Skill Level: beginner
Labor Time: 40 minutes
Dry Time: 20 minutes
Total Time: 60 minutes
Materials:
11 x 14 canvas or acrylic art paper size 12 flat brush
size 4 filbert brush
size 2 round brush
Red acrylic paint, quarter size (Decoart Americana Tuscan Red )
Light brown/grey acrylic paint, quarter size (Decoart Americana Beige)
Dark Brown acrylic paint, half dollar size (Decoart Americana Burnt Umber)
Off White acrylic paint, nickel+ size (Decoart Americana Oyster Beige)
Muted Yellow acrylic paint, nickel size (Decoart Americana Antique Gold )
Orange acrylic paint, nickel size (Decoart Americana Canyon Orange)
Black acrylic paint, dime size (Josonja Carbon Black)
Gold acrylic paint, dime size (FolkArt Metallic Gold) pencil
tightrope walker template
palette paper
paper towel
Water bin with water
Background
Begining with the large flat brush, load the brush with Beige. Starting at the bottom, about two finger width in from the left side of the paper, paint a rounded 'rainbow' stroke. The stroke should end at the bottom of the paper, about two finger width from the right edge. Fill the rainbow stroke underneath to bottom of the page. Make sure your strokes are in rainbow and continuous from end to end.
Rinse and dry the brush. Load the brush with Burnt Umber, create a rainbow stroke just over the beige stroke so there is no white in between. Continue to build burnt umber strokes until you have about three fingers width of a rainbow ribbon. This should mean that the corners of the bottom of the paper would be full of burnt umber.
Without rinsing your brush, take a generous scoop of the burnt umber and place it in a new area of your palette. Without rinsing your brush, take a scoop of the beige and add it to your new area of burnt umber. The ratio of burnt umber to beige should be 3 to 1. Mix until the colors combine. Add another rainbow stroke, blending it with the top of the burnt umber stroke. Complete each stroke going all the way from one side to another in a rainbow shape. Continue to add more beige to the mixture, and another blended stroke to the rainbow, until the ombre rainbow shape is just about four fingers width away from touching the top of the paper. Rinse and dry your brush so that no brown appears on the paper towel when drying. Load the brush with Tuscan Red and fill in the remaining space, using the rainbow stroke. Place the brush in the water. Let the entire piece dry. There should be no wet looking spots when you do the next step. You may use a hair dryer if desired.
If you are painting with an easel: To be consistent with the video, We create the drapes and tent poles next. However, if you wish to save time, I suggest you skip to the audience portion of the tutorial, and comeback to do the drapes later. This will allow the audience to fully dry so you don't have to wait to apply the tightrope walker. If you are not using an easel, I don't recommend skipping however, it's common to feel the need to rest your wrist on the painting when doing the poles, and you would risk getting paint picked up on clothing, or smeared on the painting itself.
Drapes and Poles
Using the small round brush, load with oyster biege. In the exact middle of the red back ground, create a straight line of the oyster biege. Add an additional pole on either side of it, a little more than four fingers width apart from the original pole. Place the round brush in the water bin, and load the filbert brush with Burnt Umber.
Use swooping motions to create folds in the drapes. I like to start from the center, pressing slightly down on the brush, and as I pull it toward the side and upwards (towards the pole or edge of paper) I lift up. This creates a curve that tapers. Continue to fill the drapes until it looks satisfactory to you.
Audience
The audience is created by watered down dabs of paint of different mixes. Rinse your filbert brush, scoop one part antique gold (yellow), and one part burnt umber. Mix until blended. Create a loading well by running your brush from the edge of the paint outward. Dip your brush in the water bin and add the water on your brush into the loading well. This should thin out your paint. Run a test on your paper towel to see how opaque the paint is. It should be a bit more solid than water color, but still very transparent. Dry your brush, reload, and begin painting audience members. Starting at the bottom of the bleachers, add each person by dabbing the brush head in a gentle but quick motion. Add audience members randomly, placing them in groups of one to three. Remember the audience sits in rows that are rainbow shaped. As you move upward, you can add a bit of oyster biege to the mix, remembering to water it down to create a more transparent look.
Continue to add new colors of audience members to fill in the spaces within the rows. Use one part canyon orange and one part burnt umber, and adding oyster beige as you work upward. You can also mix one part burnt umber, one part canyon orange, and one part antique gold for another set of audience members. Let the audience completely dry before moving on to the lights and tightrope walker (you may use a hair dryer if desired).
Lights and Tightrope Walker
Using the tightrope cut out printable template, trace the shape onto the painting, trying to get majority of the figure within the two spotlights, just a bit off centered from the middle of the painting. Rinse the small round brush, and load with carbon black. Fill in the traced silhouette. Rinse brush, and load with metallic gold. Highlight some edges of the tightrope walker and portion of the rope that is exposed to the spotlight.
Voila!
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