8 Years on YouTube + Q&A Painting Lesson

Hello, I'm Kevin Hill and today we can do something different, today marks eight

years

of making

painting

videos, that's a long time. I really just wanted to thank you for the amazing support now before the Q&A portion of this video. I wanted to take a couple of seconds to talk about some of my long-term goals and what I'd like to do with this channel in the future. Now I'm going to do something I've never done before: establish a subscriber. The goal is nothing new, it's something I've never done. I would like to see us reach 1 million subscribers and I know you guys can do it because you are amazing.

This is just a fun goal that we will continue to achieve.

painting

videos and trying to learn and improve every time we do it, it wouldn't be much of a goal if we didn't have something fun at the end. Eight

years

ago I made my first painting video and I was 16 years old. old and back then I didn't know you weren't supposed to show everyone's logos in your videos, so I removed it a long time ago. What I'm doing is going in and blurring out all of those logos so I can upload them again, I thought it would be fun and special to save them for the next big milestone, so I'm really excited, but to help celebrate eight years of making painting videos, I want to show you a quick clip from my first video and I'm not laughing too much.

I really just wanted to use this as an opportunity to say thank you. I really appreciate your support. Okay, let's move on to the question and answer portion of this video. A few days ago we published it. Facebook and on Instagram we're going to do a Q&A video and I asked for a few questions so these are just a few there are a ton of questions that unfortunately I can't answer all of them but I'll do my best and especially. The successes that have been asked several times. This first batch here comes from Instagram. If you don't already follow us on Instagram, definitely check that out, but let's start here with what brushes and paint you use, so for the oil side.

I have my own brush languages ​​here and I use Gamblin 1980 oil paints and for the acrylics I have my own brushes that are stored in the paints that I have here, all of that is available on the paint website. with quiet Kevin, as well as full

lesson

s and other fun stuff like that. Alright, the next question is necessary for varnishing and oil painting, so I personally don't do many of my own paintings. I just never do it because it usually has to be done. Wait about six months for them to dry completely, at least that's what the instructions usually say if you want to use a varnish.

I like, hey, I like a glossy varnish because it brightens the color and makes it look really pretty. orange tea for you in the past and I like the glossy varnish. A tip for you is to read the instructions on the label and follow them exactly because the last thing you want to do is ruin your paint, it's definitely something to consider. The next question here is how long have I been painting? I have been painting since I was fifteen years old. You've been dabbling in oil painting since I was fifteen years old and I made my first video when I was 16, which you've already seen and probably laughed at.

This is a very good next question. Any tips for entering a gallery space. It's a good question because it seems a little daunting at first, but it's actually not that difficult. The first thing I would do is get some nice photos of your visa. paintings you know, maybe use your phone in a window, give them good light, get some good photographs of the paintings and you can take them to the Art Gallery. A good way to start is to simply go to the reception and say hello, I'm here. local and would like to submit my artwork and they will usually give you an email address or maybe even set up a meeting with the person you need to talk to.

It's good to have your paintings there, but only pictures usually work and if your local gallery doesn't work, that's okay because there are many galleries that accept people all over the country. You want to make sure you send paintings that you spent a lot of time on. You want to refine the brush strokes. I'm sure they are high quality, it's actually not that difficult and it's a fun way to get into art business. How do you create fog in a painting fog? It's pretty simple. You can usually take a blender brush or a one-inch brush and roller. some kind of white on the background, the only problem you might run into is if you have too much thick, thick paint on the background, this painting behind me happens to be one I did recently, but you can limit the amount of paint you can apply with that fog it's super easy as long as you limit the paint, if you have too much paint it becomes a big problem so what you can do is just take a shop towel and wipe the canvas and then run your fog over that , especially if you're doing a mountain, clean up that mountain but you missed it, it makes it so much easier.

The next question here is how many hours do I paint in a day? Well, one of these paintings of this, for example, any. of them, but it turns out that this is the one up here, this could take six to eight hours, you don't want to do it all at once, now you need to have lunch, take breaks, that's fine, but if you're not in a It's not necessary If you post a video every week, you might want to spend several weeks on one painting, it just depends on the situation, so our next question here is how do you spread the paint so evenly when making a painting? base color without it looking harsh, that's a good question because it's actually a little more complicated than you think, so you have your two inch brush if you're doing X strokes, like you're putting on dark paint.

You're doing an The next question is fun, what do you think about when you are painting well? As long as it's not lunchtime I'm not thinking about lunch Normally I'm thinking in my head On the way It's my hand The way those things usually happen I don't think I know what I'm really focused on It's a lot It's the reference image, you know my photo or whatever I'm looking for when combining those colors, it's more about colors than anything else, getting the colors in the right place and then I'm always worried about, you know, don't use too much paint, right?

Since I don't want to make a slippery mess, the next question here is how much time do I need to spend practicing to get better? What I would do is try to practice once or twice a week instead of trying to cram a bunch into one. week and then don't paint the rest of the month, do it constantly. You don't need to do it so much that way if you don't have a lot of extra time, but know that time sometimes isn't something we have a lot of. On to the next question, do you ever do any glazing, not so much oil, but I definitely do a lot of glazing when it comes to acrylic because that's really what you do with dry brush blending, i.e. wet paint glazing on the paint dries to try to get a blurry result? you want there to be confusion here and what you're painting softens it, so I always use glaze when it comes to acrylics.

Okay, next question they're trying to get me in trouble. Do you prefer to use oils or acrylics? I'm going to stay neutral on that. I like both and they both have different things that are really easy and really hard. I have a couple of good videos where I do side by side comparisons of oils. versus acrylics, which can help you decide whether or not you want to use oils or acrylics. I will say acrylics clean up pretty easily but the mix is ​​a little bit tart it's a little bit harder it's up to you so I have a question here about acrylic paint how can you keep it from drying so quickly ?

It's a good question because sometimes it can be very frustrating if it just dries out and you're trying to blend, the best thing to do is if you know you need it. it mixed in, I work quickly, just do as much as you know you can and then go back and dry brush a mixture on top of that, so for example I would paint my blue sky on it, let it dry and walk away for a few moments. minutes do something else for a few minutes come back leave it now that it's dry then you can glaze or blend with a dry brush the clouds over that and it's a lot easier because if you try to paint clouds over an already wet acrylic sky it will probably end up drying before you finish your clouds.

Well, the next one here says: how old are you? Now I'm 24. I've always wanted to know how you set up your composition for each painting, so this can vary a little from week to week. A few weeks. I'm just painting directly from a photo I took or a photo Sophia took and sometimes it's a little more vague than that and things are a little more subject to change. One thing I recommend everyone do is draw a map. What you want to paint ahead of time may be with just a piece of paper and a pencil, but just locate each element.

You know, I want a tree on the left, I want my pond on the right and you look, I'm like, oh, not that. If it doesn't look good you figure out why it doesn't look good on the paper and when you go to paint it it will work much better if you don't like your reference image it won't look better when you go to paint it asked me how do I know the next question is About trees, how do you decide where to place the light source on each branch and even how do you decide where the branches should be?

I think one of the best things you can do is hold your brush or the brush hold it from behind and it's nice and loose as loose as possible because what that's going to do is allow you to create the looseness and lightness of a tree that you don't want to be see mapped. so you're looking more at the overall shape of the tree, if there's a spot on the tree that doesn't look right you're going to go back and add more lights or more darkness, you definitely want most of your light just say the lights. coming from the left, so you want most of the light to be on the left, a little bit in the middle, sticking out forward, some branches catching the light and just a pinch on the right, which should give you a nice round looking tree in a landscape. painting, what elements or techniques are you still finding difficult to master?

It's an interesting question because it's not something I think about a lot, but one thing I would like to improve on is groundwater, like nearby water, where you can It's like looking down, you can see that big rock under the water. with all the details and then the rock is glued on, it looks different, you know, it's like a different color, it's so pretty and I would like to get better and better. in making a kind of glowing water in the foreground, so you know, maybe in the next few videos we'll look at color mixing techniques to help create depth, so using color is one of the best ways to create depth, of course, the other thing you would do.

What you want to do is use values, your lightest values ​​on the back and then your highest, darkest and brightest contrast. You know, contrasting dark and light things right in the foreground, which helps create depth, but as far as color goes, your blues tend to lean away from purples. they're nice in the shadows, especially around the midtones, and then for the foreground, you want everything very warm, a lot of reds, a lot of warm browns and that helps make it look more like a foreground if you paint the sun or the moon in the background. How can you make the sun's rays come out of that?

Generally, all it takes is to simply load the blender brush and give it a good pull straight to the right, but one problem you may run into is that if you have too much paint on the bottom, it tends to just get muddy, one tip you can use is just take a shop towel and if you wanted to, you know, there's a sunbeam there, you just smudge that area with a shop towel, get all that paint off and then you can put your sunbeam right over it. that. So, for example, if I had a big, thick cloud, I would clear it first and then pass my sunbeam over that cloud.

The same goes for a mountain. I like the next one. How do you know what colors to mix when you are? Using a reference photo, I see you mixing so many colors at once, sometimes my palette looks like a mess, but that's okay, the best thing you can do is divide it into small sections, so let's take a tree trunk for example. you look on that highlighted side, you should see gold and you see some yellows and some greens even on that bark and you want to add as many of those to your painting as possible, you don't have to color match your photos perfectly, but use it as encouragement to add more color because if you look at a photo, there are usually thousands of colors in something like a tree, so many different variants, how did you learn to paint?

Was it difficult at first or did it just come naturally to you? I saw it in my first painting video, it didn't come naturally. In fact, you can see the change over the years. If you go back to my first video here, which is still public, you can jump forward through the years and see how the painting process developed. A little is just a lot of practice and you've seen most of my practice, well, theThe following is a bit controversial if I'm not that good at drawing or I'm just a bit lazy, is it cheating? I'm just going to paraphrase a little, is this a trap?

Plotting it out basically is the question for me. I don't do a lot of tracing because I do a lot of landscapes and I don't necessarily want anything tight, but if I did something like a landmark or a structure that needs to look right or even a person or a portrait, it wouldn't be a bad idea to sketch it out. I don't think it's cheating. You're just using the tools available to help you create a better painting and help you learn. If you've ever taken an art class with me, we have a basic sketch on the canvas and it helps everyone stay on the same plane.

You'll notice that the sketch is usually covered in the first five minutes anyway. I saw the video of you teaching, so if we had a painting, is she one? Artist too, well she hasn't painted anything since then, but we've been very busy, plus we have the two year old, which makes everything busy, but maybe in the future we can get her back. make another one because I know you liked what is the best way to clean brushes while I paint. My toilet thinner gets cloudy quickly. I'm probably the worst person to ask about brush cleaning, but I'll give you advice on what I can anyway.

What you want to do is if you don't want the paint thinner to get cloudy, you just dip the brush in, wipe it with a paper towel and that removes most of the pigment, then you can dip it, wipe it, dip it, wipe it. until it starts to get very clean on the paper towel and you can finish cleaning it with paint thinner or baby oil, whatever you want to use. Well, the next question is when to use a base coat and what color to choose for the base coat. so I think what you mean by base coat is like you want to paint the entire canvas brown, for example.

I hope that's what you were thinking but even if it's not it's good advice so for acrylic paintings I almost always tone the canvas with any color it could be red yellow green we've done blue certainly brown brown is very common and you can do that in oil paintings and I've done it in the past pink. I think we did something in pink if I remember correctly, but what you can do is just allow that color to shine through the painting. You know you're going to paint a cloud and you're going to rub it and a little bit of what comes out will show through and give your whole painting that warmth that comes through. or a cool tone that comes through, so definitely experiment with that.

I would use acrylic paint even when I paint in oils, so you can prime with acrylics because you're Jess, they're all acrylic based anyway. The next question is about my easel, what kind of easel do you make? I use, actually, this is one that I built myself, it's made out of birch, I would stain it dark and I had it for years, and it's made to fit, you know, an 18 by 24, not much else, but one thing What I like is that it is not adjustable. like those angles were blocked, there's not a lot of noise or anything going on, so for the most part it was just a movie with well, that's all the time we have for questions today, but I just wanted to thank you all again.

I really appreciate the support. Thanks for the questions too. It was fun. See you in the next painting video. Thanks for watching.