Wednesday, March 17, 2010

Monday night paintings

Three pieces that had their genesis during my Acrylic Underpainting demo on April 27th. Really all I came home with at the time was two pieces of matboard: One had been an example of tinted absorbent grounds, applied with a squeegee so two contrasting colors blended, the second piece was just a soft iridescent reddish-orange background.  The first has now been cut in two, and the second is becoming ever-more sparkly.  The shimmer is really obvious in the last image.
Since then, the pepto-bismol pink half is now the acrylic drawing on the right.  Here's what it looked like a few days ago, as I discovered that Absorbent Ground on a textured matboard is a surprisingly forgiving surface when using a dipping pen:
And last night I held my breath and started putting in some more color.  It is always hard to make that jump, but I remind myself now that it's worth it.  Besides, Absorbent Ground is very forgiving if you're applying thin washes at first.  

This one, the "fairy-tale drapery" piece, is more of a mood piece right now.  Great fun was had with the spray bottle and some blue matte acrylic, but not sure yet what will be in the center.  Thinking of the Arabian Nights, perhaps.  It's always a blast to look back and see how my paintings started, because in the end, this painting will hardly resemble what you see now.
Right behind it, is the tree painting I'm working on (visible in the center of the top photo.)  So far there have been about six layers of varying colors, and heavy usage of masking fluid.

Next up, I post what happened to the purple fish painting.  Yikes, we'll see if it can be saved.

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