I’ve always enjoyed using doodles as a subject, just for fun. This seemed to be a letter R which was not intended. The real background idea was to try mixing acrylic paint and seeing how the colours work together.
My very first attempt at an artistic design painting with acrylics. Interestingly I used different brushes and amounts of water to thin the paint which worked quite well. I also used thicker, nearly neat, mixes to create dots and lines. It is important that you make sure that you try out lots of ideas. Techniques and methods are essential when creating artistic pictures. Painting with acrylics will give you flexibility to overpaint any area, unlike with watercolours. This means that you will improve, as you experiment and gain experience.
The essence of experimenting is very much trial and error. In this early piece trying to create artistic pictures using acrylic paint was more difficult than I expected. I found that getting sharp clean edges was tricky and the density of the paint insufficient.
It was an exploration using inter-twined leaf shapes of differing greens. A focal blue crescent in a yellow orb creates a point of interest. Painted on canvas board 30 x 30cm.
The golden tree foliage and reflections were added at the same time. The overhead leaves and tree branches along with the foreground rocks help create depth of field.
More experimentation with texture and colour for a simple landscape using acrylic paint. Autumn trees across a lake.
I created the blue sky, water area and initial green background areas first. Adding variants using wet in wet technique. Next the darker green background tree and foliage shades along with the shore line.
As with watercolours, by adding small amounts of water to acrylic paints it is possible to get the overlay technique to work. This quick (30 minute) design 15 x 15 cm, used just 4 different colours to create.
The application of initial panels quickly dried to allow paint to be laid over the first one to get a see through effect. inter-connecting lines and blocks of colour link the different areas together.
It’s important when starting to paint and as you become more experienced to try out new and different techniques to expand your painting style.
