I’ve been experimenting with other artist mediums over the past few months as well as the pastel works I’ve done. I love the ability to mix color in wet painting and have found that using a palette knife for most of this work is something I really enjoy. I have played around with the water soluble oil paints, watercolors, as well as these fine acrylics and love them both for different reasons. The acrylics dry so quickly and that is both wonderful (helps me to be finished so I can go about my day) and frustrating if you’re not quite through with an area and need more blendability. I’m also playing with the different mediums and extenders that you can add into the paint directly to make them “open” longer. So much of my learning about these different mediums has been due to a wonderful site and forum for artists called WetCanvas. It’s an amazing resource and gathering place for experienced and new artists to ask questions, learn, give insight into methods and techniques, and share their work. I’ve gotten great feedback and honest help from this site. If you’re a new artist or haven’t tapped the well that is this forum, I would encourage you! The formatting of the site is a bit mid-2000’s but the threads are endless and artists very willing to share and help.
Here is an acrylic gallery canvas I painted one afternoon. Sometimes it’s hard for me to paint rivers and mountains and trees as we are so flat here in the Texas Panhandle. We have the most beautiful skies in the world though and endless fields stretching as far as the eye can see. I love our 360 views! This one I toned orange and I just couldn’t resist letting a bit of that peek through the sky.
Texas Morning – 8×8 acrylic on deep-edged canvas
