ACRYLIC PAINTING FOR BEGINNERS homework

Several people said it would be helpful to have a chance to look at the painting I brought to today's class, and use it as a reference for painting spheres. I'm attaching it to this email.  I'll also post it on the "homework" page soon, in case anyone has difficulty downloading attachments.  To get a head start on next week's class, if you have time, try painting both some spheres, and some of the other shapes, such as cylinders and cones.

I was also going to mention that in today's class, I asked people to try painting in black and white because when you do it that way, rendering the three dimensional form becomes the main issue (rather than needing to think about color).  For those who'd like to try one in color, here's a video showing a green sphere being painted.  The artist's technique is similar to the one we used in class, except that he spends several minutes painting the highlight area and blending it, before focusing on the darker part of the sphere.  And he uses green as the base color instead of black.  

If you want to try a painting in which you have more time (you're not racing the drying tendency of acrylics), pick up a little container of acrylic retarder and add a tiny bit to your paint before you start.

Here's the Youtube video:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nXaXDnVC8u8

Whichever method you use, have fun painting!

- Nils