He loves me, he loves me not...

 Happy  

6" x 8"  acrylic on panel  - SOLD

I find it difficult to get back into the routine in the studio after a bit of a break.  Christmas disrupts schedules, but in a good way, all that food disrupts my waistline in a bad way, but it is all under control now.  The gym, a Fitbit to keep me motivated and painting underway gets 2016 off to a good start.

I've returned to the studio schedule this week and am playing around with some acrylics using a palette knife.  Even the heavy body acrylics are not thick enough for me, being so used to working with oils, so I add Liquitex  LiquithickThickening Gel to give them some bulk. This is a transparent, gel additive which dries to a matte finish.  It is mixed in small quantities with acrylics to achieve the inpasto texture that oil paints provide, making it suitable for palette knife work.

I have a love/hate relationship with acrylics.  I love that they dry fast.  I hate that they dry fast. I don't like the slight change in colour on drying, so have to remember to bump up the value or I get a paled version when the piece dries.  Fortunately, its easy to paint over, but when you've created that perfect colour/stroke, its frustrating to have to re-do a section. For palette knife work, similar effects can be achieved as with oils, but a bit more planning is required due to the nature of the beast.

I think I'll work on a tutorial on using acrylics with a palette knife for my January video demo.  I'm going to produce a video demo once a month on a drawing or painting technique, so this will be the first of twelve.  I'll go into the process in more depth and work step by step through a small painting using acrylics with a knife and medium.

You can watch previous videos on my YouTube Channel.  If you subscribe, you'll be notified when a new tutorial is posted.  This tutorial is on sharpening a pencil.  You thought you knew how?  Maybe, maybe not.  This is how we were instructed on sharpening a pencil when learning to draw and mechanical sharpeners were banned from the studios.