My First Decade of Painting - 10 Years in Review
I started painting while in my second year of college during a Color & Composition class. We had an assignment where we had to create multiple pieces with each one being done in a different medium.
Gamvar Varnish and Acrylic Paintings
After I wrote a recent post about Varnishing Oil Paintings with Gamblin Gamvar, I received some questions regarding how to varnish acrylic paintings. I don't really work with acrylics anymore but I do have some acrylic paintings laying around from a few years ago. So, I decided to experiment with a small painting - my first still life painted from life. On Gamblin's site it states that Gamvar can be used on oil and acrylic paintings and that Gamvar can be easily removed with Gamsol in the future when needed.
Transitioning from Acrylics to Oils
My transition from acrylics to oils was at times frustrating and a bit awkward but in the end it was a natural transition that was necessary for the way I paint and for taking my art to the next level.
Still Life Painting Experiment with Light Temperature
I painted the same still life 5 times with different lighting and canvas sizes. I probably could've painted this with more drastic changes, such as moving the light source to the right, etc.. but I felt these subtleties would be more interesting and consistent.
My First Time Trying OPEN Acrylics
Slow-drying acrylic paints. I have been using Golden paints for a few years now and have found them to be of exceptional quality. The Open Acrylics are a bit expensive, but luckily I purchased mine from the UC Davis University Store where most of their paints and supplies are 30% cheaper than other stores - so, for 4 tubes of paint it was around $34. They will last me quite a while though so it is worth it.
30 Day Painting Challenge - How It Helped Me Improve
I decided to take on a challenge of painting 1 small painting (6" x 8" canvas board) every day for 30 days with a time limit of one hour. Not only was it a physical challenge to create these paintings, but it was also quite a mental challenge to do this much work in such a tight schedule.