acrylic painting techniques

Mountain, Acrylic Exploration #3

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Mountain, sold.

Here it is with tomorrow’s exploration. Both these paintings have edges that are kind of raw. If you look closely you can see they’re white with a lot of drips across them.

Mountain is fully cured, so I tested out an acrylic brush-on varnish on it. It’s nice, and I like that it’s not aerosol, but I can see why people say it’s harder to use. Still, it gave the painting a nice satin sheen and some depth.

This painting has some texture I really like – some crackling and some drips. Click the photo of it to see it up close, and see if you like those textures, too.

Earth, acrylic exploration #2

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Earth 1, acrylic on canvas, 12×16″, $100 (plus shipping), available. First person to email, text or call gets this painting.

If you missed the last post, there will be 10 “exploration” paintings at this price, and then I’ll reassess.

In January when I embarked on this acrylic adventure I pulled up NASA photos of Earth – Thank you NASA for making those available and copyright appropriate for this! – and wanted to try to replicate the beautiful subtle currents that I was seeing on Earth. I used a lot of paint and canvas, and completely failed. But last weekend I finally managed to get close to that texture, and it was pretty exciting. I’m still not there, but feel like I’m starting to understand how to get there…

On a technical note, in order to get the textures I ended up thinning my paint with water. With this painting, in order to make sure the paint doesn’t lift or flake, I tested out spraying on an acrylic medium, and then brushing it out. No flaking! That was a little nerve-wracking, and I’m trying to experiment with other thinning agents.

Seeing Through, abstract acrylic techniques combined with landscape layout

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I wanted to push the techniques I’ve been discovering farther – and bigger. I’m not sure if it comes through in a photo, but there’s a layering depth that I am loving.

This is my first real painting (rather than a technique test or study) in this medium. I’d love your feedback.

Seeing Through, 20×16″, acrylic on canvas.

You Hold Me Together, abstract painting #6 of 2017

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I am continuing to experiment with acrylic painting techniques. I tried contrasting thick opaque paint with an underwash. And more significantly, the thick solid paint is contrasted with marbled crazy paint. It looks very organic to me, like a microscopic picture of something. But what? Click to Bid

Chasing My Tail, abstract painting #5 for 2017

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A giant dragon flying through the air, then flipping to catch it’s own tail… Or maybe a sunset… It’s both.

I’m working through ideas about lines, and line quality. In art school I was kind of obsessed with varying my lines, especially when drawing the figure. With this painting I tried to make the edges interesting with small zig-zaging edges, and longer smooth edges… There’s also quite a difference in surface depth between the background colors and the pool of green above.

Click to Bid