Friday, June 12, 2015

Another Acrylic Painting

"Alliums" Acrylic on Canvas Hardboard  
You might be justified in thinking that I really don't hate acrylic paint as much as I say I do but I'm just trying to finish up several paintings I started when first getting the paint and which I left to languish when I got too frustrated with them.  Some paintings have been put away for years!

In this case, I'd wanted to try the texture medium (which is an acrylic medium) and figured acrylic paint would be the most compatible with it.

While acrylic paint isn't my favorite medium to paint with, I have to say that I really like the texture medium and will probably use it under my gouache or oil paintings in future projects.  The medium gives a fun look to a painting but does have some little quirks when working with it.

First of all, it's really hard on your brushes.  I used an old round stencil brush to apply the medium and if I'd thought about it, I probably would have mixed my paint into the medium to save time and other brushes.  But, I kept adjusting colors in this painting so would have had to use regular paint brushes anyway.  I was doing some good thinking though as I used craft brushes from WalMart instead of my good, more expensive ones. 

Secondly, it's hard to get paint down into those valleys in the texture.  Again, mixing a colored texture to begin with would have gone a long way in helping with that.

And thirdly, you have to really plan ahead to use it as when it's dried and set up, it's there for the long term!  I had an area on another painting where it was used that I wanted to change and even intense sanding didn't remove it easily.  I really think you could call this stuff archival without any qualms at all!  It's sure not going anywhere at least!

Even though this is one of those paintings that felt like giving birth during the production of it, I think I like the results.  I hope you do too.



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