Painting an Easel and a Canvas full of Ballerinas (Which is actually in part 2)

Posted by Aubrilynn Saturday, July 25, 2015

Painting an Easel and a Canvas full of Ballerinas (Which is actually in part 2)

Hello there!
It hasn't been too terribly long since my last post so I don't feel too bad about posting so late in the week. In any case, happy Friday!
Today I am going to do a bit more of an in-depth study on painting and artsy stuff like that. That is, I suppose, my way of saying that if you really hate art or artists, this post won't be one you will enjoy, but if you want to stick it out I'd love to know what you think about it, I also want to say that if you aren't an extremely artistic person that's okay. There's nothing wrong with that at all! I just wanted to make this post so I could share some things I had the opportunity to do this summer holiday.
So whether you hate or love art, and whether you are great or so-so about painting and sketching, I present to you my first ever 'Art' post!
(Yay!)
So first things first, the things you will find necessary should you chose to recreate this mess on your own:
-An Easel of your choice
-A Canvas of your choice
-Paints of your choice (so much FREEDOM. Explanation, I utilized colours I liked, so if you want to use those colours I shall list them in the following; white/light creamy paint, blue (light and dark), silver, gold, green (dark), brown.)
-Paint brushes of whose choice? (I think you know by now) Yours!
-You may also require Newspaper or a tarp to cover the floor you are set up on (if you have a studio that you paint in and don't care what gets on the floor, then have at it. However if you are set up in your family sun-porch and you are to refrain from dirtying the floor with your lovely paint, I would recommend newspaper, a tarp, or a fantastic cleaning crew or object.)
-Also recommended would be a stool and/or a desk for you to set your paints, brushes, water cups, drinks, and sketches on. If you use newspaper (I did) then you can cover your table/desk with the newspaper to prevent paint drips

-A plastic cup which you shall utilize to fill with water to clean your brushes unless you want them to die a horrible paint induced death (okay, maybe not death, but severe injury and hair loss factor from dried paint not to mention the colour blending that goes on when you don't clean your brushes. Art teachers around the world have taught us better. Don't let them down.)
-Last but certainly not least you shall need something to mix paints on. In this instance I used a BlueBell Ice Cream container lid, which is basically a flat lid that is circular and has edges that are about an inch tall. You could also you an actual paint pallet (which are hard to clean, or you have to wait for them to dry to reuse if they're wooden and not plastic) or an Egg Carton which conveniently separates your paints but can make mixing complicated. You may even have a highly clever little way to mix your paints like wax paper or something crazy, these are just suggestions. On with the painting!

Now that I have finished boring everyone to near tears with instructions and no pictures except that one that was absolutely rubbish and not at all how I planned it, I shall now give to you the lovely sketches from my easel and in a second post that is linked HERE I will give you the pictures for the Canvas painting.
(Look at me, making two posts from one. Oh multi-part posts, how I've missed you.)

Basically I forgot to take a picture on the base before I painted parts of the ballerinas in, but as you can tell I began with the slippers and skin, then moved on to hair. This Prevents your ballerina's hair from having the skin tone over it and the shoes pink under the skin tone. I made the skin tone by using the brown and adding white to it to make a tint of the brown. If you are in a situation where you only have primary colours to paint with you utilize your red blue and yellow (starting with yellow) to mix into your brown which can lean towards red, blue, or yellow, (typically you want a bit more red and yellow than blue and more yellow than red. (Yellow count > red count > blue count))
Anyways I also had the piece of the easel that moves up and down for your piece to sit on, (you may not have a moving piece on your easel and that's okay, mine coms off so I am just explaining why I have a baby easel with my easel.

I know, sketch overload. But these are examples of how to work with your three dimensional surface in many ways. If you notice this first one above this text here, it is the entire front of this piece of the easel. I use two separate designs, on the horizontal piece you may be able to make out flowers and leafy vines twining, on the vertical pieces you can see ballerinas dancing based off of sketches you may have seen earlier that I copied onto my three dimensional platform.

This is a side view of one of the vertical pieces, from the front of the right side. If you can see it has the skirt or tutu of the ballerina flowing off the edge, and continuing down the corner. This is how you make use of those three dimensional aspects to make your ballerina look as if she is actually twirling across the very fabric of your piece.

Now the back of the board is more flat,

but as you can see the sides cause their tutus to flare across an unstable canvas. When you paint the tutus if you use different colours you will notice that your colours will blend slightly on the sides, That is okay. This adds to the aspect that your ballerinas aren't separate as their colours may suggest but infact dancing across the same stage (or board) at the same time, so closely in fact that their very skirts are touching.

Lesson #1: don't be afraid of the pieces that aren't flat, use them. Don't let the fact that you're painting or sketching on an uneven surface deter you. Do it anyways.

Lesson #2: LET THE SKIRTS (TUTUS) BLEND. don't make the ballerinas separate. Let them dance together, it is after all what performing ballet is all about.

This is simply another example of the ballerina AND her skirt twisting over the uneven surface, this includes her arm which I thought would be good to show you so it doesn't scare you when her arm is twisting around the rough canvas and not just her skirt. At first it may very well be terrifying and look horrible, but once you paint it the effect you gain is unimaginable, and you won't regret the technique.

Start, as previously stated, with the skin. (Brown + White/Cream= skin tone (with adjustments))

next are slippers (Red + white-cream = pink (lighten or darken to taste, if you want it more peachy add yellow.)

After the shoes you may now begin the skirts

On the back I used blue and Green

Using a technique that I gathered from loving the paintings of Monet (Claude Monet) and Degas (Edgar Degas) with a little hint of van Gogh (Vincent van Gogh) I made the skirts. I will also say it's up to you to put the skirt over the leotard or the leotard painted over the skirt. It is a style change that is irrelevant but can be fixed or changed to your liking. In any case, the following artists will be linked to posts made about them so you can understand their styles and art pieces.

I used a medium sized round, soft bristled brush and layers of colour tints of each colour to gain this look. I started with the darkest colour and worked my way into the lighter colours until they were or were practically white.

The leotards I painted as solid colours so that the skirts would take the main stage in the operation since they were my favourite part.

Leotards and Hair can be painted on last

I thought that the side perspective of the green skirt really help you to understand the depth you'll get with the sides added in.

The blue skirt gives the example of a more simple plan that involves blending the skirt colours since that tutu wasn't as large as the one on the front, the silver on that was on the front really blended more over the blue since there ended up being more of it. But it was still a good example of the blending of the skirts.