An Guide to Acrylic Paint and some Acrylic Paintings in Progress

Some of the brands I use

As mentioned last time, I'm going to write about the acrylic paint I use and why I favour certain types. 

I often alternate between acrylic and oil paint and for speed I'll start with acrylic to get some ideas and textures onto canvas as the seed of an idea. I actually prefer oil paint, for the sheer physicality of the material, but recently I've used acrylic paint more because I've been able to explore fluidity, layering and the kind of approach I've been using in my ink on rice paper series. The thing I like best about acrylic paint is that it dries really fast so I can keep working on a painting all day. Oil paint can take days to dry before I can continue, depending on how thickly the paint has been applied.

So far I've used five brands. 

I started with Liquitex which is a good paint - I prefer the 'heavy body' because I can use a painting knife with it and also it can be thinned with water or acrylic mediums - and gives good intensity of colour. However, sometimes it can feel a bit 'plastic.' I often use it as a foundation to paint in oils on top of, though I have paintings which use only this brand.

I also use certain earth colours from the Windsor and Newton 'Galeria' range because generally earth colours are fairly permanent and this is a cheaper range. However, the consistency is not the best and I would only recommend it to extend your stock of paint and not for sole use. It mixes nicely with other brands though.

Most recently, I have begun to use a paint I bought in Nicosia (available in the UK too) which is Daler Rowney Cryla heavy body acrylic. It is a professional quality and it has a great intensity of colour, you can use it with a knife and also thinned like watercolour. If you paint with it on watercolour paper, you can keep layering over and over and simply erase inadequate areas with white - I posted a few small works on paper recently which used this acrylic on paper. Here is one which was worked with thick and thin acrylic paint, with erasures as part of the image. Some white areas in the sky section were the result of painting over darks I did not want.

'Night Roads,' acrylic on rough watercolour paper

Two other brands I have tried are the Vallejo  and Sennelier. 

Vallejo so far has been satisfactory though I have only tried one quite transparent colour so I would need to try more colours to get a fair idea. The intensity of colour was good. 

I think perhaps the best acrylic I have tried so far has been the Sennelier range though they are quite expensive. I've always found that with paint you get what you pay for and this range is the nearest to oil paint I have found; non-plastic in feel, and really rich colour-wise. Sennelier brings back memories of Paris last December when during my participation in the Salon des Beaux Arts exhibition (Louvre) I found by chance the Sennelier shop not far from the Louvre! The range of materials in the shop was incredible and I have posted photos in my Paris Louvre post, December 2018.

Another acrylic paint brand I have yet to try but friends constantly recommend is the Golden heavy body acrylic paint. I know artists who only use this and certainly if you have allergies to oil paint and turpentine this would be a good substitute.

Generally, there are 'heavy body' acrylics which are stiffer and more like oil paint and 'flow' acrylics which can be used for watercolour effects.

'Black Road', acrylic on canvas, 60 x 50 cm

So now on to some examples being worked with acrylic. The two canvases I am posting were begun yesterday. 

I began both by painting a wash of colour on to each canvas.  'The Black Road,' had a layer of varied, golden-lime. I wanted to be able to play with calligraphy on top of this, like using the off-white of rice paper with ink drawing on top, while keeping areas of flat space. With much of my work it's a case of putting things down and seeing what happens. I want to explore abstract elements of colour and mark making and pattern yet also allude to my love of moving through landscape.  This one is being considered with the usual doubts and dis-satisfactions because I'm not happy with the area on the right (upper part) and I wanted the flat, yellow-lime to have more texture. Also, one of the things I love about ink on rice paper is the way you can create particular areas of darks and lights and I feel this needs more. My husband, of course, tells me to leave it alone, but most times I follow my instinct. It just seems to need more 'weight' though what that is has yet to be discovered. (Update on this work and the one below is in a post of May 8th 2019.)

'Sun Fan and Sea,' acrylic on canvas, 60 x 50 cm

This second painting was painted over a pale turquoise colour with some variations of soft brown. I like to set a 'trap' for my image, and a visual memory of recently taking off from Cyprus in the dark and seeing just a few ripples of the sea between the clouds was part of the inspiration. At the same time, an image of the sun as a fan kept popping in to my mind! I have no idea how this one will proceed but I'm not happy with the composition because, for me, it is just too predictable, and also the paint does not have the layering and contrast of dark and light that I am seeking. I like to push beyond whatever seductive qualities an early version might have.

It may be in the end that I work both of these with oil paint, or eradicate them quite severely - but in the meantime I will make some small sketches to see if I can work out further elements. Since sorting paintings on to shelving in my studio-in-progress, I have found older work to finish, and work I thought needed finishing but is in fact ok. It takes time for one's vision to truly 'see' the work which is why I don't mind going back to old work, and I never feel that a painting can not be retrieved. Doubt and Revision are an artist's companions.

 I'm also starting some new, vertical 'waterfall' series canvases which will be worked with oil paint once I get in to my studio which is half-way ready. Next time I will write about my favourite oil paints and how this medium influences my painting approach.