Golden's Open Acrylics

I've always been an acrylic painter. Oh, I've used everything else, but I always come back to acrylics. But I also can't resist trying out new products so I bought several tubes of the new "Open" acrylics by Goldens. "OPEN" refers to how long chemicals will remain workable before they set up, in this case the paint. A lot of people gripe about the fact that acrylics dry too fast so these are the paints to shut those people up!
These handle much more like oils than they do like acrylics, in fact they handle more like oils than the water based oil paints I've tried in the past.
I paint pretty thin, so this was dry to the touch the following morning, but since I seldom spend more than a couple of hours on these types of quick paintings I was working on wet paint the whole time.I suppose if you were an oil painter that worked really thickly , these would be a godsend since they'd try in days rather than weeks!
Often when I try out new supplies I'm like meh! But I like these and I'm going to play with them for a while.

Return of the Flapper

This post from back in 2006 was getting a lot of spam for some reason, so I deleted it and since I still like her, I thought I'd repost her;)

Charcoal is your friend

I've been playing around with charcoal lately, I'd never really used it much before. I'm using fat sticks so I can't get too tight with the details. I actually made the sticks in the fireplace after seeing a demo online...I'm always up for making stuff! Drawing with charcoal on cheap newsprint paper is fun and fast and messy and it's also closer to painting that drawing with a pencil point. These are all under 5 minute sketches.

Superhero watercolor girls

I know that I haven't been posting regularly, but that doesn't mean that I haven't been churning things out....just not much time for acrylic paintings recently. Here are a bunch of watercolor pieces I did recently though. I wanted to keep the colors as simple flat tones and avoid getting into rendering things too much. All 9x12 ink and watercolor on watercolor pad paper.

watercolor head

Still playing around with watercolor heads...

Moleskine sketches are better than nothing!

It's been a while since I posted here so I thought I should throw up something. The truth is that I am making some kind of art all day, everyday, I just don't do personal paintings on a regular basis. I do however carry my moleskine pocket sketchbook and do quickie sketches like these often enough to fill up a couple of books a year. Here's a random bunch in no particular order or reason;)

Eskimo kiss

I like polar bears and I like girls so that's really all there is to this one. While Philip Pullman's The Golden Compass is possibly my all time favorite fantasy series this has nothing to do with that. Yeah,I've done a bunch of sketches in my sketchbook over the years for Lyra and Yorick paintings but have yet to actually take the time to do one...someday!
I guess this is the second in my series of "nose touching" paintings...the first being that duck/horse one ;)

Big hair girl!

Lot's of hair this time. Since most of my favorite painters are very bold and brushy, I'm trying to be a bit braver with brushstrokes etc. I have a tendency to srub and try to blend things out rather than just putting down a stroke and leaving it alone. I was definitely keeping that in my head on this one.
This was done on a sheet of canvas stock that I was told was made for color copiers, it's an actual sheet of canvas not just some paper with an embossed weave pattern stamped into it....I like it!

Tiger hat girl!

It's been a while but here's a new girl. I've been working on a lot of very technical drawing stuff lately so the other night when I got home I was definitely in need of some "real art" therapy. Yeah, I needed that ;)

Cafe haunting and sketching

Whenever I don't have paintings to show, I like to fall back on the good ol' Moleskine sketchbook drawings. I do a lot of these while I'm grabbing a snack at cafes/airports etc. I used to go to a local figure drawing session but kind of fell out of the habit and so these 'people' drawings fill that need of drawing folks from life. Drawn directly in ink with a Japanese brush pen marker in the small Moleskine plain paper book (not the moleskine "sketchbook").

Watercolor pen

It's been a while since I've posted but I just haven't had the time to devote to my quickie paintings lately. Since I do art all day long and often do commission stuff after that, there are just so many hours in the day!
But I did do these little watercolors recently. I know that there is definitely no shortage of cool drawing and painting supplies out there, but I had the idea to rig up a foam tipped watercolor brush-thingie using a plastic tube and some foam rubber. I wanted something that you could just draw with like a fat watercolor marker and what do you know...it actually works! These were done in a few minutes each...super fast, super fun!

Flapper girl on canvas paper

I haven't been doing any acrylic pieces lately, but I just glanced across the studio and realized that this one has been sitting on the easel for about a month now and I never posted it, so here you go. I did this one using just a few colors, on a piece of "canvas paper" from a Canson pad. I mounted it onto a piece of board so it would be solid while I was working on it. Canvas pads and canvas board get a bad rap but I think that they are a nice texture to paint on with acrylics.

More gray girls...

Even when I'm not posting I've usually got some stuff in the works. Here are some more of the gray gouache studies I've been playing around with lately.

more gray girsl

Gouache time lapse

I took some in progress pics of one of the little heads. I'm using gouache but in a very watercolory way, no white, just diluted shades of black paint. I work from light to dark in typical watercolor style. Alex Ross works the opposite way, establishing the blacks first then adding shades of grey. Maybe I'll give that a try once I get a better feel for things.
With acrylics and oils I jump in with much less of a drawing at the beginning and work from dark to light so this technique uses a whole 'nother side of my brain ;)

Girlie gouache heads

Here's my latest preoccupation, playing around with black and white gouache (opaque watercolor). These are all done on 8.5x11 Strathmore bristol board.

A girl

These days rather than painting in my sketchbook, I use small pieces of masonite or canvas board. One of the perks is that I can put them around the room and see them rather than just flipping past them in my sketchbook. This is probably one of the reasons why I like painting contented faces too, the last thing I need is a bunch of unhappy folks staring at me in the studio!
I primed a bunch of these masonite boards a while back using a roller which makes a slight texture on the surface which can be good and bad.

BUY THIS BOOK!

Just got my copy of the new book on J.C. Leyendecker. I have to say that it almost made me cry, it's that good. I admire people who can do things well but his ability was just staggering. Every painting was beautifully crafted...no duds ever.
This is the kind of book that I dream about...in depth, beautifully designed, and FULL COLOR on one of my all time favorite artists. With the exception of several pages of thumbnail magazine covers, almost all of the art is reproduced full page from the actual paintings, NOT the printed magazine covers. If you ever thought his work was impressive before, to see the paintings in vibrant color is awe inspiring. Go order it now, I'll wait.

Floppy hat girl

Now that's a big hat! This is another small (4x6) oil attempt. To simplify things I went back to my four color palette (yellow ochre,red,white and black) for this one. I figger that since I don't know what I'm doing with oils, the last thing I need to worry about is juggling a lot of colors. Since Batz Maru is my role model, I added him on the shirt for luck.

Fish!

Yeah I know, before you even ask...I have no idea ;)
I was painting the figure and he just looked very serious and I thought I'd change up the mood, so when all else fails, I add fish.
This one is acrylic on masonite about 4"x6".
It's interesting switching between oils and acrylics since the painting process is different for each. I like the way you can work the oil paint even after it's been down for a while , but I also like the way the acrylics hold the brush strokes.