Enchanted Valley: Lesson 3

Hit the PAUSE BUTTON often!

Sharon doesn’t expect you to keep up with her pace. As a professional artist and teacher she is moving along at nice clip in order for you not to have to spend a lot of time listening to her.  She rather wants you to spend your time completing your project. So,  listen to a small part (maybe only a minute), push pause and then work that section. It is very important for you to slowly and carefully complete the project.These projects are not meant to be completed in one setting except for the Beginner Level. A student should never complete more than one lesson in a day.

Use the Lesson Highlights section below to check your work. 

Look at the Lesson Highlight section after every video where you work on your project. These pictures show where you should be at the end of the corresponding video. Click on each photo to enlarge the picture as you check your work. If adjustments need to be made to your project, do it before proceeding to the next video.

Using Oil Paints:

As you will see, whenever you paint a picture you will start with the farthest thing away from you, which in this case is the sky. We will work forward from that.

Only take a small amount of paint at a time. You can always add more as you need it. I tell my students to take a pea size amount and start with that. The only exception is white. Normally, you will need much more white that any other color. You will get the hang of how much paint you need as you go along. I know you will want to be careful to not take too much paint so that you are wasting it.

Be aware of the color you are painting on the canvas. If the color it too dark, then lighten it. If you need to add another color to it to make it correct than do so. It is interesting that many of my students think that by adding more of the wrong color the picture will eventually turn around. It won’t, so stop right away and change the color.

As you will see with oil paints, you can mix your colors with a palette knife, or mix the colors right on your canvas. Often, you will do some of both.

Cleaning with Turpentine:

When oil painting, please remember that you do not clean up with water. You can only clean out the brushes with terpenoid. Use paper towels to make this process simple. Squeeze any excess paint out of your brush with a paper towel. Then clean the brush with the terpenoid until the only color that comes off of the brush is the color of the terpenoid. The terpenoid will be a certain color from the paints that are cleaned in it and that is the color that you will see coming off of the brush.

If you want to clean the terpenoid, then let it sit for a day without moving it. The sludge will settle to the bottom of the can. Pour off the top clean terpenoid and keep it. Throw the sludge away. You can use this method to save a lot of money.

When cleaning your palette, first of all use your pallete knife to pick up any extra paint and place it in a folded paper towel. Then, take a corner of your paper towel and pick up some terpenoid and clean your pallete with that. You don’t need a lot…just a bit.

Appreciation: We would like to thank to Simply Charlotte Mason and Tapestry of Grace for the use of their excellent art history resources.