Hello art friends!
I wanted to share a painting exercise I've been enjoying lately! This method can be used to practice painting various topics and in this example I'm painting a sheet of rocks for practice. If you'd like to watch a video of the full process, you can find that here on my Youtube channel.
The idea is to complete the sheet by painting it as a whole, rather than finishing each rock individually. I'll explain further with pictures, below.
I began the sheet by sketching out a bunch of different rocks in pencil. If you'd like to paint along with the video you're welcome to prepare by sketching out these rock shapes first.
For the first rock on the page, painted it from start to finish as an example. I wanted to show the full painting process in real-time for anyone who wanted to see that. The rest of the sheet will be painted in an assembly-line fashion. 😄
Step 1 - Background Washes
In this first pass over the sheet, I'm painting a background wash for all of the rocks. My paint mixture has a lot of water, so it is more transparent and resembles watercolor more than gouache.
I like to let the colors blend together, the paint will create interesting textures and hue variations. In some cases I used a paper towel to blot up areas to create highlights.
Step 2 - Hard Edges and Values
I wait for the background washes to dry completely before beginning with step 2. In this step, I layer wet on dry, so I'm able to create hard edges and define the rock shapes. I also begin to add some amount of detail, though most of that will come in step 3.
Step 3 - Detailing & fixing issues
In step 3, I add final details such as small cracks and chips in the rock, highlights, moss, lichen and grass.
I also fix issues or things things I wasn't happy with.
Benefits of this exercise
The thing I love most about this exercise is it gives me the chance to really focus on one step of the process at a time. I feel like I can mentally delve deeper into each step, since I get more time with it.
If I did something I really liked in the background wash of rock 2, I could try it right away on rock 3 and see if I can repeat that effect. Alternatively, if something didn't go well, the experience was also fresh in my mind and I could try to remedy that on the very next rock, without too much time passing between those experiences.
This is just one of many different ways to practice and study painting certain objects, but I found it fun to do so I wanted to share!
I can also recommend photo studies, master studies, applied studies, and painting from life! Maybe I'll do a video/post on those types of studies in the future, too. 😊
Thanks for following along this exercise, I hope you enjoyed it! If you painted along and would like to share with me, please feel free to tag me on Instagram or or share it in my discord community!
If you would like to request a future painting topic, please leave a comment on the Youtube Video for this painting and let me know what you'd like!
About My Supplies for this project:
My custom brushes (coming soon!): Maddy x Craftamo custom brushes for Gouache and Watercolor
Paper used for this study: Arches Cold Pressed 26x36cm 185gms
My favorite painting supplies: https://blog.artbymaddy.com/my-painting-tools/
