First painting in a long time

Crane's Nest, 20 cm x 20 cm, acrylics on canvas

This has to be my fist painting in about 3 months or maybe longer. Well, okay, I did paint smaller paintings, but mainly into my sketchbook with WC pencils or with gouache, but I did not really paint on a canvas for a very long time.

It’s an acrylic painting and the truth is I cannot handle acrylics anymore. After painting with oil colors for over a year I’ve grown so used to them that it feels awkward to paint with acrylics. They’re so fast drying (and mind you I used the Interactives and the Golden Open which both already have a prolonged open time compared to normal acrylic colors!) and they just don’t blend as well as oil colors do. Seems the only good thing about them for me is that now I don’t have to wait for months until I can varnish them and I also don’t have to worry about finding a space in my rather small studio where I can leave them to dry, as the painting is already dry to the touch now, only three hours later.

I’m determined to switch to oil color from now on. Yet I still have a huge pile of acrylic colors so I’ll try to use them up as soon as possible. Guess I will have to finish a couple more acrylic paintings in the next days.

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Sketch of a dog

Little dog - acrylics 32 cm x 24 cm

I wonder what breed he is as I’m not so familiar with dogs 🙂

Another cityscape

Yes, I’m painting and drawing again. At the moment mostly portraits and other kinds of commissions, so I cannot show you much (my clients refused to being shown all over the world wide web ^^), except for maybe this little piece here:

"Cityscape IV" - acrylics on canvas

I tried working with Acrylic Interactives here. Some people say that painting with these is just like painting with oils, but I think that’s a strange comparison. Anyway, I like being able to re-wet an acrylic color even some hours later, so they are definitely win for me. Such a pity that they are so hard to get here, but at least I have spotted an online shop where I can get Golden Opens :).

Two more orchids

Oh my, I haven’t posted much the last two months. Excuses for that.

Even worse: I have not drawn or painted one single stroke the last couple of weeks. I seriously need to get back to it.

Yesterday I stumbled upon an old acrylic painting. It was my very first attempt to paint in transparent layers. I wasn’t that happy with the result, but it was something different. Actually I liked the grisaille. Perhaps I should have left it in greyscale and not try to achieve a colorful image :).

Here is the WIP, step by step.

PS: The backgroundcolor is a dark green (not black), these pics were taken with my old camera which wasn’t as good in capturing subtle shades of color.

Waiting for the boat

… to be painted.

"Where's the boat?", acrylics on canvas, 60 cm x 30 cm

I did this little painting for the monthly acrylic challenge. Actually there should have been a nice tugboat in the middle of this river, but somehow I do have some trouble painting it. My first attempt failed terribly and I had a hard time restoring the image back to how it looked before I tried changing it.

Well, this painting clearly needs something – no matter what – in the foreground. It cannot be left that way. However, since I don’t want to ruin it in the end, I’ll try to go for something rather small first. Perhaps a little boat or something like that?

( – End of art content here. Beginning of weird dolly content beneath the more tag. Beware! – )