Abstract Adventures: Acrylics
Embracing the Medium
Dear Reader,
This week, I thought I’d share a couple of the most recent acrylics paintings I’ve done. At the time of writing this, I’m on more of a watercolour run, but I’m having fun learning both kinds of painting alongside each other. (Oils would be fun to learn too one day, although I’m not dying to try them.)
The thing about acrylics is that there’s an extra degree of executive functioning required that makes it a bit harder than watercolour for me. It’s messier—you have to worry about stains and getting paint everywhere; you can’t pour the paint down the drain (very grateful that my instructor taught us this because I did not know that before.) It is a very versatile paint, and I love that you can make it create watercolour-like effects and experiment with techniques like drips and pouring. Acrylic inks sound like SO MUCH FUN and I’d love to try them eventually.
Most of the time, the inconvenience is worth it, because it’s such a fun kind of painting! There’s more physical tools to experiment with; you can be a bit “rougher” with the painting; there’s more you can do with texture; and it’s easy to paint over something if you don’t like it!
The painting above is the first one I did on a larger canvas, finally working up the nerve after graduating from the 8 x 8 inch squares I had become comfortable with. Another exciting first was getting to use my tripod canvas easel, which made me feel very artsy and professional.
It took a few tries and paint overs before I had something I sort of liked—this silvery greyish purple background. The most intuitive thing to do seemed to be paint mountains, and I ended up with an abstract landscape.
Another thing I’ve been playing with is finger painting, which is super super fun and makes me feel like a kid, and actually seems to work well with the kind of blending effects I’m trying to achieve. Like with this painting—I’d love to make some more celestial-inspired pieces like this. Partly because I want to do more finger painting. (Wearing gloves makes the clean up much easier.)
It’s a short newsletter this week. My energy has been quite low and the depression that I thought had lifted decided to stay awhile longer, and sometimes making art feels the only thing I have the energy for. But, I did yoga today. I finally took a shower AND washed my hair. I got groceries and will do laundry tomorrow. Maybe put up some more art. It’s nice to have art all around the house, to be able to see all the things I’ve made. It’s a nice small ego boost when self doubt starts to creep in.
Plus, the walls seem less lonely.
Wishing you a week of creative discoveries and cat nose boops,
