Learn how to Paint with Acrylics - Canvas Prep and Undercoat

Learn how to paint with acrylics - canvas prep and undercoat in this video with Studio Artist, Mary Gallagher-Stout.

Hi, I’m May Gallagher – Stout, and we are at the Lorton Workhouse, where my studio is. And we are painting a very ferocious stoney lion today. So, before we get started, we have to prep our surface and we are using clear jesso, we will use two coats of clear jesso to give the surface some tooth for our ground coat of paint. So let’s get started. So we’re just gonna take a roller and we’re gonna wet, and clear jesso actually looks white. It’s a very milky color, but it dries clear. And you just gonna wanna just roll from left to right, or right to left, whichever you prefer. Because it’s a small surface, it doesn’t really matter. Either way if you we’re doing a large surface that’s when, you know, going left to right would be more important if you’re left handed or right handed because you don’t wanna paint over yourself. That gets tiring especially if you’re doing a large wall. So, putting on two coats of this jesso, and making sure I get full coverage. And there we are, now this needs to dry before we can put on our ground coat, and we can help it dry quicker by using a blow dryer. And we’re just gonna plug in a blow dryer and dry this off to get to a dry state and lay in the ground paint. Okay, so we’re at the point where we’re ready to lay in the ground color. And we are using three different glazes, the Golden glazes. Two of them are right out of the bottle, which is the mustard yellow and this is Golden’s crimson glaze. This is a glaze that I mix, which is just one part burnt sienna and one part Golden glazing mix. So what we’re gonna do is we’re just gonna dab our roller into each, this is the real fun part of the painting, where you get to just go hog wild and rub in all kinds of texture and fun and it’s just warming up and setting a temperature for the stone that we’re creating which is a warm tones. So, that’s why I’m using warm colors. So let’s get started, I’m just going to put this aside here. And be mindful, you have to have a rag, or a cheese cloth nearby, because after you roll it on, they leave lines, lap lines, and you’re gonna need your cloth to tap out, to help blend in and make it smooth. It doesn’t need to be completely smooth, but you don’t wanna see lap lines in for using the roller. So, get your trusty roller, and I’m just dipping in the first one, some yellow. Then you’re just gonna be really irregular with it coz you’re just really putting on some temperature like I said. So it doesn’t really matter where it goes. Coz we’re gonna be blending it and warming it up. It looks really ugly right now, but do not worry, it’s just the under painting. Putting on warm, so you can see almost like sunshine poking through and some red. And it’s just gonna warm up our lion. When we put on the warm glaze that we’re gonna build him out off. So I’m putting on all my colors, and I want it to be irregular because he’s made of stone and I don’t think stone is very regular in color. It’s kind of all over the place. So, I’m just gonna put in some more yellow here. And you just kinda paint to your liking. Like I like warm spots then lighter spots and yellower spots, coz I think it creates a more interesting piece in the end. Because we’re using acrylic colors, which are transparent, and we’re working in layers, so we’re building up the color. So you’ll gonna be able to see these colors through each consecutive layer. So that’s why I want it to be nice and snuggly warm. So my lion looks like he’s just basking in the sunshine and just happy to be a lion. So now you can see some of these lap lines, that’s what I’m talking about, a lap line. You don’t want that, coz that looks pretty awful. So, if you’re getting that, you just gonna dab it out, and you see that the rag is gonna leave its own texture, which is great. Because that’s what you want, we’re creating a stone. So we want it have a lot of movement and texture. And that’s the other really cool thing about acrylics. They do dry so fast, and that means you can layer them a lot quicker than if you are using oil and solvents which take forever to dry. I think it looks nice and irregular. And you can see all three colors, and it’s really given the surface a nice warm feel. We’re gonna dry it with a blow dryer and then we’re gonna be adding in some greediness by spattering some paint next.