Fall Pumpkins || The Social Easel

Hey everybody, how's everyone doing today? I'm super excited because we are in the first full day of our launch for the Social Easel online paint studio. We've already had a big group of ladies join last night. We opened at 8 o'clock last night, and if you sign up anytime today between now and midnight, you also get in on our early bird special. Which is this little truck up here. So I'll show you this. So if you sign up for our membership today before midnight, you get a template for your truck. And then this is my finished product, but you will get a full tutorial of how to do that truck just like that. And then of course you can do it in any color that you want to. So That ends tonight at midnight. So, um, some of my new members are hopping on here right now. Hey ladies! So as you guys are hopping on, hit the share button. So make sure that all your friends know about this and they can join in on the fun with you. So hit share, comment, and let me know where you're from and if you've painted with me before or if this is your first time watching me teach. So and maybe you've only seen me teach online, so you can let me know that too. But we're gonna, um, jump right in to starting. So you can see I've already got the background on there. Hey Cynthia! So I believe all of you guys are my new members— Cynthia and Tish and Dee and Lisa. So welcome, and now the 4 of you can get to know each other too. So I'm gonna pull you up live on here really quick so while I'm painting I can glance over and see any questions that you guys might have. Hi, Lori! Alright, so I'm gonna jump right into it. So this is going to be one of the paintings that we do in our online group in October, so So I went ahead and got the background on there using a palette knife and a little bit of gel medium. Hey Joanne! Hi V! Thank you. So this is one we're doing in the online group in October. So if you're interested and you want to do this painting, this will be in our online group and registration is open now. You can just go to the www.social easel online paint studio.com. And everything is there for you to get signed up. And as soon as you get signed up, you immediately get an email that is going to have your link to your early bird special for the truck tutorial and a link to your supply list. So everything that you need to get started with painting. So we make it as simple for you as possible. So I'm just starting. You can kind of tell I basically just did a brief outline of where I knew I wanted my pumpkins at. Hey Lynn, we are excited to have you as part of the group. Hey Lori. Hi Carol. So yeah, this is one that you guys will have coming in the group. And what I'm doing right now, this is just a quick base coat. I am not worried about this being solid. So your first little trick to starting a pumpkin is— I'll think of it like a little heart shape at the top. So I'm just going to leave it like that, and then I'm just going to fill in a base coat. And I kind of bounce back and forth between some different oranges just to give it variation. And I have a couple paintbrush strokes behind there from when I was kind of sketching my design on, so those will get covered up with my second coat. So I'm just going to come in here real quick. And if this is your first time watching me paint or watching any of my tutorials, tip number 1 is always get plenty of paint in your brush. So you can see how quickly I can fill in that pumpkin, and the reason why is because I've got plenty of paint on there. So I'm kind of going around the corner over here, and I'm gonna leave that just a little bit because I want this one to be more of a white pumpkin. Hello, Carla! Hey, Shirley! So as you guys are watching and watching me paint, I Type in any questions that you have about the group, how it works. So all the details are up now. It is $47 a month, or we have a yearly option that's $470 for the whole year. So if you know you're gonna just want to stay in this group and keep on painting, that's your best deal because you get 2 months for free. So, and then for that you get 2 full painting tutorials with me. So like this painting start to finish, you get 2 of those per month. You get a technique video where I walk you through more detailed, like, how-tos on how to do stuff. And then sometimes we have our special guests each month. So this month we had my friend Cindy. She's a glass artist, and she came in and taught us a tutorial on glass. Next month we have a door hanger with my friend Tamara. And then a lot of the times they're live technique videos with me where I'm just showing you guys more detailed ways to get those techniques down that may, you know, be bothering you, or maybe you're just not sure how to do something. The group is very, very interactive, so I take a lot of questions that you guys have or concerns that you have, and then I'll base that on what I make our technique video on. So you guys do get feedback inside the group of like what it is exactly you're struggling with or what it is that you want to learn or want me to teach in the upcoming months. Flora, yes, these are all acrylic paints. These are just acrylic craft paints, so you can get them anywhere, but that's what I use for all my paintings. They're very affordable, and I like the way that they dry. I like all the colors. That you have to choose from. So that's why I work with the craft paints. I used to paint oils a long time ago, but now we're just focusing on acrylic. So I've got kind of my two shapes of my pumpkins filled in here. And again, just that basic shape, filling in your color. So then I want to come in with a round brush Hey Mandy! And I'm gonna pick up a little bit of brown and I'm gonna do these quick outlines around the pumpkins. And these don't have to be super solid. I'm not worried about them looking perfect or anything. This is just going to give us a quick little bit of definition around our edges here. It's okay if it mixes with some of your paint. I actually want it to a little bit. I want to pull some of that brown in there. And then you can do your stems a couple different ways. You can just fill it in with some brown here, or if you wanted to try something a little bit different, you could— hey, Jean Ann— you could grab a palette knife and just scrape it on. I really like this look, especially for this style of painting that I'm working on because we've got palette knife background, so it just gives it a cool texture there. So we've got our outlines on there. Dee, yes, her question was, is it okay to sell the paintings that you make from my online classes? Yes, it is, and in fact Becky, one of the, one of my members in my group right now, she had painted with me a handful of times locally and then joined the online group, and since joining the group has sold 7 of her paintings already. So it's a really cool story because this was part of her retirement plan. Hey, Sarah! This was part of her retirement plan, and she was hoping by the time she got to retirement age that she would be able to make some extra money selling her work. And she kept sharing her artwork of what she was making on Facebook, and an old high school friend saw it and he wanted to buy them. And she messaged me and she's like, what do I do? He wants to buy my painting. And I said, sell it, make another one. So, and then since then, it's just kind of kept going for her. So you can most definitely sell what you create from the class. They're your pieces. They're my ideas. Everyone's is going to be a little different. But you know, that's, that's the great thing about this. I want this to be an opportunity for you guys to grow as artists and get to that point where you feel comfortable— I'm knocking my paint down— selling your art to people. So I mean, that's fantastic. So I'm just going right here. I've outlined the edges and see how I am just basically kind of repeating that curve. I've got another curved line here. Another curved line here, and then I'm going to come in and do the same thing. And the great thing about when you're painting pumpkins, like for example, I don't like that curve so much. I want it to go out a little bit further. No, I don't like that either. So this is what I'm going to show you. This is what's great about pumpkins, because all these colors are inside our pumpkins. If you put the line on there, not where you want it, I'm just going to go back and blend this back in because we're going to have a variety of oranges and different colors in here. So I didn't quite like the way that curved, but all my, all my curves are coming back to this same point where the stem is. Hi, Miss Nancy. Hey, Judy. Hey Janice! See if I'm missing anybody here. So we'll do it about— yeah, I like this better. So sometimes just tweaking your angles just a little bit. I always recommend stepping back from your paintings while you're doing it because it helps you kind kind of get a better grasp on things. And I'm not going to leave them this bold. You can have that stark difference. I'm going to do a little bit more blending on those instead of leaving them like that. I'm going to come over here and do the same thing. So kind of like a little basketball at the beginning, and then we go in and add all the, all the fun shades. And everything in there. So yeah, that is, um, that is just one story from our group. And then Sarah is on here, and Sarah, I was going to talk about you too. Um, and I believe both Sarah and Nancy, I think, are joining me tonight. We're doing a live broadcast tonight where I am interviewing some of my current members so they can tell you guys their stories. And what they've loved about being in the membership so far. But Sarah had only painted one time before joining the group, and after she joined, she just jumped right in. And, you know, she said when she painted with me the first time, she wanted to start with something super easy, so she started with a snowman. And she kept always seeing these other paintings that I did locally, but she never signed up for them because she thought they were going to be too hard. And then once she joined the online group, she realized— and, you know, after you see them broken down step by step, she realized that they really weren't as difficult as what she thought. Sometimes things look harder than they actually are. And now she has learned so much, and again, never painted before, and has done so many awesome paintings and Sarah, you're one of the best cheerleaders in our group, always cheering people on and supportive and giving comments and feedback on everybody's paintings. So it's just so cool to see these women who have never picked up a paintbrush before and what they're capable of after just a couple tutorials and techniques. So they're going to get to share some more of those stories with you guys. This evening too. And Nancy said, of course, once you sell one, you are an artist. Hey Becky, glad you like them. We're painting them in October in our group. Nancy, I am using a couple different ones. I will have to look those up and get back to you on that. When we do it in the group, I'll have our color, color list down, but this is going to be one of our October paintings. So you guys are kind of getting a little bit of a sneak peek sneak peek at it. But I just wanted to show you how simple it is to start getting your pumpkins going. And you can add— I want to add a little bit of orange maybe to this one. And you could even add— I love the pumpkins that have kind of like that— well, my color is called sage green, so some of them have that pretty Oops, that's the teal. I didn't mean to do that. Have some of that pretty green in there too. So you could really make these whatever you want. So that's just some real quick easy tips on how you can do that. Maybe add some green in a couple spots in here. I love doing pumpkins, and I love teaching them. So what we'll do— after we've kind of gotten a couple coats of orange on there, you can come back with some highlights of white and kind of throw that in. I know it's a good green. I love that sage green. So a couple of— I wanted to answer some questions for you guys today too. So I was kind of going back over some questions I've had on different posts and different live videos or maybe being private messaged. So I thought I'll talk about some of those today because they might be some of the same questions that you guys have regarding the group. So a lot of people are worried that maybe that you won't have enough time to fit this in, and I think that is, for most of my members, is one of the things they love most about it. Because you are able to do it whenever, 24/7. You have access to all the videos, everything we've already done before, but you can pause them if you only have 20 minutes and you just want to relax for 20 minutes and work on a part of a painting. You can do that, and then you can just pause it and come right back to it. You can just— like, I have obviously like a setup, but let's say you don't really have your own space like your own little artistic space. A lot of the members just get— some of them have just cut down even like a plastic tablecloth. They have their little easel, or they paint flat and just sit at the kitchen table, or, you know, kitchen counter, wherever. And you don't need a ton of space. You just need a place where you can watch my tutorial. That can be on your phone or your iPad, and just a little space for you to create. And then we use these storage tubs. Mine's kind of a mess right now, but these are super handy. I don't think I have my favorite one in here, but there is one you can get at, um, Michaels, and it's kind of, um, it's a two-layer plastic container, and I use it for when I do my craft nights. It's awesome because you could put all your paints in the bottom, you could put your brushes on top, so you just have one little art box to make it super easy and super mobile. Carla said, are you able to cancel at any time? Yes, you sure are. So there is zero commitment. You're not locked in for a certain number of months. It's a monthly membership, $47 a month, or you can do $470 for the entire year. But if you do the monthly subscription, you can cancel at any time. The way that works is if you do cancel, you would not— if you changed your mind and you wanted to come back in, you would not be able to rejoin until we open the group again, which at this point is going to not be until spring of 2019. So again, you can cancel at any time, but it's not one of those you can do a month, take a month off, do a month, take a month off. So it's kind of like a subscription. So let me see if there's any other questions here. Thank you, Sarah. I love this kind of background, kind of rough around the edges. So hopefully that answered some of your questions. Another concern I have is if maybe you've never painted before and you don't know where to start, I make this as simple as possible for you. So the second you sign up, you get an email. It's got your whole supply list there. It's got links to get them if you want to order online, or you can just take that list to Michaels or Hobby Lobby and take it to the store with you and get everything that you need. You don't You don't have to have all my colors that I use at the beginning. You just want some base colors, some of my favorite colors, which most of you have gotten that favorite color list. If you didn't, you'll get it when you join. But you can just kind of pick and choose of— you'll get to look at the paintings and pick which ones you want to start with. And each— under each painting, it will have a color list for you specifically of what I used for that. So I make it very simple if you've never painted before. You don't have to have any experience, just like Sarah, she was able to jump in and she's just rocking it out with her paintings right now. Let's see what else. And you guys feel free to jump on and ask me questions. I'm just trying to go off of what some have, some have asked me before. Tish said, when you paint on pallet boards, is it better to keep them rough or would sanding them a little be Okay, you can sand them a little if you want to. Um, I— my husband builds them and I take them straight from him cutting them with a saw straight to paint on them. I like the rough look of them, but that's just my preference. So you can do it either way that you want to. Another concern that, you know, some people have are maybe you're just worried you can't like maybe this sounds really fun and you want to do it, but you've got all these thoughts in your head telling yourself that you're not creative, you're not an artist, you don't know what you're doing. None of that matters at all. If you have self-doubt, if you're worried that— or if it may be you're self-critical, you're not even worried about somebody else's criticism, but you're just hard on yourself— I would really encourage you If you're going to take up painting on your own, man, it makes a world of difference to have a community surrounding you when you do that, because almost everyone feels that way about their art. And a lot of my members feel that way when they post their stuff, and then they have the rest of our community commenting and telling them how great it is and their favorite parts of the painting, and it just, it just boosts your, your morale, it boosts your confidence, it gives you the courage to maybe try something new that you haven't done before in your next painting. Hey, Deborah! Yes, Nancy, I did this with— I did a base coat of paint and then I scraped over with some palette knife. But it's so awesome to have that community. So if you're worried about that, that's where the Inner Tribe is, just this amazing group of people that are just gonna cheer you on while you're learning, and it's a place where you can say that you're struggling with something and people will jump on there and give you advice. So it's, it's really, it's really helpful in that way. Lisa said that's exactly why she joined. That's awesome. And those of us who are already in the group, we were talking about it when I met with some of the ladies a few weeks ago, and obviously we're here to learn about art and for me to teach you guys new techniques and new paintings and all that fun stuff, but it's so much about the community too, and that's one of their favorite parts of it is the friendships. Like Nancy and Jessie and Becky and all these women who didn't know each other before they started this online group, and now they do, and and a lot of them are local and they can go to the paint classes together. They can talk and it's just a really cool thing to see all these friendships come together too, and it makes it so much more fun when you're doing it with someone instead of by yourself. So hold on, I got to read Nancy's comment real quick. Yeah, that's true, Nancy. She's just talking about how you can kind of compare it to analogy to the ingredients in a cake, and it's the same with painting— everything layer by layer. So hopefully that answers some of your questions. Let me know if you have any more. Even if you're not watching this live, you can post your questions below and I will come back and answer them later on. You can send me a personal message on Facebook if there's, you know, something you want to ask me. You can do that as well. Let's see what else. If you are someone who's already done some painting and you have some experience in it, but maybe you are wanting to learn a little bit more, each painting that I teach— so this is one of our fall ones. This is one of our favorite ones in the group. This is one of our sunflower ones. But what I love about this and what some of the ladies will tell you from the group is Sometimes you don't necessarily love the subject matter of maybe what it is I'm teaching, but you know, they watch the videos anyways and decide whether they're going to want to paint it, or maybe they just jump in and do it anyways. In each painting, regardless of the subject matter, I'm teaching you a new technique. And then we have specific technique weeks where I'm really digging in deep and showing you up close how to do stuff. So even if you have some experience in painting, there's something for everyone in the group because you're always learning something new. I'm still learning something new all the time. And, you know, a few months ago I didn't even use a palette knife and gel medium, and now it's one of my favorite things to do with my paintings. So you're always growing as an artist. There's always something else that you can learn. So it's, it's just awesome to be able to take all those different little pieces from all the different paintings that you do, and you just, you know, carry that knowledge, build on that knowledge, and then you can carry it into your next paintings. Yes, Lynn, that is one of the ones in the group. So again, you guys will get immediate access to all of these. So when you log in to the website, Lynn, you can go back up at the top and you can go by month and So it goes all the way from April until now, and each month has 2 paintings per month in it. This is another one. So we've got the Tuscan Landscape, and I did this on a smaller, smaller canvas. We've got the Fall Creek here behind you. I just taught that one the week before last. We have Monet's Garden. I don't have them all in here, but so all of these are included in the group and you get them when you sign up, which is awesome for the value. I was telling them, you need to— when you— I was reading hers— you need to— when you paint with me locally, my classes are anywhere from $40 to $50 per person, and the price of our membership is $47 a month, and you're getting 2 full paintings, technique video, live Q&A, which is you get to pick my brain a whole hour with me every single month where I answer any questions that you guys have, and then you get the inner tribe. So the value on this and what you're learning for $47 a month is just phenomenal, and you're gonna love it and you're gonna get so much out of it. So yes, Lynn, go to the website today. You should have gotten login information. You just log in there, it'll have a welcome video from me, and then you'll have full access to that library of all the past paintings. I did do a post that had all the paintings in one little square that I've done so far, but let me grab just a couple more because I have them in here. So this was Another really popular one in the group. This is our hydrangeas in a mason jar. We have some cherry blossoms. So again, each, each different painting that you do, you're learning a different technique, you're learning a different style. Sometimes we, sometimes we paint with palette knives, sometimes we use brushes. So, hey Nikki, it's just different every time and that's what makes it fun. So let's see. Lisa's question. Lisa, as far as canvases, you don't need anything fancy. You can— my recommendation, go to Hobby Lobby. They now have value packs, and you can get, I think it's 5 16x20s for $9.99, so $2 a canvas. It's such a good deal. If you want to do 11x14s, which is what I do for my kids' paint ones and these the smaller ones that I've shown you, you get 7 of those for $9.99. So you do not need to spend a lot of money on canvases. These are what I use, just basic ones, nothing, um, you know, no premier level. Um, so it'll just, you know, you can pick out whatever you want. And as far as size, you can pick out whatever you want. You don't ever have to— if I did it on 11 by 14, doesn't mean you have to do it on an 11 by 14. So you can, um, You can, uh, you can pick whatever you want. Sorry, my brain is like trying to read and answer questions at the same time. Thank you, Rhonda. Yes, Nancy, we're getting into— that brings up a good point. We're getting into the seasonal stuff. So the, the last one of this month is our FolkArt tree, which I'm gonna do a fall version of it, kind of like a Halloween version. So we'll be doing that in the online group this month. We did Fall Creek earlier. Next month we're doing some really cute Halloween cats. It's one of my favorite paintings. They're just adorable and they have a little witch hat on, and we're doing this pumpkin painting. And then in November, we'll just be transitioning and we're gonna, I think, maybe do— I'm trying to remember. I think we're doing one more fall painting at the beginning of November, and then we're switching over to Christmas. And you guys are gonna get all the Christmas videos at the beginning of December. So I am going to pre-record those at the end of November, have them ready for you at the beginning of December so that you can enjoy them all month long. So you can do your Christmas paintings whenever you want to, and you don't have to wait for the every other week training. So that gives you an idea of what's coming up for the rest of the year. Excuse me. But yeah, we're super excited. So I'm just gonna recap really quick kind of what we talked about today. Hopefully you learned a little bit about how to do the pumpkins and just basic shape, kind of like a heart top. Now, I didn't have the bottoms on mine, so mine went off the edge of the canvas. If you did, it would just kind of just be a round, round bottom edge, and then working in those lines, and then you can come back and add your accents. In between from there. We shared a little bit— actually, you got two stories today about Sarah and Becky, because Becky has already sold 7 pieces of her artwork since joining the group, and Sarah, who has never painted before, is just pumping them out and loving it and growing so much, and I'm so proud of her. So it's just awesome, awesome to see that. And then just any, any questions you guys have for me, keep them in the comments below. I went through a few of them for you, but we'll just kind of recap on everything that's included, and then I will post the link below as soon as I get off here if you haven't already seen it, the link to sign up. So it's $47 a month or $470 for the year. You get 2 full paintings per month, 1 technique video, 1 live Q&A in our group, and you get our private Facebook community. In addition to that, what is new this time than when my previous members joined is that now we have a brand new website too. So you have two places you can watch the videos. You can watch them in our Facebook group, and we have a units tab, and I have all that explained in there. Or you can watch them in our new website, and they're categorized by month, and then each month has two paintings, and you can go back to that library You have full access to the library. So a lot of people have asked that, like, how long do we have access to them? Can we watch them whenever we want to? As long as you are a member, you have access to all the paintings whenever you want to. They don't go away, so they stay in the group and you can go back and forth to them whenever you want. So that's it. So I hope you guys have a good rest of the afternoon. I will be back on later this evening, so if you want to jump back on with us, we'll be back on with some interviews and some stories of some of our members that are in the group right now. So I will see you guys later. Bye.