LAST PRACTICE: PUTTING IT TOGETHER

  The demo begins with a simple gesture drawing of a tree in pencil. Step 1, left, is to completely cover the entire background, painting directly over the pencil drawing. A layer of white is brush painted first, and yellow touches are lightly scattered in the center area. This is followed by brushing in a medium purple which is lightened by the white. Horizontal strokes across the page assists in soft blending. More purple is added to edges and "ground" for deeper constrast. The tree sketch remains visible.

  The tree is texture painted next. The sketch is just a begining and new branches, twigs are added as desired with the craft stick, or palette knife. Students need to develop confidence in creating and changing original plans. The sketch should be regarded as a suggestion always open to development.

  NOTE: The background or foreground for each example is changed as this will be a requirement in the exercise to follow. Theses areas are soft blends in gray, and were offered as "possibilities." They are painted right over the background.

  The tree is painted in layers, as described previously in Basics 1.

  In the third step the lightest values of leaves are established. The color keys at the top show the order of hues.

  Yellow was layered first, scattered broadly across the branches. Blue/green was dabbed next, overlapping some of the yellow strokes and creating new blends. As demonstrated, the third and darkest value was added while the yellow paint was wet, allowing further blends to form. Colors can always be adjusted as desired.

  Again, a different suggestion in grays is presented for a simple background.

  At this point, the painting may be left to dry before the final, darker layers are applied, or if more color blending is desired among the leaves, continue on.

  In this instance, the paint was dried before the first layer of darker green constrast was applied. The other 2 hues were dabbed in place one after the other.

  Before the layers were concluded, the darkest hue was textured over its own color and scattered a bit over others with the craft stick to give added dimension.

  To add further texture, all hues used for the leaves could be added in the same manner while the first applications are made, or after.

  One more suggestion for an altered background directly being painted over the initial background is given in gray hues.