Friday, September 26, 2008

Ground Squirrel Demonstration - Part 3

I haven't done very much over the last couple of days, but hopefully enough for you to see the difference between the area where I've added acrylic and the area of pure coloured pencil.
I have added a wash of raw umber over the two darker stripes. Then I've painted fur in a dirty white (I don't clean my brush after adding the raw umber) on the lighter stripe and a mix of raw umber and paynes grey on the darker. The bottom of both stripes is pure CP. I've also added some washes of acrylic to the head.

I add the acrylic to give more depth and more punch, the washes add the depth and the individual strokes the punch. I then repeat using alternate layers of coloured pencil and acrylic until I'm happy with the result.

I have received confirmation that I have been allocated space at the Supreme Cat Show so for the next few weeks I am aiming to paint a few more breeds. I just have to find the cats to photograph now! Amazingly they don't tend to pose for me when I'm walking the dogs.

7 comments:

Teresa said...

Hi Gayle,

Your work is simply stunning. Wow. Do you mind if I ask what kind of acrylic paint you're using ... and what kind of surface you're painting/drawing on? Thank you!

Christine Perry | Graphite Art said...

Thanks so much for sharing your process! I am intrigued by using cp and acrylic together, and was wondering what you mean when you say you do an acrylic wash? Do you thin the paint with water and then apply lightly all over the squirrel? I am a little confused as to how this would work. Would you elaborate on this a little more please? Are you using acrylic paint from the tubes, or bottles? Sorry for the many questions. Thank you again! :-)

Gayle Mason said...

Teresa I use either Chromacolour in bottles, this is a very fluid acrylic which can be used either thick or almost as thin as watercolour, or Liquitex which is a tube paint., I'll post links to both sites in my next post.
I'm painting on Arches hot press watercolour paper, although I use exactly the same method on gessobord by Ampersand.
Christine I'll explain exactly what I mean by a wash plus a little demo in my next post.
Please ask as many questions as you want, I'm happy to explain anything that isn't clear.

Teresa said...

Thank you so much for the helpful information! I've tried using a watercolor wash under CPs and it was okay but I was not crazy over it (not sure I did it "right"). The idea of using an acrylic wash over CP's and then layering more CP's is interesting. Do you favor acrylic over watercolor because of it's waterproof properties? Thanks for taking time to answer questions!

Gayle Mason said...

Teresa, I do prefer acrylic because it doesn't lift when it gets wet with additional layers. Plus I really, really struggle using watercolour.

Teresa said...

I really can't imagine you struggling with anything connected with art! I don't want to labor the point here, but I'm curious as to why acrylics are easier to work with than watercolor? I have almost no acrylic experience so I have no basis on which to compare the two. Thank you.

Gayle Mason said...

The main difference between acrylics and watercolour for me, is that additional layers of acrylic wash do not affect the layer underneath no matter how wet the wash is.