5×7, acrylic on prepared hardboard.
Category Archives: Still Life
Wine and Lemons in Acrylic
Never quite satisfied with the tools I have available to me, I decided it was time to venture beyond the limitations of soft pastel and try my hand a painting with actual paint.
I chose acrylics because of the low odor and fast drying times. I had no idea, though just how fast acrylic paints dry. Really, they dry almost too fast for my taste (for those of you who don’t know, think along the lines of 15-30 minutes). I hear that you can buy extenders that will lengthen the drying time, and I am going to have to hunt those down.
This media is, I fear, going to be a bit of a double-edged sword. On the one hand, I can (theoretically) mix up any color I want; on the other hand, having an infinite amount of choice could actually inhibit some creativity. Also, having a severe deficit of color theory knowledge doesn’t help.
All that said, I really enjoyed working with paint, brushes, and canvas board.
Violin
I think this is the first pastel painting that I am actually pretty happy with. There are certainly some things I could do better; but I am fairly satisfied. The image is from the photo reference library at wetcanvas.com.
I started this one a little different from my previous efforts: I did the initial drawing with black pastel and laid in the values, then went over the black & white rendering with an alcohol wash. This did a good job of keeping me focused on laying in the correct values and forced me lose an edge or two.