Acrylic painting demo – part 2

I had fun doing this one. I used a different technique with lots of layers and lots of medium. I’ll be taking this one along to my demo at The Art Scene and explaining the process. Won’t be demonstrating it though, because the layers each take some time to dry and we only have two hours.

In fact there are not so many layers. It came together sooner than I thought and ‘in the flesh’ it is quite dynamic.

Acrylic painting demo

Later this month I am doing a two hour demo of  Matisse Dry Mediums at The Art Scene in West Ryde.  This landscape came out of my head. I first put the texture on with a number of the dry mediums mixed with Matisse Mat Gel Medium. Then when it was dry I went through the processes that I’ll talk about to finish the painting.

I will be demonstrating the putting on of the mediums, and I’ve also prepared some boards of actual real landscapes and if I get time I will start to paint one of them.  I’ve also done another painting with the Dry Mediums put on in the same way, but I’ve used entirely different processes to paint the picture. I’ll show you soon.

More details here.

Kookaburras at the Easter Show

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I took my new Liquid Pencil set to demonstrate with at the Royal Easter Show, so I had the full range to choose from. I also took a bunch of my own  photos as source material. I decided to do some kookaburras, as I had a few different photos of them. I particularly liked the one with his right side all in shadow, so I did several of him. We were given some new brushes to test, and each of these was done with a different brush.  Two of the brushes were quite large (a 16 and a 24) but they were rounds with a good point so it wasn’t a problem although I was only working at postcard size. All these were done with the rewettable sepia and blue and they’re on watercolour paper – great for lifting out either highlights or mistakes.  The only exception is the one that has bright turquoise on his wings and that is acrylic Matisse Cobalt Teal. Love that colour!

Liquid Pencil leaves

I was inspired by this drawing to try liquid pencil with washes of colour. There are two kinds of liquid pencil -  permanent and rewettable. Because I knew I was going to wash over it, this time I used the permanent. Using the blue, I painted a tonal grisaille from a photo.

The reason I chose the blue is that in my new book,  Moira Huntly’s Sketchbook Secrets there is a great drawing in blue of an umbrella plant with only some of the leaves coloured. For the washes in my drawing I used the three primaries, and mixed greens that were very heavy on the yellow to compensate for the blue already on the page.

It took me a long time and I got bored with it, given that it is only postcard size. I was demonstrating at the Royal Easter Show on Sunday, so I took it along and finished it before I did any other work.

Pyrmont Art Prize – my painting

This is my painting for the Pyrmont Art Prize which is next weekend. I LOVE the Pyrmont Art Prize. It is a one-day show, out in the open with entertainment and it gets better every year. The reason I love it it that it is accessible to everyone. It costs $20 to enter, but for that price you are given a canvas 30cm (12″) square. Everybody paints the same size. There are no entry criteria and no theme. I always so something from my local area which is not so far from Pyrmont. This is last year’s entry (SOLD) , and this (also sold) is another in the same series.

I need more time to paint, but I am always drawing. Sometimes I am also making books and in the winter I am sometimes making collographs and solar plates. The only thing for it is to start another painting immediately. Though this is why drawings have been a bit thin on the ground recently. How do I achieve a balance?

I used Matisse Open Medium for this painting. I trialled it with the previous two paintings but now it is in the shops and available to everyone. It makes the paint handle a little more like oil paint and makes it slower to dry while not losing the impasto quality of the paint. I use it for all my paintings now.

Burro

Mexico City was the place for  December at Virtualpaintout This is on the outskirts of Mexico City. About where blue lines end on Google Maps.This is the link to the original. I think it’s a donkey or a horse – could be a cow.
Here it is on Google Maps
This is a watercolour painting in my sketchbook, using the basic triad from Dory Kanter’s book Art Escapes

I particularly didn’t use pen with this because I wanted to see if I could get the darks with the wishy washy pink and lemon in this particular triad, and you can see I did.