Tuesday, February 5, 2013

Mastering Decorative Painting Basics Part 3: Embellishments



If you have completed parts 1 and 2 of Mastering Decorative Painting Basics you now have beautifully based and shaded blueberries, leaves, and flowers and are ready to put the finishing touches on your creation.

Now it’s time to add the accessories to you painting.  In part 3, I’ll provide you with the elements that pull your design together, giving it life and interest.  We’ll learn to use these design elements to guide your eye through your painting and give harmony to your design.

We’ll cover:
·       The secrets to smooth and graceful line work.  Using line work to unify your design.
·       Flower centers with wet-on-wet blending
·       Blossom ends on blueberries
·       Varnishing to protect your painting

This class completes the basic techniques offered with this blueberry and flower painting. Hopefully it also leaves you with a craving for more art theory and techniques. Practicing these skills will provide you with a good background on which to build your life long creative journey.  

Tuesday, January 1, 2013

Mastering Decorative Painting Basics part 1 and 2

The first two videos in our decorative painting basics are open for registration on Creative Workshops. The videos are excellent together but can also stand alone.

The first video covers surface preparation, strokes with the flat and round brushes, and base coating the elements of your design using these strokes.
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The second video covers side loading and floating.  If your side loading needs improvement, the second video is for you.


You’ve wanted to know the secrets for creating depth and volume in your painted designs. It’s all in the shading and highlighting, creating volume and shape. Join us in this video to discover these techniques and theory.

This video is the next step following video one in my Mastering the Decorative Painting Basics: Base Coating and Stroke Work. It also is an excellent, stand alone guide for those of you who want to improve your side loading or have had difficulty with side loading. You will learn easy to follow steps that lead to successful side loading.

In our second video in the decorative painting basics series, using acrylic paints, I will teach my step by step technique for side loading your flat brush to smoothly and effectively shade or highlight the elements of your design. We’ll also explore the art theory for creating volume within the elements of your design.

After a short review of part one, base coating, I explain and demonstrate the techniques for side loading. Working on the sample design started in video one, we’ll begin to create volume and shape, bringing out the berries and floral elements in this design. This video is broken into short segments with breaks for you to practice the techniques. After the breaks we’ll discuss problems that you might have encountered and how to correct these. By the end of the video you will have an understanding of the side loading techniques used in this video and be ready to practice these techniques, which just means to paint, paint, paint. The more you practice side loading using these steps the more fluent you become.