Here are a couple of questions from acrylic painters who struggle with color: “I get so frustrated when color mixing and it doesn’t turn out what’s in my mind’s eye. How am I ever going to get it right without wasting paint?” “Is there an existing resource somewhere for how to mix specific paint colors?” “How do I know what color’s work best with each other?” Can you relate? I sometimes have these same issues even after painting for years and years. Here are some tips that have helped me: COLOR MIXING KNOW-HOW: If you want a great resources for helping you mix the color you want, here is a wonderful book: Color Mixing Recipes for Oil & Acrylic: Mixing recipes...
After finishing a painting, the next step is usually photographing it. You may want to share your new work on social media, make prints or even apply for art shows, so it’s important to capture your work accurately. Here are some tips to taking great photos of your art. It’s okay to use your phone camera to photograph your work because today’s phones have come a long way. It’s best to photograph your art in natural light. My favorite spot is placing it on the concrete slab under my carport where there is no direct sunlight. The light is perfectly soft and subtle there. Another option is to place it on a wall near a window and with the...
Flowers and more flowers! That has been my subject for as long as I can remember but my medium and style has changed over time. For many years, I loved painting in watercolor because of the easy flow of the paint and the effects of layering color. The transparency of each layer was like looking through stained glass. For me, this is so beautiful. Within the last five years, I’ve switched to acrylics and found they can be just as transparent when you use professional quality brands, like Golden. I didn’t realize that acrylic paint came in many variations of transparencies. If you look at a tube of artist quality paints, you will see a little square printed on the front. There is a solid box, a...
Thumbnail sketches are quick little drawings that help generate ideas. They are not meant to be perfectly drawn but to simply get the ideas out of your head and onto paper. These sketches should be small, gestural and general. During this process, you’re able to relax and focus on composition, deciding what to put in and what to take out. Oftentimes, when I’m trying to come up with a new painting, I will always draw out small compositions in my sketchbook. Each little drawing will have similar elements but parts placed in different areas in the picture plane, trying to create a strong arrangement. Besides using my sketchbook, I’ll also draw on my iPad using the app Procreate. Here...
Five Tips for Acrylic Painters I have always loved watercolors but twenty years ago I switched to acrylics and have learned so much about the medium since then. So, here are five tips about acrylics that I wish I had known from the very beginning. Tip 1: Acrylic paint will dry darker, the opposite of watercolor It took me a long time to figure this one out. I would get the perfect color mixture on the palette and then later the color dried way too dark in the painting. It was frustrating because then I had to add more white on top and then the painting appeared chalky or flat looking. So I took my watercolor technique of...
