Goldfinch - first attempt at acrylic painting

[Ocelot II]

I've decided I don't like acrylics - it incorporates the worst drawbacks of both oil paint and water colors. Gonna try this one again in oil.

[spooky3]

1. Very pretty! Nt

[Ocelot II]

7. Thanks!

[Docreed2003]

2. I think it's stunning

I absolutely love it

[Ocelot II]

6. Thanks!

[BigmanPigman]

3. I've always hated working with acrylics.

They dry too fast and you can't be flexible with a deadline of them drying before your work is satisfactory. All my friends in art school hated them too. We only used them when required to by our teachers (which was almost never required since the teachers knew too). They only really used them for Color classes to make color wheels, etc.

[Ocelot II]

8. I think I'll go back to oils.

The way the acrylic paint goes on just doesn't work with the way I paint - except for the drying time, that painting would have gone a lot faster and with less frustration if I'd used oils.

[BigmanPigman]

9. I like using glazes mixed with oil paints

on a medium toned background. You get a lot of control and the layers give it a special "glowing" quality to it. I had homework to use this technique so I copied a Vermeer and the Mona Lisa and they were very, very similar to the originals since the technique is so wonderful.

Usually I draw/render and use brush and ink for fashion illustrations.

https://leprince.com/blogs/about-art/a-guide-to-glazing-in-oil-painting-techniques-history-and-challenges#:~:text=Other%20Renaissance%20masters%2C%20such%20as,highly%20realistic%20and%20detailed%20works.

[Ocelot II]

10. The glowing quality of oil glazing was kind of invented by Van Eyck,

and in 600 years nobody's ever been able to do it better. For a painting class I did a fake Caravaggio detail, starting with a verdacchio underpainting and doing the glazing thing. I didn't approach the original but it was a really useful exercise.

[BigmanPigman]

11. I looked at Van Eyck and just couldn't figure out how

he made the details in his work so clear when I took Art History. Then when my Techniques class came a year later it all made sense. Caravaggio is a personal favorite of mine...fabulous light and dark.

[Ocelot II]

12. It's all those transparent layers. Holbein is another artist

whose amazingly detailed paintings blow me away. Saw one up close once and I still don't know quite how he did it.

[bif]

4. Nicely done!

I love acrylics. I enjoy the fact that they dry quickly since I'm rather impatient. You can use mediums to slow down the drying times.

[Ocelot II]

5. Quick drying is just one of the things I don't like.

The paint dries before you can mix your colors so you end up with unusable dried-up blobs. If you get it on yourself or your clothes and it dries you can't get it off, ever. It's opaque but not quite opaque enough unless you slather it on thickly, and at the same time you can't do a proper glaze by watering it down to some level of transparency because it still dries too fast and won't go on smoothly, which is why it also sucks as a substitute for water color. If you have a style that uses bright colors and not a lot of picky detail I could see how it might work, but it doesn't work for me.