Acrylic Painting Progress

I have been working on a number of different things so completing projects is slow.  Today, I was able to spend some time on the acrylic painting I've been working on for my class which is good because the last two classes were postponed due to our instructor being at an art show of her work in the States for a couple of weeks.

I worked on the water a bit and spent more time on the rock in the foreground. I find rocks difficult because I see so many different colours in the them. There is a bit of sky reflection on them but for the most part they are quite dark.

I also finally blocked in the foreground trees to help me determine the proper values for the trees and the rock. I think I will have to glaze the background trees with a bit of blue to push them into the background and differentiate them from the foreground trees. This will give the piece more depth. The openings in between the trees will also be filled in with branches. I painted the sky in there first so it will peak between the branches to also give depth.  I'm happy with the progress so far.

Love Day Inspiration

Yesterday was Valentine's Day and I have this tradition of not only giving my husband some extra love on that day but also my kids and grand-kids. They usually get a handmade Valentine card and this year was no exception. I try to create something different each year and so I began a few weeks ago in order to complete them on time.

I wanted to use paint in some way so I made card sandwiches with felt in the middle and white cotton on the top and a backing fabric on the bottom. I painted the white cotton pink and let it dry while I drew up some doodles to stitch onto each card.

After I finished stitching, I added different colours of paint which brought out the stitching patterns. Once that dried I took out my embroidery floss and did some hand stitching to enhance some of the patterns. Finally I added beads and buttons to finish them off. I had sore fingers and wrist for a few days while working on these due to the thickness that I had to get the needle through. It's all good now though.

Progress in my Acrylic Painting Class

I've had 5 classes in Acrylic Painting and I am enjoying it. Having painted so long by myself in my studio, I tend to think I've managed well but I have been picking up some helpful tips in this class and it shows me that no matter how much you know or how much experience you have, you can always learn something new.

My painting is progressing well. I work on it once in between classes as well. I begin a painting by drawing the design on the canvas with watercolour pencil. Then I block in the colours of the scene. On this painting I started with the water and the sky because as I told you before I had painted the canvas black. So I started with the lightest areas. Once I had the sky & water blocked in and some detail added I painted the background trees on the far shore. Next I blocked in the rock. The foreground trees I will do last.

I've given the background trees some dimension and tweaked the sky and water. The water still needs more work with the reflections. I added some sky openings in the foreground trees and darkened the rocks a bit. At this point the foreground trees are still just the black of the canvas. It is starting to take shape and I'm happy with its progress so far.

Playing with Paint

Since I have no major projects on the go at the moment, I thought I'd take some time to experiment with paint on fabric. I find this easier to work with compared to dyeing fabric because I'm familiar with how paint works and not so much with dyes. I can also control the paint easier than the dyes.

When I use watercolour on paper I use plastic wrap spread over the wet paint to get an interesting background with random shapes in it. Once the plastic wrap is on, I let the paint dry and once dry, I pull the plastic off and love the effects I get. I wondered if I could do the same thing with the acrylic paint on fabric.

I used the same method as with watercolour and layered different colours together and then put plastic wrap over it.

Paint

Paint and plastic wrap

On this closeup you can see the designs the plastic wrap made in the paint.

My experiment did work though not as well as with watercolour. I still like the effect and will do further experiments with more paint. When the paint is dry, I will have to heat set it into the fabric so that it doesn't wash out. What I noticed is that the acrylic doesn't dry quickly with the plastic wrap on top so I ended up taking the plastic off and hanging the fabric to dry further. I'm not sure what I will use the fabric for but I'm sure I'll come up with something.