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Work in Progress - Having a bash at Acrylic painting.
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Message
Posted
Me too Jade, I think of myself has someone who draws things, even when they are in colour. Pen, pencils, coloured pencils, and water colour are my usual mediums...they work well together.
I've another bash at this acrylic. Think I'll call it a day now, it's still pretty duff. I've spent too much time on it. I wasn't expecting instant results with a new medium...I've produced one OK-ish picture and this duffer...so about par for the course.
I started by repainting the woman's face with titanium white to make a new start on it. Very disappointed with it, plentiful examples of my dodgy brushwork. Way, way more to do to it, and that's my problem. I'm not one of those artists who happily spend weeks/months on a single painting. Wish I was. I'm not...too late to change now. I work fairly quickly, even now when age and less nimble hands have slowed me down. For a full painting, if I take much longer then 3 days I start to lose interest. We're all different, that's how I am.
Yesterday I spent several hours on this, packed it in muttering darkly to myself. With some time left I did a pen and coloured pencil sketch. Here it is...
...took about an hour. OK it's only a sketch, but it's in an A4 sketchbook: the same size as this acrylic pic. Spent several hours today on this acrylic, it needs several more. Too much.
I won't abandon acrylic, just approach it differently. My attempt at mono-under-painting the broken doll didn't go well, but well enough to see that it might work better, and quicker, for me. So next time, I'll give that another go with acrylics.
I started by repainting the woman's face with titanium white to make a new start on it. Very disappointed with it, plentiful examples of my dodgy brushwork. Way, way more to do to it, and that's my problem. I'm not one of those artists who happily spend weeks/months on a single painting. Wish I was. I'm not...too late to change now. I work fairly quickly, even now when age and less nimble hands have slowed me down. For a full painting, if I take much longer then 3 days I start to lose interest. We're all different, that's how I am.
Yesterday I spent several hours on this, packed it in muttering darkly to myself. With some time left I did a pen and coloured pencil sketch. Here it is...
...took about an hour. OK it's only a sketch, but it's in an A4 sketchbook: the same size as this acrylic pic. Spent several hours today on this acrylic, it needs several more. Too much.
I won't abandon acrylic, just approach it differently. My attempt at mono-under-painting the broken doll didn't go well, but well enough to see that it might work better, and quicker, for me. So next time, I'll give that another go with acrylics.
Posted
I often think we're our harshest critics' though, Lewis. It's a good painting and interesting too if that makes sense though i'm not a painter ofc and I know you'll know some of the techniques and what has and hasn't worked. I'm the same re working quickly. I have managed to stretch out the time I draw to over a few days, with my Jack Russell for example but I think that's about my limit.
Your sketch is great! Love it 👌 I should try coloured pencils for something like that, i thought it was pens on first glance. You have a real talent for that style. 👏 Do you make the character up or have an inspiration beforehand? I would like to create some more animal characters with little outfits, going about their days but find it hard to do from scratch...
Edited
by Jade S
These are few of my more cartoony ones Lewis but not from my mind... 
Posted
I don't know much about interactive acrylics beyond the fact that I don't like what I've seen of them (not completely true; it's more that I don't see a need for them); I imagine they have mediums, flow improvers etc, which could make the paint more liquid - you could make a comparison here, at a stretch anyway, between watercolour and gouache. If Lew is trying to get similar results to his watercolours, acrylics do need water, or medium - and to be mixed on the palette. I probably wouldn't use them like that, because I like opaque paint; but it would be more in Lew's style.
It's no good Lew, we need to be sitting at your elbow to see how you're doing it - in order to give you any more advice; but we wouldn't want to give you too much, in case you then massively improve and show our work up as second rate (I'm taking a risk here in speaking for others!).
The important and welcome thing here though is that you're not giving up - that's great, and I'm sure you'll find an approach that suits you - it'll just take a bit of time. Normally, your use of transparent colour enables your prior drawing to show through and form the framework of your painting - so if you could do that in acrylic, you'll make progress. I know that age gets in the way ... of course, I'm a mere youth! But we all feel our hands getting wobblier, stiffer, our mark-making more tentative, less free; but that's partly the caution engendered by using a new medium - there will be a point at which you break through and find you know what you're doing: and a great moment it is.... It doesn't matter if the hand wobbles - I'm having carpal tunnel problems at the moment, on top of my (bloody!) arthritic thumb - but acrylic (and oil) is forgiving; you can easily go over the wavering line, use tape to straighten a horizon (an horizon...?), go back and make the blessed thing work...
Have a look at my blog, though I didn't half make a mess of the post, and see how a piece grew into life. https://wightpaint.blogspot.com/search?updated-max=2019-08-28T11:53:00-07:00&max-results=15&start=45&by-date=false
This might not work, it's a very long URL, but if not, just visit wightpaint.blogspotcom, and scroll through the acres of posts that will confront you. You'll see a painting that went from hideous to acceptable.
Posted
Yes John I am using small brushes, I said as much at the beginning of this thread. I know it’s far from ideal, but if I use bigger brushes I’m all over the place. I may have used too much water on the very last glaze on the woman’s face. The doll is a bit better, I did a mono underpainting for that, I can see that might be a better way forward for me. I already do it on some wtercolours.
I’ll have a look at the blog Robert.
Posted
Yes John I am using small brushes, I said as much at the beginning of this thread. I know it’s far from ideal, but if I use bigger brushes I’m all over the place. I may have used too much water on the very last glaze on the woman’s face. The doll is a bit better, I did a mono underpainting for that, I can see that might be a better way forward for me. I already do it on some wtercolours. I’ll have a look at the blog Robert.