As I plan for a painting, I often look at other’s works that I admire and see how they approach a particular subject. I’ll search on Pinterest or on Instagram and grab some ideas. For example, a couple of summers ago, I visited a local farm and they had numerous fields of sunflowers. I took lots of pictures because I wanted to paint them. To help me understand how to capture these gorgeous fields of color, I looked on Pinterest and pinned some painted landscapes I liked. I made notes on how the artist showed distance, how they overlapped the flowers, how they used color and composition and so on. I took three of them and made a folder so I could reference them as...
Glazing with acrylics is a technique I use in all my paintings now. I guess it may be leftover from my experience as a watercolor artist. In the three paintings below, I’ve used the glazing technique in the “vases”. They were created with lots of colorful layers between drying sessions to give a richer tone of color and depth. What is “Glazing”? Acrylic glazes are super thin layers of paint that act like colored stained glass over your painting. When you paint with layers of transparent or semi-transparent paint colors, you can still see the color underneath. It is a great way to add depth and dimension to your paintings and bring out the colors or form underneath. As...
Acrylics are wonderful to paint with because of its' versatility, durability, vibrant colors and ease of use. It's a great choice for the novice to the professional painter. I love how they dry quicker and allow for so much layering of colors. I also like how acrylics can be mixed with a lot of different art mediums, like colored pencil, charcoal, paper and so on, creating some spectacular and original works. However, it does have some disadvantages, such as drying too quickly at the worst time. It can be a real pain when you're wanting to blend colors in larger areas of your canvas and find the paint has already set. So, here are some tips below that I've found...
WHAT DO I DO WITH THE BACKGROUND? Have you ever gotten to a point where you just can’t decide on a background? Should you add more details, use one color or two or even create some abstract design back there? Here are some ideas for you when deciding on what to do in your background. KEEP IT SIMPLE Keep the background simple. Do not add too many details in the background, because having too much “stuff” will distract from the focal point. The focal point area should always be the most detailed while the outer edges are softer and more blurred. Your viewer will want to focus on the more detailed part and give the eye a resting spot. COLOR CHOICES Use only...
