Page 75 - The Decorative Painter Fall 2014

SKILLBUILDER
STEP-BY-STEP
FLOWER PETALS
STEP 1
Load the no. 3 round in Banana Cream, tip shallow in Cocoa. Form the rear petals with pointed comma-strokes pulled out from the flower center. These petals will overlap the area of the foreground petals at this stage. Refine your strokes as needed.
Load the no. 6 Pro stippler with Reindeer Moss Green. Using a wet-on-wet technique, stipple in the center of the flower. While this is wet, stipple the round highlights with Pineapple. Wipe excess paint from brush and stipple around the outer edge of the highlights to blend.
Load the no. 3 round in Cocoa and tip in Banana Cream. Form the foreground petals with pointed comma-strokes pulled out of the flower center. The petals will overlap the rear petals. Refine your strokes where needed.
While Step 4 is wet, stipple Traditional Burnt Umber between the leaves and blend. If the shad- ing touches the highlight, lightly stipple Reindeer Moss Green speckles in between. Allow to dry.
Using the no. 5/0 liner with Traditional Burnt Sienna, pull short lines out from the center on the rear petals. Accent the outer tips of the foreground petals as well.
are there bristles that stick out? Does there appear to be a split in the body of the brush when it is wet? Are the bristle tips bent? One more test is to wet the brush thoroughly, then give it one sharp snap like a thermometer. It should come to a sharp point without any coaxing. If your brush fails any part of this inspection, it should not be used for strokework, especially those strokes starting with a point.
Be sure to review how to load the brush from Issue #1, 2014. With this stroke, it is important that you take extra time to tap all sides of the brush tip into a point after tip- ping into the paint. When you start the stroke, tilt the han- dle ever so slightly in the direction in which you are pulling the stroke to draw in the point. As pressure is applied, grad- ually move the handle so it is perpendicular to the surface.
And don’t forget our friend the liner, which can be used to extend and sharpen any dull points on our strokes.
Left-handed painters should look at how they would hold a pen. Some may hold it back-handed so as not to smudge the ink. If this is you, then you will probably find it more comfortable to stroke away from your body.
In the end, the objective is to be able to pull a stroke in any direction. With practice, you will instinctively know how to position your surface for each stroke.
Just relax and enjoy, as anything can be fixed. My mentor Ann Kingslan mda once said to me, “It takes skill to be able to fix something we are not happy with. It’s not cheating; it’s just painting until it is right.”
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The Decorative Painter • ISSUE NO. 3, 2014 73
STEP 2
STEP 3
STEP 4
STEP 5
STEP 6
Stipple in a highlight using the no. 5/0 liner with White Wash. Stipple Traditional Burnt Umber dots along the outer edge of the center and out onto the petals.