This makes drawing or painting glass all the more worthwhile.

It’s the challenges that make us grow after all.  It’s the struggles that make our work stronger.  We shouldn’t shy away from them.  Instead, we should embrace the benefits of the challenge.

Now, back to glass.  Glass presents two major challenges for the artist.  The first is transparency and the second is reflection.  Get the transparency and the reflection right, and you have created the illusion of glass in your artwork.

So, let’s look at how this may be accomplished.

How to Create Transparency in Drawings

The key to transparency will lie in the handling of the intensity of the colors.  Intensity deals with brilliance and is the dullness or brightness of a color.  Intensity is affected by adding grays to a color.  Intensity can also be affected by the amount of material that is applied to the surface.

Varying the intensities of colors will lead to the illusion of transparency.  Have a look below…

By varying the intensities of blues and oranges, the glass appears transparent in areas.

How to Create Reflection in Drawings

Transparency by itself does not lead to the illusion of glass.  Instead, transparency will need to be coupled with reflection.  Reflection can be created by manipulating contrast.

Typically, glass will strongly reflect light.  This will cause areas of intense contrast in value that will be defined by a distinct line or shape.  Have a look below…

Notice the shapes of light values right next to dark values.  These areas of intense contrast defined by hard edges are creating the illusion of reflection.

The combination of reflection and transparency will lead to the illusion of glass.

Ready for some practice?

Photo References of Glass for Drawing and Painting

What good is knowing a concept if you don’t practice it – right?

Here is a collection of glass still life arrangements for you to practice with.  Just remember – look for the areas of transparency and reflection and exploit them in your drawing or painting.

If you’re looking for some more inspiration, why not check out artist, Janet Fish.  She is a real master at capturing the illusion of glass in her works.

Let’s Be Practical

That being said, it’s not always practical to draw from life.  You can’t always be at those locations that you may want to draw or paint and you can’t always get that person to sit for hours for you as your subject.  Photographs should be a welcome resource for creating art. (It drives me a bit crazy when some people hold distain for artists using them.) Artists throughout history have embraced the technologies of their time – so why should we be any different.

So, if we embrace the photograph as a welcome tool for creating art, then we must be aware of the resource itself. It’s a good idea to take the photos yourself.  But again, this is not always possible or practical.  This can make finding good resource material a real challenge.

I recently took several photos of fruit for reference and I thought that I’d share them here.  You, of course are free to download these and use them as resource images in your own art.

Why Fruit?

So why draw fruit?  Fruit is a great subject for practicing drawing (or painting).  It is organic in form and shape.  It has interesting textures and contrasting colors.  These are reasons that fruit and vegetables can be found in countless still life paintings throughout history.  But most importantly, I think that fruit is great to draw because it is non-formulaic.  You have to look at the fruit to draw it accurately.  In fact, you have to look at it closely.

In the end, drawing is all about observation and any subject that enhances our observation skills is a good subject to draw.

These images are best suited for colored media like colored pencils, pastels, watercolor, oil, etc., but you can use them anyway you like.

It was very difficult to choose a winner. But in the end, a tough decision had to be made. And the winner of the postcard contest is…

Karen M. from Alberta, Canada!

Karen’s work entitled, “Snowstorm over El Capitano and Merced River, Yosemite Provincial Park” can be seen below…

Congratulations to Karen!  She will receive a dozen General’s Layout Pencils, a 12 Prismacolor Premier pencil set, a sketchbook, kneaded erasers, Alphacolor Pastels, and a lifetime membership to TheVirtualInstructor.com Members.

All of the postcards that I received can be viewed below…

Thanks again for your participation! Look for a new contest coming soon!

Mixing Skin Tones

Why is it that mixing skin tones is so darn difficult?  Mixing beautiful greens for grass is easy enough.  Mixing realistic blues for skies and water is easy enough, but skin tones – that’s a different story.  So, why are they are hard to mix and how can we make it easier on us all?

The truth of the matter is that skin tones are complex colors.  Simply mixing two colors with equal parts is not going to get the job done.  It will take several colors to get the color “right”.   The complexity deepens when you consider that a range of values and color temperatures can exist on one face.  And let’s not forget that no two skin tones are exactly the same.  It’s easy to want to reach for that pre-made “flesh tone” at this point, but resist the temptation!

Let’s step back for a moment and simplify things a bit.  But before we do, let me make this disclaimer – Portrait artists approach painting in different ways, so the way of mixing I present here may not be best for you, it’s simply how I approach mixing skin tones.

Establishing Your Base Tone

The first color that should be mixed will establish a base tone for the face.  This color should be the general tone of the subject and will be the foundation on which we build the values and temperatures in the portrait.  While all skin tones are different, a blend of the colors red, yellow, brown, and white will result in a suitable foundation color.  Some skin tones will require more red, while others will require more white and so on.  But for most subjects, a mixture of these four colors works nicely.

A little saying that I use to help my students remember the colors used for base skin tone mixing is… “Red, yellow, brown, and white – that’s how to mix your skin tones right.”

Getting the Values Right

Just like with painting or drawing any other subject, light will react on the surface of the face.  The light will affect the values and color temperatures that should be found in your painting or drawing.   We can create these values and temperatures by adjusting the base tone that we created.

Let’s start with the values.  The first suggestion is to throw out your tube of black.  You don’t need it.  Mixing black with your skin tone will just muddy the color, making it look gray.  Instead, the colors that should be used to make values darker are brown (burnt umber, raw umber) and blue (phthalo).  A mixture of blue and brown will create a “natural black” that will produce natural looking tones.  An added benefit is control over the temperature.  If you need shadows that are cooler in temperature, mix your darker values with more blue.  If a warmer shadow is what you are after, add more brown.

Lighter values should be mixed by adding white with the base tones.  However, be cautious.  White can mute colors when over-used and “wash out” natural tones.  Seldom is an area on a face “white”.

Color Temperature

Color temperature is the warmth or coolness of the color.  It doesn’t have to be complicated.  The more that you add a warm color to your base tone, the warmer it gets.  The more that you add a cooler color to your base tone, the cooler it gets.  The trick is recognizing whether a color is cool or warm, and it all starts with your light.

Not all light is warm.  And not all highlights are warm.  You may find areas on your subject where the light is very light, but slightly cool in temperature.   For most highlights, the color temperature will be warm.  For shadows, the color temperature varies from warm to cool.

Areas of the face will change in color temperature.  For example, areas around the nose  and checks tend to be more red, making the temperature warmer.  Pay close attention to subtle changes in color, value, and temperature and include them in your work.  Don’t be afraid to be bold with contrasting these areas.  It’s the contrast in value, color, and temperature that leads to the illusion of form.