Under the Tuscan Sun

For my second shot at painting, I decided to try to follow a step-by-step tutorial I found online while researching all that is acrylics. You can find the tutorial right here. Julie Shoemaker, the artist and teacher, shows you how to paint a beautiful Tuscan Landscape!

Mine seriously looks nothing like hers sadly, but I'm still happy with my own unique result. It's a great tutorial for teaching beginners like myself about depth. She explains how images (like the hills and background shrubs) are suppose to appear duller and how images in the foreground tend to appear darker. I really enjoyed this tutorial because it really made me dive into my paints. It allowed me to grow more familiar with the colors and how they mix with one another.

And of course I must mention how relaxing it is to come home after a stressful day of work and just splash the paint on that canvas! Playing "La Mer" in the background with a paintbrush in my hand really makes me feel one step closer to becoming an artiste.

I'll be needing more paint soon! Spacing out the paint in the little tubes makes it hard to cover the canvas to my desire. The only thing I didn't follow in the tutorial was putting on Gesso! I had no idea that it was a necessity for painting with acrylics, so I must get some asap :) Beginner's mistake...I bet it would have helped with the blending a lot.

All done! I didn't get to put the little house though! Trust me I tried...but it looked like a odd-shaped disaster with a red roof.