#acrylic painting

Today’s painting project. Learning that I can do washes with Acrylic over a dry painting for a transparent look has absolutely been a game-changer for this project.

This was the referenceimage
The process (no images) is under the cut

I use cheap acrylics. So all the paint in this project was less than $6.50.

Colors:

• Apple Barrel Christmas Green($0.54)
• Folk Art Metallic Christmas Green($1.97)
• Apple Barrel Marsh Green($0.54)
• Apple Barrel Black($0.58)
• Apple Barrel White ($2.86) (I always get more white than anything else, I go through the white paint.)

I started with a sketch. the sketch of course looked very little like the reference, but I wanted to try something different. I used Metallic Christmas Green for the bottle and Christmas Green for the ink.

I started by painting the shape of the ink following the contour of the bottle, so I painted it heavy on the edges of the ink, followed the strokes around the bottle, and painted it thin around where the ink curves at the front of the bottle. I left enough space that when I painted the bottle in it would look like it was a solid shape surrounding the ink.

I covered the bottle with the Metallic Christmas green.

Where the ink shows through the bottle I mixed water with the paint to make it a transparent wash.

For the places where the shape of the bottle was important to maintain, I used the brush strokes to follow the contour of the bottle, so I could see where to add my highlights later.

Then I made a wash mixing White paint and the Metallic Christmas Green with water. I used the wash for the shine on the sides of the bottle.

I used a brush that has been solidified with dry paint to put the white paint around the edges. It’s how I got that streak of green showing through the white. I used the same color without the water for highlights.

I mixed the black and metallic Christmas green for the shadows. It looks straight black in the pictures, but the metallic Christmas Green has a shimmer you can see in person (even if it’s mixed into the other colors.)

When the bottle was done I filled in the background with Marsh Green and then mixed a little Christmas Green with the Leftover, Marsh Green to make the shadow of the bottle.

Afterward, I just used straight black to paint the pen. I mixed white and black for a good mid-gray.

Afterward, I painted the Nib. Then, I mixed a little more black for a darker gray. I used that tone for the shadows on the nib and the highlights on the pen barrel.

I added a drop of Christmas green to the pen tip and added a little white highlight to it.
The last thing I did was put a small amount of black under the pen for its shadow and that’s where I called it done.

“Expectations”

Acrylic on canvas 35 x 50cm

HAPPINESS!

acrylic on canvas 40 x 50cm

you should see me in a crown