Step 4

More work on the basket and vase.

Step 3

Another hour of painting this morning. Starting to get the feel of working with acrylics (something I've not used before).

Step 2

I worked a little on this today but not a lot of time to paint - nightshift again tonight. I am continuing to find the shapes and adjust values on this acrylic grisaille for the workshop.

And Now for Something Completely Different

I am going to be taking an oil painting workshop from Pam Dallaire in April and have received my instuctions for our homework to be completed before the course starts. We have to paint a grey scale underpainting (grisaille) in acrylic on the 16 x 20" canvas so that at the course we will be learning how to glaze in transparent oil paints. I feel like I am back at step 1 of my learning! I haven't used acrylics before and we have to paint this using 5 values from white to black. This is step 1 after just a few hours work. I can't believe how long this is going to take me!

Original Camo

I've finished this one. It is fairly loose but as I just wanted it for a demo for a workshop, that is as far as I want to take it. Now I can get started on a more serious painting. :-)

Black stripes

Again, I did the two zebras on the outside before the one in the middle. For the sake of keeping this shorter, I'll just show you the finished black stripes. Now I have to go over the whole thing adding shading and adjusting details. Then the grass on the ground they are eating.

Original Camo - red underpainting

The next steps in painting the zebras heads was a little confusing keeping all the stripes right. So I painted the two zebras on the sides before tackling the one in the middle that made my eyes cross. :-) Here the stripes are painted red. The next step will be adding the next glaze of colour that will make them look black.

Two paintings for a workshop

I am planning on holding a workshop later this spring teaching how to mix blacks. I am using a lesson plan created by Char McGill (http://www.charmingart.org/) (we exchange lesson plans) but I need to paint the demo paintings to make them my own and have the paintings there as an example. The fun way to teach blacks is with zebras. The first painting of the single zebra is based on Char's lesson. The second will be a slightly different approach. I also am doing them on watercolour paper wrapped around a canvas and they will then be varnished.

The first painting is finished (above) and I'll show the steps in the second one. Here is step 1 - adding shading in the beginning.