Some of my Greek photos from Santorini and Rhodes

1st Lesson - Greek Steps

Everyone wanted to do a larger size painting this time, so we chose a theme that would suit the bigger canvas.  The canvas is 40cm wide by 77cm high with double thick edges.  I found a few Greek photos of mine and put some of them together to create our own individual paintings, using our imagination as well.  So, we all roughly drew in the steps and added pots, cats etc.

Time to paint.  Start from the top making sure that any detail is out-of-focus.  We want those steps to virtually disappear up and out of the painting.  I'm using Cobalt and Cadmium Red for the shadows to start with.  It makes a dirty purple - we don't want any bright colours at this stage.

4th Lesson - Camels

We are continuing on with the camel's body and legs now.  Brush in all the legs first in a light to medium tone - it is easier to blend the paint whilst wet.  The legs are noticeably smoother with less hair, so keep the dabbing only to the upper parts of it's leg.  You'll need a fine brush for detail around the knees and hooves.  The colour changes slightly too as you head down to the feet - I used more of a purpley mixture to grey off the orange.

10th Lesson - Thatched Cottage

Continuing on with the garden...  Now I'm working from the furthest bushes to the closest, so that the front ones overlap the ones behind.  Remember to give less detail, colour and sharp edges to the garden at the back.  As we come forward, we can use a fine brush and give the plants shape, lots of different colours and lovely dark darks for contrast.

9th Lesson - Thatched Cottage

Once the paint is dry we can add the flowers, more highlights for foliage and some extra dabs of dark to give the garden depth.  I then have moved on to create more greens using my darks first.

8th Lesson - Thatched Cottage

Still painting greens.  Make sure the darks are painted first and they can be very dark in the foreground.  Flowers will be added later, otherwise you are going to end up with mud.  I've introduced Cobalt to the mix.  I'm changing my brushstrokes for the variety of plants.

Let's Start Gardening - Lesson No.7

Most of us are still on holidays so we only had a group of 3 artists today.  We decided to get stuck in to the greens on our Thatched Cottage painting.  I dabbed in the darks first using Ultramarine Blue and Lemon Yellow.  To go lighter, add more yellow rather than white, as white washes out the colour.  So I dabbed lighter and lighter and gently feathered this into the dark areas.  Before going too light (highlights will be last) I changed colour and used Tasman Blue - we need to have a variety of greens to make it look more natural.  I started with the darks again and lightened it up with more yellow.