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Hello world, back again for another week at Cobalt!
Today we had our lesson in perspective. Specifically in how you use perspective drawing to transfer a drawing from small scale to a larger scale drawing that you would use as a cartoon for a drop.
You essentially plot out the vanishing points on the paper and use a string tied to a pushpins in the ground to plot out the perspective lines from each object.
Make sure your smaller reference is in scale! Or else you’ll have an even bigger headache.
By using the scale rule and the vanishing point or points you are able to chart out the large draw, no grid involved.

Here i am again! It’s Friday and the last day of class this week.

Today we focused on how to shade and shadow an object.
The most helpful advice I can give you is this,
Make your objects local color the base color
Make a shadow out of burnt umber and a dark blue, water it down so it is a little translucent
Make the objects shadow a color that would be the compliment of the source light (that’s how it occurs in life!)
Make your highlight out of your local color, add white and some of the source lights color
To create the “zinger” or hot spots you take white and the color of your light source and apply them sparingly
Then you add bounce light (from surrounding objects or surfaces) in your shadow. The most important part is that they appear in the shadow of your object. It’s best to do this with dry brushing, without thinned paint
The last step is to add the cut line, or line of shadow that occurs at the point where the object hits the surface, or is touching it’s cast shadow, this line is a very dark color, even black.

Follow this and you will have spectacular shading! sounds simple… But once you try to do it with a fled sashes and ditches to get just the smallest line ever – you discover that it can be quite the challenge. My favorite discovery was learning about the bounce light, that small addition really makes your painting come alive! I saw examples in the studio and I was marveling at how the artist included pops of color in their shading, and it went together so perfectly. Now I know how it’s done
Alright world, I’ll see you again on Monday!

Today began with everyone once again at their flat, the one we made the gradated wet blend and the stumble on. We then proceeded to test various tools on this surface, by dividing the flat into four sections we were able to work with three main tools.
Those were slinging, rags, textured rollers, and combing.
We then experimented with some other tools on the floor. My personal new favorite is a mop head connected to a handle by a wire, which enables it to swing around. You soak this with paint giving an amazing spatter effect. Even when you soak it in water you get another spatter effect when you rink it out.
After that we had a lesson on proper spattering (the irony). It is not proper to bang your brush against another item (or hand), instead you manipulate your spatter by how thin your paint is, how much paint is in your brush, and where in your brush the paint is resting. You then flick the brush with your hand, and control the direction by pointing where you want to spatter. It is important to keep the wide edge of your brush (we were using 4″ lay-ins for spattering) facing down. Otherwise you will end up with lines of spatter instead of a uniform spatter. We also worked by doing wet spatters and bath spatters, which is playing with how much water is on your surface prior to spattering.
Following the spatter lesson we began lining. Properly built lining sticks are key. They need a beveled edge and a concave base, making the bottom of the lining stick only touch the surface in two locations. Angled Sash brushes are ideal forlining. We also used fiches and created soft edged lines.

A quick lesson on how to clean brushes:

1. Put brush in clean bucket with water, bristles face down. Best way to do this is to have a bucket under running water where you then swirl the brush around, empty the water when it becomes colored. Repeat until water is clean (ish).

2. Stick brush in Murphy’s Oil, much like a dish soap. Make sure it is diluted. You don’t want the soap to be too hard to rinse out.

3. Scrub brush as you would your hair. Get between the bristles and down to the base.

4. Rinse under running water.

5. Get a plastic toothed scrub brush (metal ones damage the bristles), and scrub in one direction from the base of the bristles to the end of the bristles. This is to remover any
Ain’t that is stuck in the base of the bristles. You should do this step under running water.

6. Store your brushes horizontally on a metal mesh shelf. This allows the brush to dry without any leftover paint getting caught on the end of the brush. If any paint was left it will collect on the side of the brush, which is a lot easier to clean than the tip. The metal shelf also gives it a way to breathe.

Today we did a lot of work wit bamboo. Starting out with drawing exercises and then moving on to a large scale replica of a Mucha painting before lunch.
After lunch we used our ,iced paint from yesterday to do some wet blends, graidation and scumbling. Afterwards we learned about proper use and maintenance of sprayers.

Today was the first day we used paint! And boy is rosco worth it, the paint is so thick and the color is so intense. Basically after you thin the paint you really aren’t paying much more for it, because a gallon goes a long way.

The day began with some basic geometry skills, and knowing how to bisect lines and create right angles on the floor.

Then we began to starch our soft good flats we made yesterday. Who knew you could starch a flat for a fraction of the price of primer?! Tomorrow were going to do the final layer of sizing ( a glue mixture ), which will completely seal the fabric

We then learned about the parts of paint, and created the ol’ color wheel. Then came the fun part: color matching.
Now the best trick I learned today was to figure out a recipe for your color using the fewest steps possible. You start with straight paint and then add white or a good color shifter like raw umber. From there you can really figure out only one or two more dabs of color will do the trick. I was able to color match two swatches exactly in less than 2 hours. Can’t wait to paint more tomorrow!