Lesson video

Hello and welcome to today's art lesson.

I'm Ms. Holland and I'm gonna be teaching you today.

Today, we're learning about experimenting with wet media, with several paints.

And this is part of our foundation workshop, an introduction to the areas of study.

By the end of today, you would've composed, refined a layered painting.

You would've done that through applying colour theory, blending techniques, and thoughtful detail to enhance your visual impact of your painting.

So there's lots to get started on.

Our key keywords are opacity, viscosity, ground, gradient, and colour, complimentary colours.

Opacity is how much a paint covers the surface beneath it.

And we're gonna look at this in more detail.

And we're gonna look at viscosity too in more detail, 'cause viscosity is the thickness of the paint or the flow of the paint.

And the ground is the initial layer of paint applied to a surface before the main artwork is created.

So it's a little bit like a base layer.

And a gradient is this smooth transition from light to dark or between colours.

And then complimentary colours are those colours which sit opposite each other on the colour wheel.

And so we know that's red and green, blue and orange, yellow and purple.

So this outcome and those keywords will be covered in across two halves of the lesson.

The first half is laying the groundwork and the second half is about refinement with colour and blending.

So let's get started with laying the groundwork.

So let's get started by looking at these two paintings.

They're both portraits, but what I'd like you to look at specifically and think about are the similarities and differences you see in the quality of the paint.

So have a really close look at how the paint's being applied.

Let's see what our pupils have said.

So Aisha has said, "Both are portraits and both are using abstracted colours and expressive marks," very gestural marks.

And she thinks that both use the same medium of acrylic paint.

Sam says, "The thickness of the paint is very, very different." So the one on the left looks very thick, quite impasto type paint strokes.

And the other one on the right looks far more smooth and there's with some gradients.

So this transition between colours is much smoother with a lot of blending.

Is this similar to what you said? Different paints have different properties and different qualities.

So the different properties are things like thickness or viscosity.

So viscosity is the thickness of a paint.

Opacity.

The drying time of a paint, oils take a lot longer to dry than a watercolour, for example.

And understanding these properties is really, really important, because it helps you choose the right techniques and the right surfaces.

So acrylic and oil paints can be bought in different viscosity, so different thickness, low to high.

But because acrylics are a water-based paint, water can then be used to thin the higher viscosity paint.

Oil paints are not water-based, and so they require a medium or a solvent to thin them.

Acrylic and oil paints also offer different levels of opacity.

And artists use these deliberately to achieve specific effects.

So low opacity allows the colours beneath to show through.

You can see that here, the blue is showing through.

This is really, really useful for layering, glazing, blending, creating subtle colour shifts or creating atmospheric effects such as the sky, whereas a high opacity covers the underlying layers completely.

So that allows artists to create very bold, solid shapes, but also highlight elements.

A check for understanding, fill the gap.

Different paints have different properties such as thickness.

What is this also called? They also have different properties such as opacity and drying time.

Well done.

Yes, it's viscosity.

So higher viscosity paints are thicker.

If we think back to that portrait, is those impasto shape, impasto techniques.

Lower viscosity are thinner and flow more easily.

And that's great, again, for blending for washes or for glazing.

Artists use paints for their properties to gain the outcomes they desire.

So if we look at some artists, for example, Hurvin Anderson, he pours paint and employs masking tape then as part of his painting process.

So this deep understanding of paint properties informs which paints are poured and which are layered over top as he uses a mix of both oil and acrylic paint.

So in his own same work, he will use a mix of different paints.

Tim Fowler combines a range of paint types.

So he too uses oil and acrylic, but he adds in spray paint, enamel, and graffiti to create very layered compositions.

Check for understanding.

What does it mean if a paint has high opacity? Is it A, it takes a long time to dry.

B, the paint covers layers beneath it completely.

C, the paint is thin and watery.

Or D, you can see the colours underneath the top layer.

Well done.

Yes, it is that the paint covers layers beneath it completely.

We know that high opacity covers that completely.

Low opacity allows the layers underneath to show through.

Let's look at this beautiful artwork here and let's really think about how acrylic paint's being used here.

So acrylic paint can have high opacity and when it has high opacity, artists can use a coloured ground or base layer, so the ground is like a base layer, to set the tone, mood or an artwork.

So a ground can really set the emotion or the feeling of an artwork.

It can set the mood of the whole painting visually and emotionally.

So let's really look at this artwork here.

What does that strong orange say to you emotionally? And combined with those skeletal trees.

What mood is set? For me, it's quite ominous and foreboding.

It feels like high summer, but yet it's ominous, because the trees have no leaves.

So that contrast really creates a kind of a, an unsettling mood, an unsettling theme for me.

I wonder if that's the same for you.

Check for understanding.

Why might an artist use a coloured ground when working with acrylic paint? Is it to avoid cleaning their brushes? Is it to make the canvas heavier? Is it to set the mood or the tone of the artwork? Or is it to speed up drying time? Well done, I'm sure you all got this.

Yes, it is to set the mood or emotional, the tone of the artwork.

Artists who use a ground at the start of their painting process include Lucy Jones.

So Lucy Jones often begins her paintings with bold and colourful grounds, and this influences the emotional tone of her self-portraits and landscapes.

Elisabeth Vigee Le Brun utilised a coloured ground to achieve luminosity in her paintings.

So she used warm-based, warm-toned grounds to create a harmonious balance between the subject and background.

Artists can use a coloured ground alongside a limited colour palette to test colours, composition and tonal range.

So here we've got our study back.

This is a paint study and this study has experimented with this deep orange ground and then has used a limited colour palette to test what effect that has.

To test how the colours work together, to test how well they work in a composition.

And so this study has chosen four colours, red, blue, yellow ochre, and white.

What is the impact of these colours? So for me, the impact is actually they work harmoniously together.

I think they sit very beautifully together.

And the use of those dark colours really helps create this sense of shadowing.

And again, this sense of foreboding.

And then the white really helps highlight certain trees and create skeletal structures.

Before we start our task, I'd like you to compare these two paintings.

Can you tell what colour the ground was and how do you think the colour of the ground has impacted the finished work? Well, I think the first painting has used quite a bright blue.

And for me, that's really impacted and set the tone, I should say set the tone of the painting to be very positive, very uplifting.

It feels like spring is just about to come.

Even though the trees are bare, they don't have leaves on.

It feels like spring is nearly there.

Whereas even though the tree in the second painting doesn't have leaves on, I think they've used quite a dark grey blue ground.

And this, along with the different tones they've used, creates a sense that actually this is quite a cold wintry day and sets this tone of loneliness, introspection.

What did you think? So using our learning of viscosity, opacity, and ground and thinking about colour studies, I would like you to paint a colour study.

And I want you, the centre of this is to really think about how a ground can impact the mood, but also how paint properties can then change detailing and composition.

First of all, I'd like you to select your colour palette.

So what is your colour palette? So we just saw with that orange painting that it was a colour palette of four colours.

What's gonna be your colour palettes? And then I'd like you to paint a ground onto your surface.

So you could choose a palette that's warm or cool.

So thinking about colours that are very warm together or those that are cooler, like the second painting we just looked at.

We could have complimentary colours and we'll be looking at those in more detail later in the lesson.

Then I'd like you to paint your ground layer with a low viscosity paint, so with a low thickness.

And you could experiment with different colour grounds and compare the moods created.

So first of all, choose your colour palettes, then paint your ground, and feel free to paint as many different versions, different colour grounds as you like.

Pause the video.

Right, let's see what Jacob did.

So Jacob said he's gonna use a primary colour palette and that he would paint the ground with a mid-tone red.

So he's been very specific.

And then the different tones and colours he's gonna use within that is blue, white, and yellow.

So the blue will be used for the darkest tones and the white and the yellow will be used for highlighting.

I wonder if that's similar to the colour palette you chose.

Now I'd like you to paint the darkest and lightest tones using high opacity paint, so that paint that won't let the paint underneath show through.

You should think of this step as sketching with paint.

So I'd like you to just sketch.

Your paintbrush is your pencil and you're just gonna sketch and experiment.

You're gonna layer a colour as tones for bold base forms. So think about that tree on that orange ground, layering those colours for base forms. And then you can focus on blending or contrasting areas.

Think back to those first paintings we saw and we really saw the gradients in the second one showed that blending.

And then I really want you to, in this colour study, to experiment with different opacity and viscosity and the effects that it makes and see how it changes the mood and changes the effect of your colour study.

Pause the video.

Well done, let's have a look.

So this was the final painting that an Oak pupil created.

And Jun is talking about it.

Jun is saying, "This is a vibrant colour study." And the tonal range is very wide and that actually the shapes have been captured very effectively.

So let's look really, really closely.

We can see that mid-tone ground and then that blue that was gonna be used for the darkest parts.

And then the lighter, the yellow and the white for the highlight.

And we can see that there's been a really good for the trees a high opacity of paint being used.

And then for some of the white, a lower opacity to allow the ground to show through.

Jun says it's, "The higher opacity area covers the red underneath," you can see that.

And then we've got lower opacity where there's starting to be blending, which is great effect.

I wonder what yours look like.

Did you manage to experiment with all of those things? Don't worry, you can always go back and do more experiments.

So we're gonna move on now with refining with colour and blending.

Artists can build on the ground to create realistic colours.

How can colour theory help you make realistic colours on a bright ground? Andeep says, "Colour theory helps me predict how the ground will affect colours." So having a really deep mid-tone orange, how will that affect the colours that are then layered on top? So here we have our colour wheel, and this is really important to use and to reference when we're painting so we can help consider and use colour really, really thoughtfully.

And on the colour wheel, the placement of the colours tell us how to mix colour as well as colour relationships.

So here we have on the colour wheel the ground colour, red.

So opposite that, the complimentary colour would be green.

So complimentary colour.

Placed next to each other, complimentary colours make each other stand out.

So that has great impact.

They make each other stand out, they compliment one another.

So that's red and green, orange and blue, yellow and purple.

In what other ways can artists use complimentary pairs? Lucas says, "Adding a small amount of one complimentary colour into the other darkens it," so we can create a darker tone by adding a small amount of the complimentary colour.

Sofia says, "Mixing them together in larger amounts results in natural browns and greys." Did you think of any other ways? So what happens when you mix a small amount of one complimentary colour into another? Does it become brighter, become darker, become lighter, or stay the same? Well done, it becomes darker.

So that's a really useful tool to be able to have to be able to make a colour darker.

Artists can also use primary colours to achieve natural shades.

So here we have the primary colours red, yellow, and blue.

An equal mix of all three primary colours creates brown and then varying the amounts of the red or the yellow or the blue in each.

And adding white allows us to get this range of tone, which is amazing from these very vibrant primary colours, we're able to get very subtle natural shades.

And it allows us to use these, all these different shades to different effects.

Do similar colours blend into a gradient more easily? Hmm.

So understanding colour theory supports successful mixing to create a balance and harmonious palette with any paint.

So to create that sense of balance and that sense of harmony in an artwork.

Do you prefer to create and use realistic colours or abstracted colours? So what is your preference when you're, for example, painting a landscape? Do you prefer using realistic colours or do you prefer using abstracted colours? So colours that aren't realistic.

Why is colour theory important when mixing paints? Is it because it helps you clean your brushes faster? Is it because it helps you mix colours that work well together? Is it because it stops paint from drying too quickly? Or is it because it tells you which paint brand to buy? Well done.

Of course it is B and this is really important, because then we can create a harmonious balanced painting.

Acrylic paints can be blended quickly before drying to create gradients and smooth transitions.

So thinking about gradients now.

So we can mix all our colours.

So we've chosen our colours.

We may have mixed complimentary colours, we may have mixed some primary colours to create the colours.

We're gonna select our brushes.

This brush here, the thin brush, means it's quite hard to mix, whereas a softer brush allows for better blending.

So when we select our brushes, we need to think really, really hard about that, which is the appropriate brush to blend with.

And then this is how we can blend.

So you can see the artist here is using a soft brush just to blend these colours together.

Can you see? And it creates a beautiful gradient in colours.

What is one advantage of using acrylic paint for creating gradients? Is it because it can be blended quickly before it dries? Is it because it can only be used on paper? Is it because it's always see-through or transparent like watercolour? Or is it because it takes hours to dry like oil paint? Yes, well done.

It can be blended quickly before it dries.

So we want that.

Oil paint takes a lot lot longer to dry.

To gain smooth gradients in acrylic paint, you could plan your colours first so you can blend while the paint is wet.

So that's like the slide we saw with the chosen colours.

And then the video of the blending.

You can place similar colours next to each other.

So you know you're gonna get that smooth transition.

You could begin with mid-tones, so there's middle tones, and then blend either lighter or darker.

You must use a soft and clean brush for gentle blending.

So not a hard brush for gentle blending.

And you sweep backwards and forth to soften the edge between the colours.

So remember that video, it's a very rhythmic sweeping back and forth to soften the edge between the colours.

And you can add a little water or medium or solvent to slow drying and help blending.

So moving on to task B, our final task.

And we're gonna now take our colour study and we're gonna refine it and we're gonna use all our knowledge of colour theory to really think about this and our knowledge of blending for gradients to think about this as well.

So you're gonna add layers of colour and blending to create tone and texture.

So you should plan colours first.

So I'd like you to go away and plan your colours.

When you're starting to create your gradients, place similar colours together.

Begin with that mid-tone before blending lighter or darker.

Use a soft clean brush and sweep back and forth in that rhythmic pattern to soften the edge between colours.

And then of course, you can add a little water or medium slow dry.

When you're choosing your colours, I want you to really think about the colour wheel and complimentary colours, and also consider the primary colours and how you can mix them to create these natural shades.

So you use these colour diagrams to help you choose your colours.

Pause the video.

Well done.

Now there are so many different possible outcomes and you may have documented the journey.

So here is the first painting colour study from Task A, which then has had added colours and further detailing added to it.

So you can see this lovely journey of using different colour palettes in colour theory and using blending to create gradient in paint.

So Jacob says about his painting, "I created depth by layering darker tones over lighter tones to build contrast, especially around the shadows.

I allowed the lighter areas to the right to dry first, and then I applied a second layer to emphasise the highlights." So if we look really closely, we can really see how the white has been applied to emphasise the highlights.

I wonder what yours look like.

Take a moment to reflect on it and reflect on the mood and the tone that both your ground and in the colours have created for the viewer of your artwork.

Well, thank you for joining me today for this lesson about experimenting with wet media.

So we've been understanding the properties of different paint and how they can help us choose techniques and surfaces.

We know that acrylic or oil paints can produce vibrant, opaque colours that can enhance visual impact and depth in the artwork just as we've seen today.

And we know that artists can employ a coloured ground or base layer that sets the tone or mood of an artwork.

And that colour theory and understanding that in complimentary colours really supports the successful mixing to create a balanced palette with any paint.

And lastly, that acrylic paints could be blended quickly before drying to create gradients and smooth transitions.

So we've learned a lot and hopefully you've had a lot of fun in experimenting and implying all this knowledge today.

Well done and I hope to see you again soon.