Come join us on a painting journey beautiful flowers! This class is a lot of fun and is geared for beginners and artists alike.

Although this course is geared toward traditional paint on canvas lessons, digital artists are welcome. Some of our students have created beautiful digital paintings from the lessons. Digital students MUST know their program, as no help other than painting technique can be given.

Acrylic paints are made by suspending pigment (or color) in synthetic polymer emulsified by water. They are basically plastic, water-soluble paints that have good adhesive qualities, and are very stable. They don't oxidize, decompose or turn yellow over time.

Photos are provided for reference, and are for suggestion only and don't have to be followed to the letter. This is all about teaching you what you want to put into your painting. You might want to add something, combine two or more photos, subtract something, or move something. Artists are basically illusionists. Don't worry about perfection; paint what you see, what you want the person looking at it to see. When you paint, put yourself into the painting. If you can put yourself into your painting, the energy will be put into the painting along with the paint you put on the canvas and the people looking at it will "feel" the painting too. Some of the most beautiful paintings are masterpieces but are "dead"; when you look at them you feel nothing. Others, maybe very simple art and yet you may be drawn to it and get a warm, fuzzy feeling when you look at it; it's all about putting the energy into the painting as you do it.

8 x 10 Patterns are provided for you to trace onto the painting background you wish to use. Easy to follow guidelines begin with tracing the pattern and guide you progressively through each step to the complete painting.

Can't draw? Well don't feel badly, I can't either. So you have a nice photo and you want to paint it; how do you get it on the canvas or whatever you're going to paint on? There are those little machines that have the light bulb in them that you put a pattern under and it enlarges things. Do they work? Yes, but it's hard to work with because the projected image is very faint unless you're in the dark and then how do you work when you can't see anything and you're always in front of the image. If you have Windows XP, the printing wizard will print different sizes up to a page size. If you have Paint Shop Pro or similar programs you can set the print size but what if your printer won't print anything but regular page sizes? Luckily, there are poster printing software programs that are really cheap that will print out photographs on several sheets of paper and then you tape them together, lay it on the piece you want to paint and trace in the details where you want them. How does that work? BEAUTIFULLY! When it comes to landscapes, many will prefer the large sized canvas as it is easier to work on and the landscapes are much more dramatic when they are larger.

I can't emphasize enough that you must really learn to "see" how things are put together. How to colors and patterns blend in with other colors so they look like they are all one. Being a good artist means looking at things in a different way. It means that you no longer see an object as a whole but are capable of seeing all the subtle things that go into making that object a whole and actually that's a beautiful thing to do. You will find nature opening up right before your eyes as you see flowers and trees, bees and everything else with all their myriad parts instead of just taking for granted that they are what they are. If you can't see it, you can't paint it, so practice, practice, practice looking at everything with the mind set of seeing what makes it what it is and how's it put together.

This class takes you through step by step the process of painting beautiful acrylic flowers.

Online art supply:
The following are places that I deal with and have had very good results. The prices are good, service is great and shipping is fast. These are by no means the ONLY online art supply stores and neither I or LVS can guarantee any transactions with these companies.

Blick Art Materials Large selection of art supplies.

LESSON 1

Practice Leaves

Hopefully you will have something separate on which to practice your leaves. Take your time and experiment until you find something that you like.

Draw a leaf shape onto your practice area.

LONG LEAF:

Load brush with gel (load both sides) Pick up dark green, medium green and some terra cotta. Put flat edge of brush on leaf edge starting at tip. Flatten brush onto surface and go sideways to other end which should leave several colors on the leaf. The surface will still be wet from the gel so if you need to touch up, lightly touch the surface where needed.

Do the same with the other side of the leaf.

Dip the edge of the brush in dark green and lightly tap in the midvein. An interesting technique you can try if you want while the leaf is still wet, take a wadded up paper towel and LIGHTLY tap here and there on the leaf which will lift some color and make it look like normal leaf splotches.

Serrated Leaf

Draw a leaf shape and fill it with dark green.

Load brush with gel and pick up medium green and yellow. Put edge of brush on edge of leaf, flatten brush pull curved stroke toward midvein and lift.

Either use liner brush or edge of flat brush, dip in dark green and lightly put in midvein and a few side veins.

Step 1: Trace the pattern on whatever you are going to paint on.

STEP 2: Background leaves:

We want the background to be dark so the bright sunflowers will show up, but for it to have a little color, so we are going to pick up the black green and the dark green (which should be two different shades) and paint in the background. Don't worry about it being blended, we want patches of 2 different greens.

STEP 3 Leaves:

Use the serrated leaf technique you just practiced and fill in the serrated leaves.

Paint colors: dark green, leaf green, yellow, terra cotta.

With the paint you have on your brush paint in some stems.

STEP 4: More leaves:

Using the same colors and the technique for the long leaves, paint them in. Try using the paper towel if it stays wet enough long enough. If not, you can take a wadded tip of a paper towel and pick up a little paint ( not blob it on) and dry tap it here and there on the leaves for a very interesting effect.

Shade stems with the colors on your brush.

Continued...