Acrylic Art lessons 1 and 2, February 2012

The first painting is my first attempt on the first night of the course. An orange towel with two blue-green upturned plastic tumblers and two limes. I got the perspective all wrong, as well as the colour of the towel, which was more apricot than orange. I needed some tuition in blending colours!

I re-did the first painting from memory - instead of painting the towel draped all the way across the table, I just had part of it where the tumblers and fruit sat.  Layout a bit better.

We were told to practice at home with some still life items, then bring them to the next class to paint them again. This is what I did at home with a plastic lemon container, a vase and an origami box, on a piece of pink fabric. The actual vase is pink, but I changed it to brown, because it got lost in the fabric colour.

I took the lemon and the vase to class, but changed the box to a small tin. I wanted to have three different shapes to paint. My first attempt was pale and washed out. The tutor suggested using less medium and more paint to produce more colour. I wandered off and went back to it several times, each time adding some colour. I still don't like this, but at least it now has some depth.

What have I learned so far? The use of Titanium White to lighten other colours, the use of water or medium to dilute colours to a point of transparency like water colour, and using Gesso to coat the paper I am using to improve the surface for use of acrylic paints.
We have also learned a bit about mixing primary colours to make secondary colours, which most of us knew a bit about already, but he then told us that some colours simply cannot be mixed from certain blues, reds and yellows, given the variation between warm and cool tones.