More Fun with Acrylics, Another Question

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Florida Cattle Ranch II
12x16 inches
acrylic on panel

I finally finished this painting last night and I'm so glad it worked out. This was another one of those ghastly acrylic paintings I'm always talking about. It went through about 5 session over the last 6 weeks. I would work on it for awhile and look at it and say. "This is a disaster. I'll never make anything out of this." Then I would sit it aside for a week and then go back through the same process. It was only the next to the last session that turned it into something. I kept it on my easel for about two weeks to think about what to do and then last night, I went after it with deliberation and courage. It took about an hour and a half to finish the last session.

Acrylics aren't for sissies!! That's why it is amazing to me that men landscape painters are so negative about them. They are sooo much harder to do well than oils. There is no comparison in the level of difficulty. Notice the key word here is WELL. I see all kinds of acrylics around that look like amateur hour, including many of mine, but to see a really good acrylic landscape painting is more rare.

Lots of people tell me that I do very good acrylic skies so I thought I would share some of my method with those of you who are beginners. Everyone else will already know this. Since I'm always a beginner, I am slow to learn.

For a regular Florida sky, I start by putting the shadows where I want them to be in the clouds around the painting. I will often use a cad orange with FUB and white, using a FUB bias. This makes a nice shadow and you can darken or lighten as you choose. In the bottom part of the sky, I will use a thalo mixed with white and a little tweak with Naples for that hazy look. In the upper part of the sky, I will use a tiny bit of the thalo with Fub bias and white to get the upper sky. Keeping in mind that the area around the sun will be bleached out more than the area away from the sun, which will be a richer deeper blue. At the same time, I will leave areas of white over the shadow areas of the sky so as to fill in the puffy whites of the tops of the clouds. In the highlighted ares of the clouds, I like to use a bit of Cad orange in the white to warm it up. You can also use a bit of Naples or Cad red light, but I like the play of subtle compliments in using the orange.


Pay attention to the direction of the sun light and be consistent with shadows and highlights. Also, the time of day will determine how warm or cool the light has to be on the clouds. The late afternoon cloud will be much warmer. You can experiment with lots of blues like Cobalt,Cerulean and Manganese, but I like a simple palette and the two blues work fine in acrylics. I use a lot of manganese in my oil paintings.

So now I have basically placed all the parts and pieces of the sky in the painting and it is time to use some different brushes and be more subtle with value shifts and color. When I get to the stage where I like it but it still looks flat and hard edged, I will use my fingers to soften up values and edges in cloud formations. Then there is the issue of different blues in different parts of the sky and I want to even that out a bit and make it more subtle. Now I get the glazing medium out and mix very thin mixes of color glazes to scrub them over the under painting to get those nice transitions and shifts of color and soften the edge work so that it looks very much like oils.

I had a question from two people this week about the Birch panels asking if they are worth the cost?

For me they are. I have never liked canvas particularly, though I love linen. I really prefer the hard surface of the wood to either. Masonite is fine but there is a lot of brush mark unless you sand them down after gessoing. The birch panels gesso very evenly and leave a beautiful mat surface which takes the paint very nicely. The surface is beautiful for both oils and acrylics. I limit my sizes for the Birch panels to 12x16 and larger because I don't want to spend that much for small paintings. The panels I get are made locally by a master cabinet maker. He makes studio furniture for me too when I need it. It takes weeks to get them so I order huge numbers. They are finely cut and finished as smooth as glass. He even routers the edge a bit so it is not sharp. What I suggest is that you find a local cabinet maker to do them for you and avoid the shipping charges. To me the are a cut above anything commercial I have ever used and I'm completely spoiled now. I still use Masonite for the Color Fields.



Color Field #16

This painting was done of my next door neighbor's yard this afternoon. Henry and I walk past this tree every day and admire the view. I was too tired to go anywhere to paint, so we stayed home and painted.


Today's Recipe

Mixed Vegetable Casserole

1 large bag mixed vegetables
8 oz shredded cheddar cheese
1 can cream of mushroom soup, undiluted 1/2 diced onion
1/2 C sour Cream
1 package Ritz crackers crushed mixed with enough melted butter to coat crackers

Mix up everything but the buttered crackers. Put it in a greased dish and top with crackers. Bake at 350 for 30 minutes. Yummy!!