Ground control

Stylising your shadows

This is a lesson I did with my oil class which makes the most of the ground, (an undercoat of either oil or acrylic paint that acts as a base colour for your painting). Grounds can be used with any other type of paint too. It can be quite sterile and harsh to paint onto a white canvas, a ground can soften the blow and allows your painting to look finished more quickly. The colour you choose can play a huge part in the overall effect and mood of the painting. You can also leave your ground showing to a greater or lesser degree. Here the ground colour has been left untouched to become the shadows of the flower.

In this exercise, I suggested a really strong blue, one that is often found in shadow colours,

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Shining some strong light on an orchid, or another structured looking flower against a backdrop makes the shadows very clear and crisp looking.

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Paint your background colour round the outline of your shadows. It makes for a really striking finish and looks quite like an oriental fabric design.

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In this example the blue ground colour on the shadows have been softened but the ground acts more as an outline to the flowers.

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