Medium change to acrylic
Reasons for trying acrylic paintings
1/ After retiring, paying professional framer costs is not always viable. It is much cheaper to buy pre-made canvases from an art supplies wholesaler, than to get watercolours framed.
Exhibitions accept un-framed canvases (provided they are painted on the edges).
2/ It is over 40 years ago that acrylic paints were last tried. The artist is very familiar with the performance attributes of watercolour & ink mediums; experimenting with acrylic paints again has been a steep learning curve, regarding how to go about the processes of working with high-build paint; including trying to keep the mixed colours workable for days.
Particularly skies are very different to do in acrylics: i.e. paint is mostly overlaid, rather than run together while still wet, as is done when using watercolours.
The first 2 acrylic paintings, done in October 2022, are shown below.
They are both 81 x 107 cm.
Portraits
The artist had previously only tried one other portrait as an adult.
These recent attempts were undertaken, again to deliberately get outside of her comfort zone.
Landscapes tend to be more fluid and forgiving; the aim was to try to portray a person’s face which was recognizable by other viewers, as that specific person. The artist was actually quite pleased to have achieved this aim with both portraits below (of family members).
It is understood that the renditions are however fairly traditional; a different means of depiction will be tried next time!
