  I just liked the way it looked.

Student Work - Lilacs

 

                                                                        by Margaret

                                                                         by Jim

                                                                  by Peggy

                                                                By JoAnn

                                                  By Nannette

                                                                                

LESSON - LILACS

 

Several years ago, I painted a picture of lilacs in a vase.  I thought about using my painting as a reference, but decided to just find a photo that was similar.  We are going to SIMPLIFY this a lot.

This is kind of a non-drawing, as you can see.  You can draw the whole thing out if you wish, but I think it would be easier to just draw the part of the vase that you can see, the line for the table top, and a few little marks where you want the flowers to end up.  I don't know if you can see these marks.

This is a close-up of how to do the flowers.   I used Permanent Magenta, but any purple, pink/purple or blue/purple will do.  Just dab the paint like we did for the pointillism lessons.  I used my larger round brush, not sure what the number is.  

Here is how your first washes of the flowers should look.  You should have a few white spaces showing in each bunch.  Notice that I just left some big white spaces for the white lilacs.  

I started on the greens.  I put a pale wash of Sap Green on the vase.  I drew in and painted the leaves.  I put spots of green in between the "dots and spotches" of the flowers - not too many.  I put some quick curvy lines in the vase for the design.  

I put a little light blue splotches in the white flowers, and put some darker splotches in the shadow sides of the pink/purple ones, darker for the ones on the left, and lighter on for the ones on the right.  I darkened some of the leaves, attempted to suggest the stems showing through the vase, and painted the table a light blue, with a bit darker for the shadow on the right.  

This was a quick painting.  

Here is one that I did several years ago, that I spent a lot more time on.