I have started a painting course that is organizing my university. It is a very basic course in which we are going to learn and practice several painting and drawing techniques. As I am mostly self-taught, it was weird for me that a teacher gave me indications about the task I was performing. I guess I will learn faster. I hope to have fun, too.
We have started with oil painting. We had to select a photo or a painting for using it as model for our own painting. Do you know what did I choose? A forest with lots of trees!
Firstly the teacher explained how to use charcoal for sketching the main zones. Also he introduced the basics of color theory and helped to identify and create the colors that each one needed. As we are using a very reduced palette (cyan blue, magenta, cadmium yellow medium, yellow ochre, madder carmine, burnt sienna and white) the most challenging part is to get the appropriate colors. Then we applied the colors on the canvas by filling each zone with its darker tones, from top to bottom. We will add the details in the next lectures.
Some comments/criticism. The sky should be more purple, I had to add more magenta to the mix. It is not needed to paint or define the trunks of the trees at this stage, I had to paint just a green-brown blob. It is important to keep a similar thickness in all the color zones, edges included, the goal at this stage is to remove the white background of the canvas. Fortunately all can be fixed.







