I have spent several days practising with Acrylics as a ‘tester/taster’ before I commit to doing the big painting for Helen Scales and her Pint of Science Lecture. The consistency of acrylic is very waxy and some of the paint, in particular Burnt Umber, is very grainy, so does not mix too well. However, I persevered and decided to begin by working light to dark, working a light blue base layer, then a beige layer, leaving some blue, and finally a dark brown layer. This formed the basis on which I built all the rest of the layers in the painting to get a good feel for how the colours mix and match. The paint is a lot more luminescent than I realized, thinking that all the colours were opaque. But when mixed with water it is possible to layer different colours so that their luminescence shows through to form many variations. Finally, I laid down body colour straight from the tube and discovered the reason why Acrylics are so popular: you can make mistakes and just cover them up!! This is a definite No, No, with water colour, and oils can muddy-up if not left to dry before applying further coats of paint. I found the Acrylic paints overall very easy to work with and now realize that I was a bit of a yellow-belly for nothing!! The pictures show the completed artwork and a little film of the tester/taster picture, for your amusement:
1510a First ever Acrylic Painting – completed
1510a: a little animated film to show the build-up of layers for this acrylic painting