I was born during the Anular eclipse on May 1Oth, 1994. I`m very interested in painting it, but I might need some help with techniques. I`m not very good at realism. I`m more of a surrealism/abstract artist myself. If you could give me some tips on how I could go about painting the eclipse with much success & making it look as realistic as possible, I`d appreciate it greatly. Thanks & hope to hear (or read) some helpful ideas from my fellow artists out there! :daisy:
Lock you self in a totally dark room and using black paint copy what you see. Just kidding I am not worth a crap at painting.
Just gonna stick this pic in so you can see what I'm getting at more easily Depends what medium you're using. I hate acrylics so I can't help you with them, but if you're using oils and/or have access to an airbrush that would help you a lot - but not necessary. And get some Liquin! Put a verrrrrry thing layer of Liquin(speeds up the drying process) all over your canvas. This small amount should be quite hard to move around all the canvas, should take around 5 mins. If you just slap it on there's gonna be too much and it'll just water down your colours and make them hard to manipulate. 1.Paint whatever you're painting on black*, leaving a circle wherever you want your eclipse, then mask off where the moon is. 2.Paint in your sun. I'd colour it cadmium yellow, then add bits of cad. red towards the redder side, but only a tiny bit cos the pigments pretty strong with the red and you don't want it toooo red. But, beauty of oils is that if you mess up, just add more cad. yellow to it! On the yellower side I'd add a tiny bit of sap green to compliment the red. You shouldn't be able to tell that there's any green in there, it'll just hold it together nicely. Then whiten it all where it needs whitening. 4. Blend it all together to get seamless colour transfer. Use one of those bad boys to blend! hold the brush straight, so all the bristles touch the canvas(more or less) and use small circular strokes. Add the colours as you see fit until you get it as close to the pic as you can - don't rush and just chill with it 5. Remove your moon mask, paint that shit black - being careful around the edges of the red - use a small brush, on a 24x30" canvas it'd take me around 15-30 minutes to get my perfect line. 6. Wait around a week and a half for that shit to dry(if you used Liquin, 2-3 if you didn't... cadmium red is a real bitch for drying quickly!) Now the fun part - the glow is gonna be hard using oils, which is why I'd opt for an airbrush at this point(and you won't have to wait for the paint to dry if you're airbrushing). 7.a. Stick another very thin layer of liquin around your sun, masking off the centre. Grab your cad. yellow and apply an area about a cm thick around the rim of the sun then add a tiny bit more of the cad red, and basically blend it out using the same technique as before. Add more paint if needed. 8.a. Do the same to the moon after removing your template. 7.b. Mask off your eclipse, load some white into an airbrush. Go slowly and create a fine mist around the sun, fading away into the sky. 8.b. Get a cad. yellow and put a fine coating over the white. It won't show up against the black unless you're right up close to it and spraying the shit out of it. Add some cad. red over it, also in a light mist - until it looks good enough. 9.b. Do the same to the moon. Hopefully by this point it looks finished and pretty damn awesome! That's how I'd go about it, so good luck! Take a snap and post it for us to see once you've done
