Creating luminous colour in acrylics with glazing, light and shadow, gold leaf and balga resin.

Glazing in acrylics to create luminous colour with light and shadow

Step by step

Duration: 9.30am - 12.30pm, Friday Oct 14th OR Saturday Oct 15th, for 3 weeks. East Fremantle Garden Studio, | Scheduled Dates

A packed series of 3 workshops learning how to mix and layer colours in acrylic to create luminosity within chiaroscuro and hazy lights.

The use of strong contrasts between light and dark is known as chiarascuro.

Glazing is layering up transparent or semi-transparent colours to create brilliant luminous colours. For example, you could create a luminous orange with several layers of red, magenta and yellow. This creates far more depth of colour that direct painting, as the light shines through the layers and reflects back. The paint is mixed with a glaze medium instead of water, which suspends the colours and creates more light refraction.

You will also learn the traditional method of Grisaille painting where you layer your glazes onto a monochromatic underpainting. I love this technique. It is easy to learn and you can have so much fun experienting with colour once you have your underpainting sorted.

Week 1

Experiment and learn how to create drama and subtle shifts with tonal values.

Create 10 little monochromatic underpaintings on boards.

Week 2

Layer transparent colours (glaze) onto your monochromatic paintings, creating a reference bank for future works. It is quite magical how you can create so much feeling with this very simple technique. I’ll show you how to use the paint and the brush to create great atmosphere.

Create a larger underpainting of a landscape or bird.

Week 3

Put more glazes on your paintings.

Learn how to make and use Balga Plant Resin to create a glaze.

Learn how to use gold leaf on your paintings.