20. Painting for Kids Continued
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| Even a primary school child can have a go at Impressionist painting... |
1. Fill half of the small beaker with water, add a tip of blue paint with the thick brush and mix well. Decide where the horizon is going to be- half way, three quarters, one quarter- draw a line with your brush across the paper and cover the upper part with the blue coloured water- this is called washing the paper which is the basis for painting the sky. One may skip the washing but it is much harder to paint on untreated paper and can cause quite a bit of frustration when children can’t get the result they want to. Insist on not using the brush to and fro like a sweeping brush as this leaves ugly marks and wears out the paper, one swift stroke from right to left is enough before soaking the brush again in the water.
2. Add a tip of yellow to the blue and wash the rest of the paper, from the horizon downwards to make the grass.
3. Add a tip of red to the water and one should get brown, then with the small paint brush draw vague outlines of trees pointing out that the further back they are the smaller they become but stick to two trees only there’s more scope when working on a larger scale than with a detailed one. Note that the drawing of the landscape is not done with pencils but is substituted with the smaller brush which is dipped in the coloured water which should leave only a faint impression of the drawing so that when it comes to painting there are no dark lines to have to cover up.
4. Sketch (with the small brush) one or two other details; for example: hill curves, a path, a house, or flowers, just to plan where they are going to be, quality in drawing should not be sought at this stage.
5. The real painting begins now. Working on the sky: dip the tip of the large paintbrush in the white paint and a smaller dip into the blue, place the brush on an area of the sky where clouds are going to appear, the brush may be dragged, turned and twisted or just placed on the paper, watch the effect each of your movement blending the blue and the white makes. Keep what effects you like by allowing it to dry, paint over what you don’t like either while still wet or dry, the effects are of course different whether you paint over on dry or wet paint.
6. When you are happy with the sky do the same with the land by dipping the brush in one or colour or more than one and shape the grass, path, hills or whatever was sketched as the background.
7. When dry, (poster paint is quite quick to dry enough to work upon), work on the object on the foreground, shape the trunk of the tree, the stems of the flowers. Leaves, flowers and bushes are all made by blobs. Blobs are made by dipping the brush in one or more colours and with quick jumping movements of the hands form the shape of the object by quickly placing the blobs close to each other.
8. One can add highlights, shadows or other atmospheric details my “blobbing” the paintbrush on top of the finished area with a lighter colour to highlight something or darker to subdue it.
9. Sign it and date it- you never know…
10. Exhibit it- put it on a wall for all to see.
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The Basis of Landscape is quite simple Acrylic on Canvas 80x60 cms: To see an illustrated step by step version click here |
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By Eva Ulian: Impressionist Painter- Writer
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