I've been working on this painting off and on for about 5 months. A friend gave me a watercolor canvas to try so I thought, "what the heck", give it a shot using fluid acrylics. I won't be using it again. The paint floats on top of the canvas, I much prefer the absorption of paper allowing more detailed work. The canvas worked great for the more fluid background washes. I was able to layer multiple glazes and get that old world feeling for the steps. I saw this fellow in Florence, Italy, several years ago playing in a piazza totally absorbed in his music. It was magical. The photo I used was taken at a much wider angle showing lots of people wandering and sitting behind him. However, I preferred cropping it to create a more intimate moment - a man and his music. Cropping out the top of his head created some interesting negative spaces for a better composition. This is 18" x 24". It was a challenging experience .... think I'll return to using paper now 😉 Will be posting more often now that summer is over. I love winter, I get to hide out in my studio and paint!!
I've spent the better part of last week weeding, mulching and sweating, not getting a whole lot of painting time in. However, on Friday the mulch pile finally disappeared and I was free to return to more fun things - painting! Jack is now complete! I titled it "Fra-GEE-lay", if you look closely there are references to "A Christmas Story" in the newsprint. The inspiration for the title came from my daughter. I was going to call it "Fragile", she being a fan of "A Christmas Story" immediately said "fra-GEE-lay"! That took me in a whole new direction with the newsprint and made it much more fun. Thank you Tara 🙂
To finish the painting I continued glazing with the same colors listed in my previous posts. Creating layers of value and interest. The secret to fluid acrylics is to lay in your details in the early stages, as you add multiple glazes on top to build depth and value, the details remain, moving into the background. The transparent nature of fluid acrylics allows those background details to add more depth to what might otherwise be a blank negative space. The final details added were the white whiskers and the highlights of his eyes. Whites always come last.
I'm finishing up a portrait of a friend's chocolate lab named Hershey, very appropriately named. Will post when completed. After that I'm thinking of veggies at a farm stand for my next full sheet painting. Something different with lots of color .... I do like my color!
This was a fun painting to do, the newsprint wasn't as daunting as I thought it would be. Hope you enjoy it.