Hi friends, today I want to show you how you can paint a rock (or in my case a wooden disc) with red snowy berries. I used a wooden disc where I drilled a hole into it. I planned to use it later as an amulet or as an x-mas ornament on the tree.
For this project you need following tools:
- a rock or a wooden disc
- q-tips
- brushes
- white gesso
- acrylic paints
- varnish
You don’t need the exact colors. Choose similar tones.
Let’s have fun.
At first we will add two layers of the white gesso. The main reason why I am doing this is to get vivid colors. There are pigments that are translucent. And those will get dull if some darker background shines through.
If you don’t have gesso then you can also use Titanium White acrylic paint.
You can hardly see it on the photo but the next layer is a layer of Ultramarine Blue mixed with a hint of Burnt Umber to tone it down and Titanium White.
This will be the grayish sky.
It’s time to add some interest. I use the same mixture of the background. The only difference it is less white in it. Just add to your light background color a bit more of Ultramarine Blue and Burnt Umber and paint in some roughly branchlike strokes.
With the bristle brush we are adding now the next detail in the background.
Use a very small amount of Cadmium Red Medium with the bristle-brush and dab in some red berries which are a bit far away. To prevent to use too much paint dab it first on an old piece of paper. The brush must be nearly dry.
With the script liner and a mix of Burnt Umber and Ultramarine Blue we now paint in a branch.
In the next step we need again some white as a base color. To quickly paint in the shapes of the berries use a q-tip or some other tool with a round edge. Dip it in the Titanium White and then on the rock.
At this point I had forgotten to add some more branches to the berries. I will do it before I go to the next step.
Like I said, I added a few more branches and I painted the base color of the berries with Cadmium Red Medium. For this I again used the q-tip. It is so much easier to paint little round dots.
The next step is to add some shadows and some highlights on the berries. The shadows we paint with a mix of Cadmium Red Medium and Burnt Umber. The Hightlights are Cadmium Red Medium and Titanium White. It’s hard to see it in the photo. Because of that I painted an example on a piece of paper.
Let it snow let it snow let it snow. With pure titanium white we are adding by dabbing falling snow flakes. And the let some snow sit on the branches and on top of the berries. Don’t forget to add also some shadows on the bottom side of the snow. For this I used a mix of Titanium White, Burnt Umber and Ultramarine blue.
At the end I added 1-2 layers of glossy varnish for a more shiny effect. I hope you enjoyed these tutorial. Let me know if you have painted your own rock or pendant with this tutorial.
As always this is so beautiful
Love the colors
But I really like to watch you
TFS-Rebecca
Hi Rebecca, thank you for your words. I am happy to read that you like it. At the moment I have not the energy to create and edit videos. And with the big YouTube change on Jan 1st I am not sure how it will be. I am afraid that I have to mark my videos as kidscontent. This means that noone can write me comments or would get notifications if a new video is online. Thank you for being my follower. Annett