Art - A Basic Method of Painting a Picture

Choose the scene that you want to paint.

I am going to use this photo of the candle, as an
example.

You can start painting your picture on a blank piece
of paper / canvas etc.
Or you can draw in a foundation sketch to help
place the main lines / objects in your "frame".

I am going to use the foundation sketch that I drew
in the previous worksheet "Proportions".

Whether you start from scratch or use a sketch,
there are some basic guidelines you can follow when
painting your picture, which are -


      Work from - background, to
                        middleground, to
                        foreground
                                         
                      - objects underneath, to
                        objects above

                      - lighter colours, to
                        darker colours

                      - lighter shades, to
                        darker shades
                        of the same colour

There are going to be times when you have to do
things in a different order to the above, because of
how things overlap in your scene, or when re-
working an area in your picture, but in general
these are good guidelines.

Or when being creative and wanting to do things
differently.

                                                                   It's entirely up to you what you want to express
                                                                   in your picture, whether that is a realistic represent-
                                                                   ation of the scene, or an impression of that scene
                                                                   that you see in your mind. And remember that
                                                                   everyone has their own style.

 

I have painted the following picture,
showing some basic steps in it's construction.

This is a basic method of painting a picture,
to give you an idea,
but by no means the only way.

The number of ways are only limited by your im-
agination.


A Basic Method of Painting a Picture

There are 4 steps to this method.
      Step 1 - The foundation areas of colour
      Step 2 - Building up the background
      Step 3 - Building up the middleground
      Step 4 - Building up the foreground

 (I will explain some techniques that I used to get
                                                                    some of the "effects", in more detail in following
                                                                    blog entries)

Step 1 - The foundation areas of colour
Determine which are the main areas of colour of
your scene.
Here they are -
      - the curtain
      - the wooden surface
      - the candle and saucer
      - the flame
Determine which is the lightest colour in each area.
Paint these in, working from lightest to darkest.

Step 2 - Building up the background
(the curtain and the wooden surface)
I determined what the middle colour was in the
wooden surface area.
Then I overlaid it on top of the previous colour.

I then determined what the darkest colours where
in the curtain and wooden surface areas.
Then I painted them in.

I also painted in -
      - the candle wick
      - the shadows behind the bow and ribbons

Step 3 - Building up the middleground
(the candle, the flame and the saucer)
Firstly I painted along the edges of the candle and
the saucer in the same colour, to smooth out the
lines, going over any colour from the background
that went over into those areas.

I determined that the next darker colours to paint
were -
      - light grey in the saucer, then
      - darker of the light yellow in the flame
      - pink/orange at the top of the candle

Then I worked a halo of overlaid yellow/orange,
orange and red/orange around the flame on the
curtain.

I also reworked the curtain.

Step 4 - Building up the foreground
(The bow and the ribbons)
Technically speaking, the foreground is more to the
front of your "frame",
but it would be appropriate for the purposes of this
particular scene, to be the bow and the ribbons.

Here I've painted in the bow.

And here I've painted in the ribbons.













So, this is how it was done.


                                                   

(c) Katherine Stuart 2014