It Was Tough Duty - But Someone Had To Do It

Just got back from vacation and as the title shows, it was tough duty, but somebody just had to do it. As you can see from these 2 last blogs, the food and beach were regimens that just had to be done. I mainly kicked back and absorbed the sights, sounds and smells, but also used my handy camera to capture scenes that I would like to paint. Probably the most "work" I did was in trying to keep up with my gesture drawing. It was fun to just relax. I will try to post some scenes later (either painted or photos).

In the meantime, I had started a painting with my new supplies from Jerry's Artarama that I had ordered. I had gotten some new acrylic medium that I wanted to try out, along with Ampersand's "The artist PANEL" primed smooth. As usual, it was an experiment. I had to stop and go on vacation (sigh) and now I am at that stage of "What do I do next?"

So here is the latest and, no I don't think that it is quite finished yet.

San Antonio Japanese Garden Bridge

Left Over Paint

Because I had left over paint, I had to try to use as much of it as I could. Saving acrylic paint is not easy (although it can be done). Luckily, acrylic paint can be layered. Because this is an experiment, that is exactly what I am doing, and because this is an experiment, if it doesn't work out, it's not a problem.

Still working on it

Glad this is an experiment. The comments below will clarify why.

What NOT To Do When Painting With Acrylic

Unless you want to create a dress with polka-dots on it, do not, I repeat, DO NOT answer the phone while painting with acrylic, especially if you have any Thalo Blue paint on your brush. Why? Because, if you are a watercolorist, you will instinctively grab a tissue to dab up the excess paint and with every dab you will create terrific little dots - like you would want only on a polka-dot dress, and not in the sky of a landscape painting.

So, now I am back to square one with this painting and seriously thinking about the merits of the trash can. All is not lost. The upside of today's work is: I have learned how to add subtle polka-dots to a dress, and I started another painting, which so far, I have not managed to destroy. Now, if necessary, I can ignore the lack of color harmony on the bottom portion of this painting - unless somehow I can figure out how to add fifty zillion birds to the sky.

Other Possibilities:

• There is always Gesso.
• I can buy acrylic medium and use this as the base painting for another experiment!
• I can tear this painting into funny little pieces and use it in a collage.
• I need new wall paper for the bathroom. (not an option - The painting isn't large enough and I would probably have to add pterodactyls to the sky in order to cover the spots.)
• I can paint the sky white and see if that makes things a million times worse.
• I will figure out something.

One last thing, be sure to edit your post before hitting the "post" button. You will almost always find errors.

Worked On The Painting Some More:

Above, I have my original composition.

Above, I tried turning the original composition upside-down.

Just Having Fun

So, what did I do with the leftover acrylic paint last week? I grabbed another piece of watercolor paper, more water, and I played with my paints!

Playing With Leftover Acrylic Paint

No expectations, just having fun figuring out just what my paints will do.

Just Had To Try This In Acrylics

For those of you who have followed my series San Antonio Japanese Garden Waterfall, I have one more painting that I did - this time in acrylics. I have kept this to the same setting in order to get an idea of what I can manage to capture in the different media and what I need to work on in each one. That seemed easier to figure out if I kept all the paintings basically the same. The first was more of a drawing, in Prismacolor markers; the second, watercolor; the third, oils; and the forth, acrylic. It was fun and at times exasperating - especially when I had to remind myself to work with the qualities of the particular medium I was using, rather than battle it and try to make it work like another medium. Someday, I hope to simplify it down to a simple pen and ink drawing. That may be awhile.

So here is the acrylic:

San Antonio Japanese Gardens Waterfall - acrylic