Wellfleet Shapes- 12x16
above is what I'm using for reference for this painting. it was a plein air study from last year on the cape.
today I started playing with an acrylic underpainting with cape cod underpainting colors, to speed up the painting process. I don't really like having to wait for two days to start putting down the topcoat so I'm using an acrylic underpainting like Dan Nelson uses. I was painting the sides of my gallery wrapped canvases with acrylic all week, and liked it because it dried so fast, so I thought this might speed things up in the studio, production-wise. whats nice is I will go back in in a few minutes and darken and and/or add rich color on top of this without having to wait till tomorrow. one thing I see I need to darken is the tree to the left behind the buildings. right now its to light in value and too red (warm), Its the value of white in shadow like the buildings to the left. NOT good! Good thing is i'll be able to fix that and it'll be dry in minutes and I'll be able to paint green on it tonite with oil.
I love slapping the acrylic around with huge, crappy brushes. it keeps the painting loose and I'm not "rendering" it but thinking this shape with this value and this temperature.
I use to paint acrylic underpaintings a few years back, but it dried too fast outside, so I abandoned it. now the question is will I underpaint one way big in the studio and another way small, plein air?
Hmmmmmm....
after much reading then and now I think the key is to paint the acrylic super thin, so its not shiny. then the oil can adhere to it fine.
2 comments:
Mike - I just watched a video warning about watering down your acrylic ground too much b/c it will not adhere to the canvas and will flake off years from now. Just wondering if you're using gloss medium to thin your ground? or airbrush medium?
Also - I would LOVE to take a lesson with you! I live in Winston Salem and LOVE Topsail! Or should I sign up for Art of the Carolinas? I've been painting for a couple of years and have only taken one class (still life - Sawtooth Center here in WS).
Mike, I recently found your beautiful paintings on the internet when I was looking up " broken light and broken color". We will be visiting our kids who live in Surf City in mid - Sept I would love to see your paintings in person and was wondering if you have a gallery in Topsail Look forward to hearing from you. Thanks, Linda Jackson.
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