by Beverly Stone |
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This has been the most used visual aid study I have. The most popular for the beginning china painter The finished results are prettier when painted on porcelain rather than on a ceramic tile. The paint brush (when properly conditioned) will glide smoother over clean porcelain as opposed to ceramic. The colors used on tile pictured are: yellow red, blood red, chartreuse, moss green, mixing yellow, pecan, light and a dark to medium brown. The red colors were used because they are easier to work with. If you prefer the rubys, use a light value pink/rose and a darker ruby color. Lightly sketch with a marking pencil or trace your design of choice onto your porcelain. Overlap a flower petal, put space between petals, give petal a turnback and place a group of buds. Mix the pen colors you will be using for the outlines. Preferably with an oil that dries, but not necessary. You may wish to use one neutral color for all of the outlining. Suggested colors are a light gray, hair brown, violet of iron, etc. As the tile shows moss green pen oil was used for the leaves and yellow red for the petals The thickness/thinness of your lines is your choice. Practice making the lines on a tile and get used to how the paint flows. Especially if you have never used a pen; you will need to get the feel of how it is working. Do be careful and not be making your lovely lines and have a big glob of paint plop onto your wet design.( aghhhh) When design is penned, fire to at least 017 or hotter. If using ceramic tile fire lower 018. Apply a full flat brush load of chartreuse to the leaves. A flat load of mixing yellow for the center of flower. Yellow red for the flower petals. If you get paint where you don't want it, wipe off. Remember the lines are fired in and you will not loose shapes. Do not brush, brush, brush the paint. The more times you brush, brush, brush, without adding more color, the muddier the paint fires. For a clean and pure color after firing, one or possibly 2 strokes will do. Keeping the brush conditioned will help with painting. Remember those brush strokes your teacher taught you? Now is the time to start using them Take a wipe out tool and wipe out for pistil in center of flower and for the anthers and stamens. If you forget to wipe out that's ok, but it does make flower more interesting. Use the brown paint for branches and add thorns. fire 017 Third firing 017 - Add the darker value colors where necessary for modeling the shapes. Use a darker color of same hue for this. Blood red over the fired yellow red. Using the same color as you did for the first painting does not make hue darker only heavier. Shade the center of flower with pecan. Mix on liner brush chartreuse and brown for the pistil. Wipe out for the highlight. Place a combination of pecan and brown dots for the anthers and stamens. Fire 017 Have fun with this exercise and paint the flowers in all the perspective you can think of. |