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Acrylic & Ink

14″ X  2″

For information contact me at this link. I’ve been reading one of Jerry Yarnell’s many books.  He is a TV & DVD teacher who really simplifies acrylic painting to fit into his TV episodes but he has a lot of interesting techniques.  This is a version of one of his images.  It’s done in an opaque style.  Applying the acrylic paint was fairly enjoyable this time and by the second day of working on it I was starting to feel comfortable.  I think of everything I’ve read in the last week the thought that stays with me is not to  think of acrylic as a form of watercolour.  It’s a different medium and requires different thinking.  I realize that when I have tried acrylic in the past I kept looking to match the wonderful blending of colours, wet in wet, that you get with watercolour.  Acrylic isn’t as much fun at least not for me , yet.  Another very interesting thing I’m experiencing is using the same colour theory I’ve worked on in watercolour and transposing it to opaque acrylic.  Colour mixing is a different feel when working with acrylic. This portrait of King Tut’s burial mask is again a sample for the people taking Basic Drawing Skills.  I really enjoy the graphic nature of this portrait with all the details of the head dress framing the face and leading the eye into the subject.  There are a number of changes I made to the reference material in order to make it a better work of art.  I’ve downplayed the value of the entire image around the edges.  This serves to lead the eye right into the picture.  I’ve also changed the value of the reference material to create the greatest contrast (centre of interest) at the eyes.  Again this is done to draw the eye of the viewer to the eyes which are the most important area.  Also in this portrait they aren’t shadows as much as they are reflections since the original is made of gold.  This is noted particularly with the dark bands reflected onto the cheeks.  This image is a suggestion for one way to approach the shading.

Double click the image to see a larger version. I’m working my way through some books on acrylic painting.  I’ve come across an artist William Hook who I was unfamiliar with but  I find his opaque approach to acrylic to be very interesting.  This image is one of his that I just love.  I’m trying to work out how he painted it.  This is just the barest approximation of his painting.  Coming from watercolour which, for me, has the most enjoyable process for applying paint, I’m struggling with the plastic feeling of the acrylic.  But as I step back I can just see some of the potential that this image holds.  I believe that if I just commit to doing it that I’ll be able to reach a level of satisfaction and possibly even fun with opaque acrylic.  I do notice how important the areas of neutral tone are to make the colourful sections really stand out. I’ve decided to take some time to just play, practice and experiment with acrylic. Over the years  I’ve done a number of paintings in acrylic and some very nice ones but I’ve never been master of acrylic technique like I have with watercolour.  In fact it’s often been a love / hate relationship.  Sometimes acrylic is a lot of fun and other times I’m really fighting the paint.  I’ve just taken a whole bunch of books on acrylic out of the library and I’m doing some practices from examples I see in them. One thought that I’ve read in a couple of books is that it’s best not to look at acrylic like watercolour or oil and not to try to mimic your techniques in those media with your technique in acrylic.  In other words learn what acrylic does best for you.  These images are my first studies.  The only rule I was following was to have little or no water on the brush.  So this is paint straight out of the tube with some mixing and some white. Coming from a watercolour background working opaquely like this is still something I’m still getting used to. 

14″ x  4″ This studio version of an earlier post is a painting that came together very quickly.  I like the strength of the blue orange colours.  I was also very pleased with the mountains.  I like the way they definitely stay in the background but they do have a nice feel to them as objects in their own right.

18″ X 24″

For information on this painting contact me at this link. On the way home from our Christmas trip to Kelowna we passed these cottages just south of Sicamous.  I loved the orange trees against the winter landscape.  It’s also another chance to do reflections in watercolour which is where the medium is at it’s best.  I like the casualness of this piece.

12″ x  8″

For information about this or any other painting contact me. An idea I heard at the Stephen Quiller workshop I took 2 summers ago was, ‘make the painting about what it’s about’.  To me, this meant, identify the main idea of the painting and emphasize that.  A few days ago I posted an image, Cascade.  When I lived with that image I came to realize that the main idea was the interplay of the colourful tree and the more muted background.  A lot of the original image, particularly the left side of the painting wasn’t really adding anything to the painting.  This cropped version of that image is, I feel, much stronger.



