Page 32 - The Decorative Painter Winter 2014

SKY
STEP 1: Before painting the sky, mask off all buildings as best as you can with the painter’s tape. Mask the smaller detail areas with Masquepen. You will use the 1" flat wash to paint the entire sky. When we study the plein air paint- er’s panorama outside on a beautiful summer day, we can’t help but feel the serenity that the puffy clouds spanning the horizon bring to it. There is a feeling of stability and balance due to the horizontal patterns involved. The sky is a horizontal pattern, as are the clouds. The horizontal red rooftops flow to the umbrellas and painters. The flowers and rocks also form a horizontal pattern.
STEP 2: Put some Cobalt Blue in your paint tray. Make sure you mix enough for the whole sky above the cloud area. Roughly sketch in the cloud formations as shown. Put a piece of tape above the water horizon line. Paint in the blue of the sky using heavy loads of paint on your brush. Do this quickly, as gouache dries very fast. Just get close to the cloud edges. If you take time trying to paint exact edges at this point, your paint will dry and you will have hard lines in your sky. It is difficult to paint over gouache, because it dries to a powdery finish when applied heavily. Let this dry for ten minutes or so.
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SKILLBUILDER
Painter’s Checklist
SuRFACE
111⁄2" x 15" (29.2 x 38.1cm) Daler-Rowney langton Prestige 140-pound cold press watercolor paper
PALETTE
DAlER-ROWNEY PRO WHITE DAlER-ROWNEY FW ACRYlIC ARTISTS INk Purple lake
DAlER-ROWNEY DESIgNERS gOUACHE
Black
Brown Pink Cobalt Blue Cool grey 2 Indian Yellow Pine green Powder Blue
BRuSHES
Raw Umber Ruby Red Saffron green Sandstone Spectrum Violet Yellow Ochre
FM BRUSH COMPANY
DYNASTY BlACk gOlD
Series 206 nos. 4, 6 & 8 rounds
1" flat wash
kEITH’S SPECIAl EFFECTS BRUSHES Nos.1, 4, 6 & 12
Oval Foam
SuPPLIES
Basic painting supplies (page 128) Masquepen liquid masking fluid (small bottle) ScotchBlue Painter’s Tape
SOuRCES
n Daler Rowney products are available from Daler Rowney, 2 Corporate Dr., Cranbury, NJ 08512; (609) 655-5252; www.daler-rowney.com.
n Masquepen is available from Dick Blick Art Supplies; 1-800-828-4548; www.dickblick.com.
n Dynasty brushes are available from FM Brush Company, Inc., 70-02, 72nd Place, glendale, NY 11385; (718) 821-5939; www.fmbrush.com.
n keith’s Special Effects kit containing keith’s Spe- cial Effects tools is available from kB Artforms; www. kbartforms.com; kbartforms@mac.com.
30 The Decorative Painter • ISSUE NO. 4, 2014