EX

CLUSIVE

WILD BLUEYONDER...

by Leslie Smith

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Palette

DECOART AMERICANA:Country Blue #13041Deep Midnight Blue #13166French Grey/Blue #13098Lamp Black #13067Oxblood #13139Slate Grey #13068Snow White #13001Terra Cotta #13062Uniform Blue #13086Warm Beige #13078Wild Orchid #13233Winter Blue #13190

Surface:Small tray with handles; item #63201

Brushes:1” Glaze Wash #20103Flat Brush - nominally a size 8 #20129 - mine is 1/4” widePapillon Round size 4 #20161Round brushes are my usual brush of choice. I can fl atten them to make a fl at or fi lbert. I can point them to make them behave like a round or liner.

Miscellaneous Supplies:DecoArt Americana All-purpose Sealer #87392DecoArt Americana Soft Touch Varnish* Small Sanding Pad—Fine/Medium #70794Transfer paper, stylus, etc.c-through RulerStandard painting supplies (palette, water container, etc.)

Optional Supplies for Feet and Buttons: See assembly section to explain how these are used1.5” wooden ball knobs, Manufactured by Darice Craftwood #63255DecoArt Wood GlueTwo military buttons - available on Ebay or from your favorite airman (optional)Drill and bit (size slightly larger than the button shank)Method 1 for attaching buttons: About 4” of wire ap-proximately gauge 20, Super Glue or Glue for Jewelry, Two small, fl at black buttons - preferably two holed with holes big enough to thread with the wire, Wire cutters, Pliers

Method 2 for attaching buttons: Quik Wood

TECHNIQUE AND THEORY:We want our airman to standout and get the bulk of the viewer’s attention. But we also want the distant jets to be uppermost in the viewer’s mind… and, at the same time we want the sky to be majestic and dramatic - it is - after all - the “wild blue yonder.” It would be easy for the parts of this painting to com-pete and, in doing so, altogether ruin the painting.

We will employ two types of contrast to establish the depth between the sky (background) and the airman (foreground) and keep them from overwhelming one another. (1) Even though both the sky and the air-man are painted using the same two hues (blues and reds), we will keep almost all the cool blues and reds in the sky and almost all the warm blues and reds in the airman. (2) We’ll paint the sky with paints straight out of the bottle and brush blend them onto the piece. On the other hand, we’ll “play” with the consis-tency of the paint on the airman’s hat (dry brushed highlights), his shirt (blocks or “tiles” of diluted washes), and the jet streams (more diluted washes - but blended into the sky.)

The changes in temperature and texture will help the viewer stay interested and easily determine that the airman is in front of the piece, even though every-thing is painted in solely reds and blues.

PREPARATION:Seal both sides of the tray with All-purpose Sealer. Seal the feet at this time, but leave the fl at surface unsealed. It will grasp the adhesive better if left as raw wood. The feet will be attached later; it is easier to handle and paint the piece if the feet are not yet attached.

Using the large fl at brush, basecoat feet (except the fl at side), outer frame, and handles with Deep Mid-night Blue.

Either tape the edges of the tray or understand that you will have to touch up the Deep Midnight Blue. Honestly, sometimes, I’m in no mood to play with tape and would just as soon do the touch up.

If you choose to use the tape, apply it to the border around the tray inset (over the tray edges already painted with Deep Midnight Blue). Press it down hard

Wild Blue Yonderby Leslie Smith

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with the edge of a credit card and press down the edge in the crease with a dull knife.

After applying the tape, edge approximately the outer inch of the tray inset with Deep Midnight Blue. Let the paint dry. Do not remove the tape - yet.

This extra step will insure that any bleeding that occurs under the tape will be Deep Midnight Blue and not your background colors. It takes extra time to do this right. For some people, it saves no more time than touch-up.

PAINTING INSTRUCTIONS:Background Stage 1:The tray inset is a little more than six inches high. Men-tally divide it into thirds or generous two inch stripes. If you used tape, the divisions can be marked on the tape.

Starting in the upper right hand corner with your 1” fl at, paint in Wild Orchid. My brush is never fully loaded; it is almost always side loaded. Work to the left across the insert, using loose “x” strokes. Do additional rows of Wild Orchid until the upper third is painted.

Pick up Country Blue on the same brush without clean-ing it. Continue with “x” strokes, overlapping some ar-eas of Wild Orchid. It will start to look like clouds. Paint a cloud or two with Country Blue into the Wild Orchid (but never immediately after your brush has just been loaded). Pick up a little Wild Orchid (very little paint) and paint a happy cloud or two into the Country Blue.

The lower third is painted with French Grey Blue. A cloud of French Grey Blue might get lost in the Coun-try Blue area. Refer to the FIGURE for suggestions. Remember that our airman will occupy the left side of

the inset, so don’t waste a lot of eff ort making clouds that he will cover.

After the background sky is painted, remove the tape. (FIGURE 1)

Transfer the outlines (outer edges) of airman’s head, hair, shirt, hand, and arm onto the piece, using your favorite method.

The Airman’s Garrison Cap:We’ll paint the Garrison Cap (sometimes called a side cap) fi rst to anchor our airman. It will also serve to establish the darker blue. If the fi nished hat “melts” into the background too much, it may mean that the sky needs to be lightened.

Base his cap with Uniform Blue; be sure that it wraps around his head. Let dry and transfer or hand sketch in the sections of his cap.

Shade each side of the cap and along the creases with Deep Midnight Blue. Use the smaller fl at and a side load, walking the dark blue out from the corner of the “triangle.” The edge of the brim is highlighted with a sideload of Winter Blue. The remaining highlights are dry brushed.

Dry brush is a technique in which the brush is kept dry. I often put the paint onto my palette before it will be used and allow it to dry up a bit. The loaded brush is barely skimmed along the top of the painting surface. Raised wood grain or texture will catch the paint.

Note that his head and the back crease of the garrison cap both follow a curve. Also, another highlight (Win-ter Blue) was added to the upper left corner peak of

FIGURE 1FIGURE 1

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the cap (marked in the FIGURE with an “x”) after the fi rst few photos were taken. It is shown on the fi nished piece. See FIGURE 2

The Airman’s Head, Arm, and Hand:His hand is only 1-1/2” from fi ngertip to the base of his thumb. There are highlights, shading, shadows, and refl ected colors, all in that tiny space. Each fi nger has at least three diff erent values. There is a moon on his nail. If you think about it, it does not take very much paint to create that hand. So, don’t put a lot of paint on your brush when you are painting tiny areas. I often have so little paint on my brush that I cannot see it. I also paint quickly. So, while the instructions are divid-ed into steps, the paint is actually applied wet into wet, which makes blending much easier. And, just as a warning, the palette is diff erent than the one used on the fi rst tray (Anchors aweigh). The sailor was blondish. Our airman is dark haired and his skin has a red/yellow cast. Do yourself a favor and read this section completely before starting.

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FIGURE 3FIGURE 3

FIGURE 4FIGURE 4

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Basecoat his hand and arm with Warm Beige, using your Papillon round #4. Warm Beige will be our domi-nant fl esh color. But, because his hand is cupped and facing down, away from the sun, the palm will be fairly dark and in the shadows. Very little of the Warm Beige will remain once the hand is fi nished.

Let dry. Transfer the fi ngers, thumb, elbow, etc. and paint over the dividing lines with Uniform Blue. Shade the bottom edge of each fi nger with Oxblood and the top edge with Terra Cotta. The index fi nger gets very little shading. The next fi nger gets more shading and so on. The pinkie fi nger is almost totally shaded.

Shade his palm under the thumb with dilute Uniform Blue and then wash with dilute Oxblood. Shade the lower edge of his thumb with Oxblood and the upper edge with Terra Cotta. Highlight with Warm Beige.

The nail is also Warm Beige. The moon on his nail is Winter Blue. A tiny line of Winter Blue along the lower edge of his hand will keep his hand from disappearing into the sky. If his nail looks odd to you, try darkening the area around the nail with Oxblood.

His arm, face and neck are painted with the same palette and same general method. Refer to FIGURE 3. Paint the fl esh well into his hair.

Can the airman’s ethnicity be changed? The short answer is “sort of.” He can appear to be Native Ameri-can if the painter is more heavy handed with the Oxblood. The shaded areas would be predominantly Oxblood; much of his skin would get a fi nal wash of dilute Oxblood. He will appear to be of Eastern ethnic-ity if more Terra Cotta is used (larger shaded areas and a fi nal wash). However, any further changes in his skin (or changes to his hair color) will change the balance of the piece’s color scheme. Either the sky colors would have to be adjusted, or the painting would lose consid-erable harmony and drama.

The Jets and Streams:The hair and jets are painted together because we’ll use the contrast of the darkest (black) and lightest (white).

We’ll paint his hair fi rst. Start at the lower edge of his side cap in the center and use Lamp Black in tiny downward stokes, using the same little round brush. Work towards each ear; the hairs along the side of his head angle ever so slightly towards the center back of his head. Stoke in some Winter Blue and then Snow White to give his some highlights (and maturity)

Inspect the sky in the area of the jets. The jets will draw the viewers’ attention into this corner of the tray. Ad-just it as you wish now. If needed, add some blue in the very corner to be sure that it contains enough blue to be called the “wild blue yonder.”

The three jets are tiny smudges of French Grey Blue. Each jet is made up of two intersecting lines (-/-) The center diagonal line (body of the plane) is pointing along the planes’ path and a horizontal intersecting line hints at the wings. The center plane is further forward and they are equidistant (equally far apart). They were painted quickly and smudged by blotting with a fi nger. See FIGURE 4

You may wish to let the piece dry at this point and ap-ply a thin protective coat of DecoArt Dura Clear Soft Touch Varnish. If you move fast enough, this will allow you to wash off the jet trails if you don’t like them.

Transfer the trails or freehand them as you wish. They are curved and further apart at the end near our airman. Dry brush the trails with Snow White. The curve gracefully and are wider (spread out) as they are fur-ther away from the planes. I blended each of them into the background by running my fi nger along the top of the wet paint. In the end, I painted 4-5 coats each to get the bright white I wanted. Each coat occupied a thinner trail than the previously applied coat of paint. This made the jet stream opaque in the very center, but fading into the sky at each side and very end. See FIGURE 5

The Airman’s Shirt:One of the easiest ways to make an object stand out or come forward is to paint it brighter, lighter and warmer. We will do that and use one other trick: we will make it a totally diff erent texture from the rest of the paint-ing. We will manipulate the brush in a totally diff erent manner.

The sky was blended “x” strokes; his shirt will be paint-ed simply with blocks of paint that are laid down and not blended. We will use a fl at brush (about 1/4” wide), loaded across the full width of the bristles almost to the ferule. The brush is laid down in a patting or stamp-

FIGURE 5FIGURE 5

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ing motion, leaving behind an angular “tile” of paint.

Transfer or sketch in the lines that defi ne the bottom of the collar, yoke, and sleeve seams.

Load the fl at brush with Winter Blue and lay the brush down along one side of a seam or dividing line. Wipe the brush clean and load with Slate Grey. Lay the brush down on the opposite side of the same line and press to lay paint. Do not blend along the seam.

Alternately pick up Winter Blue or Slate Grey and lay down tiles along the shirt seams. Continue until all the seams are defi ned. Switch the paint, so that the seam is Slate Grey on one side and then on the other.

Shade the sides of the collar, the top and bottom of his right sleeve (the shading is wider on the bottom of the sleeve), and both sides of his torso. Fill in the rest of his shirt with “tiles” or “blobs” of mostly Winter Blue. The shirt is very plain and subtle at this stage. FIGURE 6

The second layer of color on the shirt is applied with the same “tiles” or “blocks” of paint, using dilute Coun-try Blue and undiluted Snow White. Blending is kept to a minimum. A faint dilute wash of Wild Orchid is ap-plied to his left sleeve to unify our airman with the sky.

Final shading is created beneath both shoulder epau-

lettes and the shirt seams in a few spots with a couple of incomplete lines of faint French Grey Blue. There is a seamed edge on his right sleeve. Sideload the fl at brush and darken or shade the two triangles formed by his right sleeve where it connects to the shirt and the left side of his collar.

His rank is signifi ed by a chevron, painted with Deep Midnight Blue. FIGURE 7

Sign your piece with pride.

Assembly - Buttons and Feet (optional):Military Buttons can be found on more than one online auction site and they are not expensive. They are typi-cally metal and have a metal wire shank. There are two methods to apply them. For both methods, drill a hole large enough to insert the button shank into each of the two tray handles.

Method 1 - Run a piece of wire approximately 2” in length through the shank of each button and fold in half. Place button on handle with shank in hole; both wire end comes out the back of the tray handle. Thread each wire end through a hole in the black button and bend to secure buttons. Cut ends to approximately 1” and twirl around the tip of pliers to form a fl at spiral. The spiral will keep the sharp wire end enclosed. Check

FIGURE 6FIGURE 6

FIGURE 7FIGURE 7

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to be sure that the military buttons are “right side up.” Insert a spot of glue in the hole to secure buttons in place.

Method 2 - Insert the button shank into the hole. Pre-pare a small dime sized piece of Quik Wood and press it onto the back of the handle, making sure that the Quik Wood goes into the hole and grabs the button shank. Let dry and paint according to manufacturer’s instructions.

If you prepared feet, apply them in the four corners with DecoArt Wood Glue.

FINISHING:Apply two or more coats of DecoArt American’s Soft Touch.

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Pattern at 100%1" x 1"

To ensure yourpattern is at 100%,

this box should measure 1" x 1" when printed.

Copyright 2019 by Leslie Smith and Crafts Group, LLC.All Rights Reserved. #332517

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