Acrylics Anonymous, Issue #058 -- It's a Bird, It's a Plane, It's a...........Plane

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Acrylics Anonymous, Issue #058 -- It's a Bird, It's a Plane, It's a...........Plane
February 01, 2017

Passionate about painting with acrylics? Need a monthly fix chock full of inspiration? Need some help to take the pain out of your painting process? It's all here for you. Acrylics Anonymous. Zero elitism. Dive in.

If you enjoy Acrylics Anonymous, and you know someone who might also enjoy it, you can share by forwarding it to your friends!

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Every month, we will produce a Subscribers Only "sealed section". It could be a painting technique, a short video tip, or anything we can think of that we reckon you might enjoy.

Please let us know what you think, we love your feedback! To leave comments, contact us here.

Planes. Not the flying ones.

This month enjoy this quick clip with some great advice on how to bring more depth and realism to your paintings by creating planes.

Click here to access.

More on planes. When you’re trying to create the illusion of dimension in a painting - look for the planes, then look at the colour shifts within the planes that create the illusion of the plane receding away from you or coming towards you.

Eg. In the ocean, more sky colours reflected in the surface of the water, or in landscapes, adding more blue (or whatever predominant colour the sky is) to objects further away.

The Struggling Artist Is Back!

Dickie shares his struggles with his new studio build and the state of American politics. As you do.

Click here to read more.

Paint Recipe Books - Coming Soon!

Due to an overwhelming response last month with our hand painted Studio Companions, we are in the process of printing a robust, in-studio reference guid, a paint recipe “manual”.

Beachscapes will be the first! Register your interest now to receive 20% off the purchase price when it comes out (we’re hoping the first half of this year, and we’re hoping it will be around AUD$30).

Type "RECIPE BOOK" in the comments section.

Click here to register your interest.

Every month, we choose an Artist from our forum to showcase.

You can even nominate someone if you like. (Or yourself!). To do this, check out the forum and then send us an email! It’s that easy.

This month we’re focussed on artist Bernadette Dann from Perth, Australiaa, with her painting, “Tranquility 1”. Bernadette has done a great job representing this bloom opening up. Good work Bernadette!

I could watch this talented guy's Youtube channel all day long. Illusionist Zach King will mesmerise you with this clever skit :)

Click here to be amazed.

The mpemba effect - we love a bit of science here at Explore HQ - know you will love it too, especially if you currently reside in a hot place (ie, us) and need it to feel colder!!

Click here to have a look.

If you have a link you like, please share it with us! You can contact us to let us know. Thank you!

This is YOUR section, show it off people!

This is the section where you can "get your name in lights!" (well at least out there in the internet world!).

If you have works in progress you would love to show off, or finished pieces you are particularly proud of, we would love to see them!

We especially like to hear about the story behind the creation.

This painting comes from one of our Lennox Arts Collective members, the talented and colourful Christine Read!

From Chris:

Painting a still life can be a tricky process - it needs to be interesting and engaging, but the subject matter is static. Sometimes it goes really well and in an hour or two you have created a masterpiece. At other times you have slaved away for days or weeks and the result is less than satisfactory…

This happens to me all the time. Sometimes I will rework a piece completely - painting over it and starting again almost from scratch - you paint over an acrylic painting with acrylic or oil paint, but you cannot paint over oil paint with acrylic.

There are times that I really like part of a painting but it just doesn’t ‘work’. I will usually sit and look at it for a while and contemplate the problem and then take steps to correct it.

This process happened with an acrylic painting I did as a demonstration for a workshop I conducted entitled ‘Fruit and Flowers’.

It started with a selection of fruit and I arrived at image no 1 (below), which really looked a bit odd on reflection with the fruit just sitting on a ledge, so I thought I would add in a platter - a large brass tray which sits in my studio - picture no 2 below.

There was still too much empty space in the upper part of the painting, so a vine with an interesting leaf shape and curly tendrils were added - picture no 3 (below).

Then it seemed like the uncut rockmelon in the background looked too much like an Emu’s egg, so I trotted down the road to buy some grapes and added them in in charcoal before underpainting them in picture 4.

The next steps were to work on the grapes to give them a sense of ‘fruitfulness’ - I wanted them to look luscious and edible, so added in highlights with some bright red (naphthol crimson) as well as bright titanium white where the light struck the fruit and shading with dioxazine purple on the brass tray. Pictures 5 and 6 below.

Finally I decided that another leaf and piece of vine was necessary to bring the viewer’s ‘eye’ back around and into the main subject matter, the fruit. I then added some more highlights onto the brass tray and decided to leave well alone!

I run regular workshops at Lennox Arts Collective and my work is on display at the gallery (2/72 Ballina St Lennox Head NSW 2478). Please have a look at my website too www.christinereadart.com

Many thanks Christine for sharing your journey with this painting. So good for us to see the process of how a painting can be transformed :)

Hope you enjoyed this issue of Acrylics Anonymous!

If you have any suggestions, comments or feedback for the ezine or our site, please don't hesitate to contact us.

Until next time, make sure you chuck some paint around!

Cheers from Frankie & Mark :)

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