43 Glazing and impasto

Here is a video about adding texture with acrylics and glazing the resulting texture.

42 CROSS TRAINING

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IN athletics cross training is used to include a broader range of muscles exercised so the athlete doesn’t develop an imbalanced physique. More importantly athletes cross train to expand the mental approach to their field of expertise. Business leaders have borrowed the concept to learn the entire spectrum of skills needed for their particular business. For example a CEO might spend several weeks on an assembly line learning how a product is made from start to finish. The exercise would give the CEO a broader understanding of the company’s reason for being.

In like manner I switched from oils to acrylics to test my abilities and see if acrylic paint had anything to teach me about the art of thick paint. And I learned quite a bit. The first thing I learned was that many of the prejudices against acrylic are unfounded. Many claim that oils has a richness that acrylics can’t match. However on close examination the lack of richness is from failing to use broken color, something that happens almost accidentally with oils. With acrylics you have to design the broken color. If you mix colors on the canvas you are going to get non-mixed colors, colors with very discrete edges because of the quick drying time of thin applications. These applications will look dead compared to a similar application of oil paint because there will be no intermingling of paint on the canvas. In other words painters were inadvertently assigning weaknesses for the wrong reasons. I found that if you use the techniques described in this blog (specifically entries 3 and 4) it is impossible to tell the visual difference between oil and acrylic. Additionally I found that when I painted wet-into-wet with acrylics I couldn’t tell the difference between the tactile quality of the two mediums, a claim nearly every oil painter makes.

However I could easily see and feel the difference when I applied thin acrylic paint onto a dry canvas. It seemed like the canvas was sucking the paint off my brush and drying instantly in parched, dead patches of color. Each stroke had a brittle edge and the painting began to look like a series of matt, lifeless swipes. There was no intermingling of color and few vibrational effects. So the trick to introducing vibrational color is to have plenty of paint on the palette and use LOTS of intermixed paint on the brush. The thicker the application the slower the drying time and the more you get the vibrational effects so loved in oils.

Ultimately the only difference I was able to see was that I couldn’t scrape the canvas if I applied too much texture. However after I gave my ceramics tool a razor sharp edge I was able to cut away large clumps of dried paint. It worked better than I thought it would. The only caveats are you have to be careful not to cut the canvas and it is a slow process. Golden Acrylics is sending me an additive that will make the paint film brittle like oil paint and it may solve this problem. If so that will mean I will be able to work back into a scraped canvas quickly and nearly indefinitely, building up both rich texture and painting wet-into-wet over previously thick passages. Another odd quality of acrylics is thick applications dry considerably thinner than the wet strokes. The impasto illusion is preserved visually, but it may bother thick paint purists who want those thick impasto strokes to remain exactly as they were applied.

On the positive side acrylics naturally encourage hard edges. And since I naturally use too many soft edges acrylics is a good remedy for that weakness. It also allows for nearly instant glazing possibilities since it dries so quickly. I tend to glaze too heavily in oils but less so with acrylics so again it is a good remedy for that deficiency.

The experiment is ongoing and I want to paint at least one more large acrylic painting. I doubt I will abandoned oils in favor of acrylics. But meanwhile acrylic has taught me a great deal about my own weaknesses. More importantly it has brought into sharp relief why I love thick paint and allowed me to see more clearly the problems and challenges of that technique. As mentioned in earlier entries, if you can’t see a problem you can’t fix it.

Brad Teare © 2010

41 My favorite red

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TWO months ago I posted a survey at the bottom of the blog posing the question what is your favorite red? The list included permanent red (1% voting for it), quinacridone red (3%), alizarin crimson (34%), Indian red (2%), transparent earth red (5%), burnt sienna (20%), cadmium red light (17%), cadmium red deep (16%), and brown pink (2%). The reason I posed this question was that although I have a favorite blue (thalo blue), a favorite yellow (transparent earth yellow), as well as many others, I have yet to find a red that really thrills me like other colors of the spectrum.

So my lack of passion for red remains somewhat of a mystery. Some painters refer to red as the great moderator, meaning it needs to be felt in nearly every color as a unifying presence. For the time being, I suppose I will settle for reds that are useful. Among these I count quinacridone red, transparent earth red, and cadmium red light.

Some of my favorite painters use a limited palette so once, for six-months, I tried using a palette of ultramarine blue, alizarin crimson permanent, and cadmium yellow light. But with such a palette I found my paintings lacked complexity otherwise attainable by using additional hues. For me I found using a limited palette to be restrictive, and worse, it wasn't any fun.

On my monthly visits to my local art store I love to linger over the paint display finally settling on a strange color. I find adding an exotic color or two boosts my creativity. I have discovered quite a few colors this way that ended up in my pantheon of must-have colors. Occasionally I pick colors in relation to other colors. For example I love andanthrone blue because it's the perfect companion color to thalo blue. I also love dioxazine purple because it compliments transparent earth yellow so well. Transparent earth yellow is also a fantastic color because it is so dark out of the tube which gives a broader range of value.

I prefer some colors because of their tinting strength and purity of tone. Transparent earth red fits into that category as I find it stronger and cleaner than burnt sienna. Some colors are great because they make such wonderful grays. One such color is cadmium red light which mixes well with blues to make amazing grays.

Other colors are luxuries like transparent orange which although it is a hue( meaning it is a mixture of more basic colors) it is a beautiful one and difficult to mix. It is a great substitute for Indian yellow which I find has a slight gray undertone. I have no problem using hues if it saves time and generates the kind of creative enthusiasm I need to feel in the studio. Another hue I love is sap green as well as titanium buff and radiant yellow, two colors with lots of titanium white.

Although I feel I have settled in to a selection of colors I feel comfortable with and can easily predict color mixtures, I see no need to restrict my palette if in doing so I limit my potential. In the final analysis I just love color too much to do without such beautiful possibilities.


Click on the above image, View from Mountain Green, 16" x 20", oil on canvas, to see the texture.

Brad Teare © 2010

40 Edges

This video explains the importance of edges. Edges direct the eye through the composition as well as other critical purposes.

39 The art of compostion

Do you have trouble applying the various theories of composition? Take a look at this video to help clarify what it is all about.

38 Paint is paint

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I'VE been intrigued with the idea that paint is paint and the only thing that distinguishes oils from acrylics is the medium. They have different drying times, true, but with oils drying time can be adjusted by additives such as cobalt dryer. I paint rapidly, wet into wet, so I felt that switching to acrylics wouldn't be that difficult.

I stretched a 36" x 36" canvas and gessoed it. I then drew a grid with lines every 6 inches. I transferred my drawing and begin glazing in my underpainting. I painted for about six hours carefully glazing and scumbling until I achieved the needed effect, a very thin but accurate rendition of my reference. I didn't worry about surface texture or virtuoso brushstrokes. I worried only about painting values and hues.

I then wet my canvas by spraying on a thin layer of water from an atomizer. I then mixed up a series of values and hues carefully using my nine value grayscale to carefully match value. I mixed my colors with my left hand and swiped my brush across my palette knife to load my brush with broken color. I then very quickly applied the paint into small, discrete areas. This breaking up the painting into small areas was the major difference from painting in oils. With my initial layer I did occasionally notice a border between the different areas. But on the second application of paint these borders were eradicated and I could see no transitions.

I was surprised at how similar painting with acrylics is to painting with oils. I may continue in acrylics for awhile to see what the medium has to teach me. It should be an interesting journey.


(Click on the image of the painting above, Water and Rock, 36" x36", acrylic on canvas, to view texture).

Brad Teare © 2010