I think this is going to be a good move on these longer videos. Shorter clips are nice, but I don’t want to drag these things out forever. There is more to share.
In fact, it’s time for me to make an acrylic demo, and a plein air demo. The studio is nice for doing these in. It’s a little tricky setting up the camera in the best of situations. Outside is still causing me some head scratching, but I’ll get it figured out, promise.
Some notes to mention… No, there is not burnt sienna on the palette in this video demo. Reason is that I wanted to use a more limited Split Primary palette to show how to mix colors from just two of each of the primaries, a warm and a cool version of each. (That’s a demo I will have to do for you soon too. I have some thoughts that I like to share about that). In this case, I should not have used Cobalt Blue. I should have just put out Ultramarine Blue and Manganese Blue so that I had the widest range of blues, using just two. Cobalt and Ultramarine are too close together in color mass.
Here is a link to the SHOWA Atlas work gloves that I use. They have a light weight, knitted nylon body, are coated on the fingers and palms with a Nitrile product designed to prevent chemicals from absorbing into your skin. They’re perfectly comfortable in warm weather, your hands won’t sweat like they do with plastic or rubber gloves, and in cooler weather they do keep you warmer. I can use one pair for months, maybe longer, before I decide to give it up and use a new pair.
GOLDEN Retarder: Slow-Drying Additive for Acrylic Painting
If you’re interested, the link above is to an article that Golden Artist Colors wrote about using their Retarder with acrylic paints. I’ve used it in the past, but have been resistant to using it too much, thinking that it’s sort of like cheating. You know, a badge of honor to fight through the quick drying acrylics alone in the wilderness… a battle weary warrior that fights fast drying pigment, failing at times, but never giving in!!! Well, that’s over. I don’t use a lot of it, but ‘some’ makes a big difference. It does not mean the acrylic paints are going to stay wet like oil paints, but it does mean that they’ll stay wet a little bit longer, making working them easier. Nice thing about this medium, the drier, is that it doesn’t alter the value of the paint since it’s a nearly clear medium to start with. You may see a little darkening, but I don’t really notice it enough for it to worry me. A little trick I read about somewhere is to brush it onto the area of the painting you’re working into first, wipe excess off, then paint into that. Doing this keeps the entire area wet for a bit longer. Also, pre-mixing it into color, especially into your white, takes the mixing while painting out of the way. The article points out that ratios of drier to paint is important to pay attention to. Anyways, I hope you get something from it if you’re working in acrylics.
Until Friday… Marc
Demo 2, Segment 3