![]() ![]() I love that with acrylic paint I can apply layer on layer of color if I’m in the zone on a piece. After 20+ years of not painting much, something in me said I had to paint again, but this time it will be large and not small, abstract and not realistic, acrylic and not watercolor.Īcrylic paint makes the most sense to me, as I am a bit impatient at the thought of waiting for oil paint to dry. Color choice, composition, white space, linear form and a number of other aspects in my current abstract paintings would not instinctively happen if not for my years of focus in advertising design. ![]() I had not painted for many years as I grew my graphic design business so that part of me was put on hold for quite a while. It’s just “in there” and my job as an artist is to bring it forth and share it with art lovers! WHY ACRYLIC AND NOT OIL? I’m quite sure that my capacity to draw from memory when painting realistically translates well to my current abstract style in the ability to visualize artwork before it manifests on the canvas. I often painted scenes and things from memory if I wasn’t using my own photography as reference. My painting style back then, and until about three years ago, was realistic and considered more representational. Even with all materials we got to get dirty with during my studies for a Bachelor of Fine Arts degree, I kept coming back to watercolor as my go-to painterly form of expression. From that point on watercolor was “it” for me. I discovered watercolor painting in high school art class during a semester that allowed us to experiment in watercolor, oil, acrylic, charcoal, colored pencil, pastel, and clay. The speed in which an artist must work with watercolors translates well to working with fast-drying acrylic paints.įor years my medium of choice was watercolor on paper. WATER IN MY BACKGROUND Two older paintings done in watercolor when my style was representational. A painter may mix a gel medium to the paint to thicken and extend the color then add gesso or molding materials to the canvas for added texture and dimension. One last category for the seemly catchall word “medium” is what an artist uses to alter the paints or surface they choose to work with. Take mediums another step further, and we are referring to what surface or support material a painter might choose to paint on such as canvas, board, paper, etc. A sculptor’s medium might be metal, clay, wood, paper, and so on. ![]() Drill down the meaning of the word medium within each of those artistic categories, and a painter’s medium could be oil, acrylic, watercolor, etc. There are painters, sculptors, photographers, printmakers and each of those groups is considered a medium in, and of, itself. In the art world, the broad use of the word “medium” refers to the substance an artist uses to create a piece of artwork. In this post, I’ll talk about mediums I’ve used in my painting, drawing and artistic endeavors and why I’ve settled in happily with my acrylics. It can also take lots of experience in one medium to master that and launch you into the exploration of another. With so many mediums for an artist to choose from it takes time, trial, and error to find the one that feels right. Once I found it there was no going back to some of the other materials that I’ve dabbled with in the past. Acrylic paint on canvas has taken my studio by storm.
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