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Acrylic Pet Portrait Painting
[186]

$30.00USD

$6 off 2 or more Acrylic Painting classes with coupon code PAINTING

Course Description

Ever wanted to be able to paint an animal or a beloved pet? Photographs fade and deteriorate but a portrait is forever.

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.

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

By the time you finish with the class you should be able to apply the painting principles to any other animal you want to paint. Each lesson adds new elements and challenges. The first lesson is the introduction and begins with the basics of painting fur or hair and how to create realistic eyes and other features. The second lesson is a simple long haired kitten, teaching you how to paint fur and blend in colors. The third lesson is an adorable beagle and teaches shading and contouring. The fourth is a cute little solid color guinea pig which gives you the skills to paint a solid color animal, using shading to produce definition. The fifth is a Hyacinth Macaw which teaches you how to double and triple load a brush and subtlety blend one area into another. The last lesson is of a horse and is a challenge because it uses all that you have learned and goes extensively into subtle blending, washes and shading. When you have used and practiced all these skills, you should not have any problems painting any animal you wish.

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.

This is a self-paced, online course. You have 6 weeks to finish. If you need additional help understanding the material presented, you can communicate with the instructor and fellow classmates. The instructor will monitor and track your progress throughout the class. LVS Online offers many wonderful learning tools to help you get the most out of your online course, including an online portfolio service that manages all your course registrations, certificate of completion option, a class discussion board to interact with your instructor and fellow classmates, free hosting account, and a student upload area.

LVS is a Corel Training Partner. LVS students may purchase Corel products at a significant savings. Follow this link for details.

LVS students are also eligible take advantage of special offers made available by famous software developers such as Andromeda, AV Bros, Extensis, Harry Heim, namesuppressed, Nik Multimedia, and Ulead. Details are provided in the classinfo link found in the confirmation of registration.

If you would like to receive more information regarding this course, click on the "Contact Us" link in the Information section and we'll try to answer any of your questions within the day.

Course Requirements

Although this course is written for traditional paint on canvas instruction, digital artists are welcome to join us. Former students have taken the class and adapted the techniques taught to their digital paintings. Please be advised that you must know your program, as no advice as to the use of any digital program can be given, only the techniques used in the creation of the painting.

Homework must be reviewed by the instructor in order to earn a certificate. Students have the option of using the Student Upload Area or free web hosting made available for LVS students. Details are provided in the classroom.

If you prefer to use your own web space, you must know how to upload your files to a server. Free tutorials are available:

Basic HTML page
WS_FTP
SmartFTP

Students should have working knowledge of their operating system:

Free Windows Class Here
Directory Structure Tutorial Here

Zip files may be necessary to complete the exercises provided each week. WinZip, PKZip, Windows Compression or similar program is required to unzip these files.

Winzip Tutorial Here
Windows Compression

Supplies: I am providing a list of supplies that you will need. You can probably get them from your local art supply store but I will give you online links to art supply sites that I have been happy with.

What to paint on? The patterns supplied are sized 8 x 10. You can use stretched canvas, canvas boards or even if you want to start out very inexpensively canvas paper pads.
Brushes:
- An absolute must for this class are rake or comb brushes and detail brushes. If you are going to a local store to buy your brushes, see if you can find two types of the rake or comb. These brushes look like this:
  
  You can see that they look uneven and a little raggedy on the ends. Some are more "toothy" than others. You need at least one as "toothy" as you can get it to get some real fur detail. You should try and get a set of rakes, at least 1/2, 1/4, and 1/8 inch.
- You will need several detail brushes that make into a fine point. There is nothing more annoying that trying to do very fine detail, like whiskers with a brush that won't hold a nice sharp point.
- You will also probably need a set of filberts for shading and putting in background, starting at at least 3/4 inch down.
- Other than the detail and the rakes you can use whatever you are comfortable with. Many of the local stores as well as the online stores have brush sets that are very reasonable.
- For acrylic work, you can use natural or synthetic bristles, but the natural bristle do not hold up as well with acrylic paint.
You will also need transfer (tracing paper) to put the patterns on whatever you've chosen to paint on. You can use regular carbon but it makes a horrible mess. Art stores have artist transfer paper in many colors, but just get black for now.
A cheap plastic palette is nice. You can just scrap off the dried paint but in a pinch just use some wax paper.
If you plan on keeping your artwork or hanging it you should have a varnish fixative. I personally like Grumbacher or Blair spray varnish for acrylics. It comes in matte or gloss. Both are excellent and make the colors very vibrant.
Now for paint. There is a big controversy that you must use the top quality, most expensive paint on the market. Well, that's nice but, just starting out you don't need to spend a lot of money. The cheapest paint I have found is not worth buying. It's hard to work with and the colors are not so bright and vivid. Personally, I like Folk Art (they also have artist's quality pigments), Americana, Ceramcoat. I will give you a list of the paint that I used to create these lessons. You do not need to use these exact colors. If you want to try to conserve and just want to buy one green and dilute it with white to make the medium and light colors, that's fine too, but here's what you'll need to complete these paintings.
- White
- Black
- Dark Gray
- Blues:
  Ceramcoat Ocean Reef Blue
  Light blue (Americana Baby Blue)
  Medium blue ( Folk Art True Blue), Phalo Blue, Ceramcoat Azure Blue, Ceramcoat Ocean Reef
- Greens:
  Dark green ( Ceramcoat Dk Foliage Green), (Ceramcoat Forest Green)
  Medium green ( Ceramcoat Foliage Green)
  Light green ( Ceramcoat Light Foliage Green)
  Yellow green( Americana Citron Green)
- Browns:
  Tan: (Folk Art Camel)
  Beige: ( Folk Art Parchment)
  Dark Brown: ( Americana Dark Umber), (Americana Raw Umber), (Ceramcoat Brown Velvet)
  Medium Brown: Burnt Sienna, ( Americana Sable Brown)
  Light Brown: (Americana Toffee)
  Golden Brown: (American Honey Brown)
- Yellow: (Ceramcoat Luscious Lemon)

cheapjoes.com
Good prices on stretched canvas

A working knowledge of your computer is essential:

Free Windows Class Here

Plan to devote approximately 3 - 4 hrs per week on the lesson and assignment.

Course Prerequisites

None

Course Syllabus

Lesson 1 Basics of painting fur or hair Create realistic eyes and other features	Lesson 2 Long haired kitten Paint fur and blend in colors
Lesson 3 Beagle Shading and contouring	Lesson 4 Guinea pig Paint a solid color animal Using shading to produce definition
Lesson 5 Hyacinth Macaw Double and triple load a brush Subtlety blend one area into another	Lesson 6 Horse Uses all that you have learned Extensive subtle blending, washes and shading

Course Excerpt

LESSON 1
Welcome to Acrylic Pet Painting! I hope you will enjoy the class and at the end be able to create some beautiful paintings. Most of all, I hope this will be a beginning for you; a beginning that will open you to continuing to grow and challenge yourself as an artist. A painting is a personal experience that comes from within you; it is a part of you that expresses how you relate to the world. You will also be able to capture those that you love on canvas forever. Photographs fade, but a painting recreates your beloved pet just as you remember them.

For those that are just beginning to paint, don’t be too hard on yourselves. Painting is something, like any other skill that has to be practiced over and over again. I can guarantee that if you stick with it and keep looking at how things are put together, how shading affects shape and contours and just practice, practice, practice, you will see your work improve dramatically. Remember, most artists hate their own work anyway. We are overly picky about every little thing we see wrong even though no one else sees it.

Ok, so let’s start with some fundamentals before we even pick up a brush.

Acrylic paints 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.

Advantages of working with acrylic paints<br>
Acrylics dry quickly, which means you can add layers or washes almost immediately without waiting for paint to dry and the layers bind to one another so there’s no worry of them separating if you are using many layers.

They are water-soluble which makes clean up easy and there are no toxic fumes from paint thinners to deal with.

The colors are bright, mix and blend well with each other.

Disadvantages of using acrylic paint:

Some of the things that make them great to use also create problems. They dry quickly, sometimes almost instantaneously which makes some blending techniques a little more difficult. There are acrylic mediums that retard the drying time but as you get used to handling these paints, you will know just how to apply them to get the results you desire. As fast as they dry on the canvas, that’s how fast they dry on your palette and your brushes. Put small amounts of what you will use on your palette and if you have to be away from the paint cover it with a damp paper towel. Keep a bowl of water to put brushes in after you’ve used them until you can wash them out. Do not put them down thinking you’ll wash them later because you’ll never be able to get the paint out of the brush if it dries. Wear an apron or old clothes. If it gets on your clothes unless you get to the sink within the next minute or so you’re clothes are permanently decorated; the same goes for your floors, walls and almost anything else it dries on. If you have anything but a stainless steel sink, DON’T wash brushes, palettes, and containers in it. Even in a stainless steel sink I have to rinse well immediately. My bathroom sink is permanently “acryliced”!
Continued...

Course Goals

At the end of this course you will be able to apply the painting principles to any other animal you want to paint.

Course Reviews

New Class March 2007
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$6 off 2 or more Acrylic Painting classes with coupon code PAINTING

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