Session #3 NIC

Session #3 DRYBRUSH & SPLATTER

Drybrush – Pick up paint on a flat wash brush, press it into paper towel to dry some, then drag it quickly across dry white paper to make speckles. Hints – practice on a scrap to see how “wet” your brush is, use good colour contrast so it shows up, let one layer dry completely before you repeat or change colours, try not to overlap.

Drybrush – this time, using a small round brush dragged quickly to create broken lines.

Splatter – using a toothbrush dipped in dark colour, hold it upside down then drag your finger across the bristles while aiming at the paper. Fill a big wash brush with all the paint it will hold, turn it so the paint pools in one corner, then tap the brush handle firmly to create blobs of colour.

Building on what you have learned - to begin:

Wet the paper, then mix burnt sienna and ultramarine blue and paint a swath across the top of the page (about ¼ of the way down) and soften the bottom edge with clear water if it forms a line. Immediately, using the tongue depressor, scratch tree trunks (bottom up, in a line, randomly spaced).

Step 2:

Wet the foreground, then paint sweep of burnt sienna with a touch of ultramarine blue –fill the bottom of the page with colour. Using your slant tip brush handle (or credit card, or tongue depressor) scratch in grasses – all in one direction, from off the bottom of the page in. Mix more blue into the mixture and drag streaks of this colour through and between the grasses.

Step #3:

Mix burnt sienna and Prussian blue to make very dark brown. Using a small round brush, place a ball of liquid at the base of the tree (start a little lower than the first line of trees), then using the tongue depressor, drag the narrow line off the top to form a thin trunk. Carefully put more liquid then drag out and up to form branches. Keep it random but begin all shapes along the same horizontal line.

Step #4:

In open area at the back (left side here), paint dark brown wash down to lower tree line, soften edges with clear water, scratch in several tree forms (hint – bottom up, right off the page at the top), then wipe carefully from bottom using a clean sponge.

Mix burnt sienna and prussian blue to create a very dark brown, then direct paint fence – hints: start at the widest part, move diagonally, taper shapes smaller and smaller. Try not to be too “literal”.

Using a rich mixture of cadmium red and Prussian blue, paint a wash that attaches to the base of the fence line, about halfway across, then soften and pull edges with clear water and a flat brush. Turn the brush on edge then “drag” water into foreground grasses.

Final Step:

Using flat brush and deep  colour (burnt sienna + Prussian blue) from base up to create tree trunk, then drag liquid outwards to make branches. Using a small brush or rigger, sweep dark grasses across the trunk (to anchor tree in ground).