1/16/06

Installment#8: My First Acrylic

PLEASE!

No, I have not fallen over a cliff, although almost! Was ill during time of my lapse in posting, and did spend some time in the hospital. However, am feeling fine and fit now, so . . . no more excuses!

While I have never been a fan of acrylics one thing turning my decision toward giving them a try was seeing wonderful luminous work pouring from an artist friend of mine on a regular basis. I was stunned! His were not flat and lifeless as I had always seen from Acrylic paintings. His even possessing depth and luminosity, possible only when the most transparent of pigments have been employed.

I began to get excited.

One of my early frustrations with acrylic once I made the decision to try was the difficulty in figuring out how to fade and to blend. In other words, I had been led to believe acrylics could be used much as watercolor. After some trial and error (and a fair amount of hair pulling) it all worked out as I had hoped. When I began to think of Acrylic as a heavier bodied watercolor it helped.

The truth is it took me several tries to get the portion of rug lit by sunlight looking natural, i.e. more faded in color where sun was hitting the fiber. Had to cover that area with gesso not once, but twice, and completely start over!! Each start-over took at least three coats of gesso to cover-up the color beneath. However. . . the nice thing about acrylics is that I could!


Although it is more obvious on one side than the other, and hard to see in a small image, there is definition between Dalmatian's head and the dark background. Hope this close-up helps somewhat.

Would you believe that except for the Titanium Buff used in the rug, which is obvious, all other shades were produced exclusively with mixes of Ultramarine Blue & Burnt Sienna, both of which are transparent. Four color palette: U.Blue, B.Sienna, T.Buff, & Ivory Black. A touch gesso was used for toning a small amount of black into grey, plus white of the paper. However, there are at least six to seven totally different shade mixes of U.Blue & B.Sienna.

This artist further discovered that, for me, it was the final medium glaze which actually made the colors so rich, giving the painting more depth than I could ever have hoped.

I am excited a-new!!!!