BRING OUT YOUR CREATIVITY
  • Home
  • About Me
  • Gallery
  • Blog
  • Store
  • Contact
  • Resume
  • Let Me Make Some Art For You
  • Email Sign Up
  • Ebay
  • Prints
  • Prints

Painting White Ibises In Acrylics

10/31/2022

0 Comments

 
Picture
I don’t paint enough white things, tending to shy away from them because I fear they will look too stark. My mind tells me it’s better to stick to black and white. It’s time to face my apprehension and do a project that features a white subject, these ibises, in color media. So I'm painting white ibises in acrylics.
Before I get to the white ibises, though, I want to discuss the grass and lake around them because the shades I use to paint those will play into how I paint them.Before I get to the white ibises, though, I want to discuss the grass and lake around them because the shades I use to paint those will play into how I paint them.
Picture
nearest patch of grass
Picture
bush on the other side of lake
​I used the same base of yellow and ultramarine blue for the patch of grass near the viewer and the bush on the other side of the lake. I used more blue for the bush and added red and black to the lake to mute and darken it.
Picture
Picture
​I want the patches of grass bordering the lake to be somewhat bright, and I’m using analogous colors to do this, glazing yellow over the nearest patch and blue over the far one.
Picture
 After painting another layer on the grass near the viewer, I mixed some yellowish green color into titanium white. Then I painted reflections in the water using a small round and a sideways wiggling stroke. 
Picture
As for the ibises themselves, I painted most of their bodies with sheer light brown and green, picking up the grass and lake bed colors. I left only the very tops of them white. This is where light would be hitting them; therefore, it would be the brightest.
Did you notice what I did here? Less than ten percent of the white ibises’ entire bodies were painted white. The rest were painted to reflect the colors of the things around them. This is why I mixed yellow-green into my titanium white when I painted the shadows. The ibises do not show as pure white. Therefore, their reflections couldn't either.
Picture
Back to the grass, there are lots of individual pieces of grass in the patch nearest the viewer. I used titanium white first because if I went in first with my yellow-green mixture, it wouldn’t show up properly against what I already had down. Having the titanium white down was especially important because these blades of grass needed to be lighter than the base. These blades gave the grass the brightness I’d been trying to achieve by glazing yellow over the area.
0 Comments

Mars Lumograph Black Pencils review

10/17/2022

0 Comments

 
​I had been frustrated with the lack of intensity in my darks regarding my shading. Sometimes, I wanted the extra drama that even my darkest pencils weren’t getting me. Shana Rowe Jackson had made a video in which she made a drawing with some genuinely black shading in it. I looked up that video, found out what pencils she’d used, and ordered them.
Those pencils were the Mars Lumograph Black line. Now, I have to admit, when I opened the box and looked inside, I was skeptical because the pencils went from 2b to 8b, which were grades of pencils I’d been using all along. But these are not like the other pencils I’d been using. I believe the Mars Lumograph pencils each have a bit of carbon mixed in with the graphite so they can get much darker than a regular graphite pencil of the same grade. To prove to myself how different these are, I tested them against my pencils in the Faber-Castell line.
Picture
​While these pencils are indeed very dark, they don’t cover the paper as well as I was hoping. Achieving the stark black I’ve been going for has required a slow process of layering. It occurred to me that the pencils might not be sharp enough to cover properly. I started looking up “how to get pencils super sharp” on YouTube. That search yielded a video from Leonardo Pereznieto. The method described in the video involves using a blade to remove the wood from the pencil and sandpaper to refine the lead. It’s slow and tiring, but it leaves my pencils sharper than any pencil sharpener I’ve tried.
Picture
I was working on a drawing of some ducks, and I’d left it a while ago. I’d wanted darker shading on it than I could get with the pencils I had at the time. I decided to try using the 7b in the Mars Lumograph line. While doing this, I accidentally discovered that these pencils might cover better over other pencil than over blank paper. Unfortunately, if I’ve already started with the Mars Lumograph, it’s too late, as I found when I tried to use my Faber-Castell pencils on the gate posts in my drawing. 
Picture
Going back to my bird bath drawing, ​the edges are where I really want to direct my attention for these things to look truly filled in. The edges are where I really want to direct my attention for these things to really look filled in. Going slowly and methodically gives excellent results. All in all these pencils are definitely worth pick up if you're going for dramatically black shading in your drawings.
Picture
0 Comments

      Never Miss A Post

    Subscribe to Newsletter

    Sara Millett

    Painter of portraits and wildlife

    Archives

    January 2023
    December 2022
    October 2022
    September 2022
    August 2022
    May 2022
    April 2022
    March 2022
    February 2022
    January 2022
    December 2021
    November 2021
    October 2021
    September 2021
    August 2021
    July 2021
    June 2021
    December 2020
    November 2020
    October 2020
    September 2020
    August 2020
    July 2020
    June 2020
    May 2020
    April 2020
    March 2020
    February 2020
    January 2020
    December 2019
    November 2019
    October 2019
    September 2019
    August 2019
    July 2019
    June 2019
    May 2019
    April 2019
    March 2019
    December 2018
    November 2018
    October 2018
    September 2018
    August 2018
    July 2018
    June 2018
    April 2018
    March 2018
    February 2018
    January 2018
    December 2017
    November 2017
    October 2017
    September 2017
    August 2017
    July 2017
    June 2017
    May 2017
    April 2017
    March 2017
    February 2017
    January 2017
    December 2016
    November 2016
    October 2016

    Categories

    All
    Acrylic Floral Paintings
    Acrylic Nature Paintings
    Acrylic Painting
    Acrylic Paintings
    Acrylic Painting Tips
    Acrylic Painting Video Tutorials
    Acrylic Portrait Paintings
    Acrylic Portraits
    Acrylic Wildlife Paintings
    Advice About Art Supplies
    Advice For Artists
    Advice For Beginning Artists
    Animal Drawing
    Animal Paintings
    Art
    Art Advice
    Art Discussions
    Art For Stress Relief
    Art Habits
    Artist Questions
    Artists And Social Media
    Art Lessons
    Art Motivation
    Art Thoughts
    Art Tips
    At Thoughts
    Avoiding Blooms In Watercolor Painting
    Avoiding Plagiarism In Art
    Being An Artist
    Canvas Choice
    Colored Pencil
    Color Layering
    Color Mixing
    Color Mixing Exercise
    Composition Tips
    Concepts For Paintings
    Creating Depth In Your Painting
    Creating Texture
    Creative Process
    Creativity
    Dealing With Difficulty In Art
    Drawing Animals In Pastels
    Drawing Glass
    Drawing Portraits
    Drawing Tips
    Encouragement For Artists
    Famous Artists
    Fixing Color Mistakes
    Glazing(technique)
    Graphite Drawing
    Hair In Watercolor
    How To Work As An Artist
    Impressionism
    Improve Your Drawings
    Improving As An Artist
    Inspiration
    Issues With Watercolor
    Landscape Painting
    Lightfastness
    Mood In A Painting
    Mood In Art
    Nature Drawings
    Nature Painting
    Nature Painting In Watercolor
    Nature Painting Tips
    Nature Scenes
    New Ways To Mix Skin Tone
    Originality In Art
    Painting A Deer In Watercolor
    Painting Advice
    Painting Animals In Acrylics
    Painting Animals In Watercolor
    Painting Backgrounds
    Painting Birds In Acrylics
    Painting Birds In Watercolor
    Painting Clouds In Watercolor
    Painting Detail
    Painting Experiments
    Painting Feathers In Watercolor
    Painting From Life
    Painting Human Features In Acrylics
    Paintings
    Paintings Done On Ampersand Boards
    Painting Skin Tone
    Paintings Of Animals
    Paintings Of Birds
    Painting Sunrises
    Painting Tips
    Painting Turtles In Watercolor Pencil
    Painting Water
    Painting White Things
    Pastel Drawings
    Planning Paintings
    Playing With Paint
    Portrait Drawing
    Portrait Painting
    Portrait Painting In Acrylics
    Portrait Painting In Watercolor
    Portrait Painting Tips
    Portraits
    Portrait Tips
    Productivity For Artists
    Product Reviews
    Routine For Artists
    Routines
    Sketching In Watercolor
    Skin Tone Tips
    Thoughts On Productivity
    Tips For Artists
    Tips For Beginner Artists
    Tips For Painting Fur
    Trying New Mediums
    Understanding Color As An Artist
    Use Of Color
    Use Of Color In Art
    Use Of Light And Shadows
    Use Of Underpainting
    Using A Reference Photo
    Using Color In Art
    Using Reference Photos
    Videos
    Watercolor Nature Painting
    Watercolor Painting
    Watercolor Paintings
    Watercolor Painting Tips
    Watercolor Portrait Painting
    Watercolor Portraits
    Watercolor Techniques
    Watercolor Tips
    Watercolor Wildlife Painting
    Ways To Draw Better
    Ways To Improve Your Paintings
    Ways To Use Color In Your Art
    Wildilife Painting
    Wildlife Art
    Wildlife Drawing
    Wildlife In Watercolor
    Wildlife Painting
    Wildlife Painting In Acrylics
    Wildlife Paintings
    Wildlife Painting Tips
    Working As An Artist
    Working Through Difficulty In Art
    Working With Ink
    Working With Pastels
    Youtube

Privacy Policy​
Terms Of Service​
Contact​
Proudly powered by Weebly
  • Home
  • About Me
  • Gallery
  • Blog
  • Store
  • Contact
  • Resume
  • Let Me Make Some Art For You
  • Email Sign Up
  • Ebay
  • Prints
  • Prints