Waves on the Beach: Acrylic Painting on Canvas
I am using an 8''x10'' medium texture Fredrix canvas pad. I really recommend these, unless you can get the actual canvas. The pads only come in medium texture, I would prefer the fine but I wanted something I can practice on that is also archival. All of Fredrix products are archival. I also used Liquitex Basics and Professional hard body acrylic paints. Those are the only paints I have tried, they are pretty affordable and are also archival.
So, I would say it's a good set up. It's scary to use the better stuff for just practice, but, I think it's worse to create something wonderful with products that won't last, than it is to create something bad with products that are archival. You can always paint completely over anything you don't like.
Also, I almost gave up on acrylics when I was using super cheap products. Good acrylic paint isn't that expensive, and you don't need every color. Matter of fact, you shouldn't have too many to start, it's confusing. There are quality inexpensive products out there. Cheaper paints and canvas don't apply the same. Extremely cheaply made canvas doesn't hold paint very well, and cheap paint is also more translucent and flakes off. The extra couple bucks for better products is worth it as to not to get discouraged from painting.
Here's my palette for this. It's a home made wet palette. I know a lot of people can work just fine by putting paint on paper plates, tin foil, or store bought palettes. I can't, and don't want to. With this wet palette my paints don't dry out. Whatever paint I put down stays wet for hours without the lid, and even more with the lid on, so I don't have to worry about remixing certain colors, or have to wonder what colors I used. I could make a post about what I used for this because you can buy a wet palette for convenience but they are easy to make!
Aaaaand the final painting. There was so much I wanted to do to fix things, to make it better. There were a lot of parts of the wave I worked, and covered, worked, and covered, and when I go back and look at some pictures of things I painted over I realized they didn't look too bad! It's hard to really see what works or not sometimes until you see it with fresh eyes.
There's SO many things I want to draw, paint, color, and everything is still a learning experience for me, so hopefully soon I can try for another wave. This is not a wave I have seen in person unfortunately, I used a reference courtesy of Pixabay, which is one of my most favorite royalty free image resources. I find a lot of good references here.
I'm always open for critiques for anything. I can see some issues now but if you have any suggestions feel free to offer them up. Thanks for looking 😁
Very nice! I like seeing your progression!
Thank you! I like taking progression photos for myself more than anything to get a different perspective of what I'm doing, it has really helped.
I do the same thing with my dog portraits, It helps plus it gives people an idea of what artists do. Nice work.
I haven't tried waves yet. You seem to have a pretty good handle on it. When I'm painting, a landscape for example, I trade between 2 canvasses. I start on one and get to a point where it needs to dry, then start on the other...when I come back to the first I see things I didn't like before but now I see they are working...or vise versa. Kinda how you explained about the previous photos. May want to try it sometime. I have found it very useful. So, what is a wet pallet and how do you make one?
Thanks, I have thought about trying oils thinking that doing a couple paintings at once would be a great idea, my short attention span would really love that too haha. That's a good idea, I will have to try that, at the moment I use a hair dryer to dry the paint because I'm impatient but working on two paintings could be fun.
I might do a post about this because when I first started painting it seemed only a few people talked about what a wet palette is. It's a container such as above, I used an old colored pencil tin. Put a sheet or two of paper towels on the bottom and wet them. After they are wet I'll tip it into the sink just to get the excess water out. Then, on top of that, put wax paper.
I'll tell you what it's been a life saver. I honestly don't think I would have continued painting had I continued just putting paint down on whatever, I'm not a fast painter and I'm cheap, so my paints drying out on me all the time was really discouraging. This is great, and honestly, you could put the paper towel and wax paper on just about anything. The perk of a container such as I have is great for storage. Hope that helps and thanks for checking out my painting : )
You're truly talented. I also enjoyed the read, thank you.
Aw thank you so much and thanks for checking out my painting : )
I really love it ! For me it´s hard to draw with acrylics but you do it amazing.
Thank you so much! I'm still working on it honestly. My first paintings I ever did were not very good, and I gave up on even trying for a long time. It gets easier with more practice and technique and many mistakes lol.
Not everyone can paint like you
Thanks @ifan: ) Actually, I only started painting a couple years ago. I have always drawn things with pencils but then wanted to really learn how to paint. My first many paintings were horrible lol. With practice and watching other people paint I got a lot better and there are still some things I need to learn. Thank you for checking out my painting :)
@renascence hello girl, I'm an artist too but in pencil, it has always caught my attention and paint and when I see works as inspiring as yours, much more, I would like to know what you use so that the painting has more fluency
ahh and congratulations for such a beautiful picture, if you can go through my blog to see my drawings
Thank you so much! : ) Wow, you're very talented. I was the same way, I only drew with pencils and then started colored pencils. My pencil sketches weren't near as nice as yours honestly. I have always wanted to paint but every attempt turned out horrible and fortinutely I found many great tutorials on youtube to give me guidance.
I'm not sure what you mean about fluency, but some good advice is just keep layering. Start with the background first and work your way to forward. Once one layer is dry put down another one. Start with dark colors first and then add the lighter colors. There's also a few ways to blend acrylic paint, blending colors lightly when they're still wet really helps, and then using washes.
A wash is just watered down paint, or, paint mixed with a gloss or matte medium will make it more transparent so that you can add light layers of color. Some painters do their painting in grey scale, with just black and white, and then add the color on top with washes. And of course practice practice, not all my paintings have turned out very nice, it's all still a journey of learning.
Maybe down the road I can do some posts to share the knowledge I have acquired the last couple of years. Thank you so much for looking at my painting I will check your work out more also : )
excellent there you answered my doubts, because what I wanted to know was how you diluted the painting to achieve smoother strokes, and in addition to that you gave me advice that I will take into account, I will be present in your art post! I hope soon to make an art with colored pencils to share it! By the way, could you help me with your vote in my curator contest?
https://steemit.com/spanish/@ricardoarts/concurso-curadores-simon-bolivar
Oh that's great! Yea, and also, I'm still learning how to dilute the paint and work with mediums, that's been a learning process all it's own haha. Yes, I'll have to share some of my colored pencil works, I have some tricks on how to blend those as well.
all the tricks that can be painted and shared will be excellent
Wow @renascence, you were able to add a lot of depth in the wave between picture 2 and 3. I also see that you played with the cap on the crashing wave, and I would have to say that my favorite was in picture 3, before you rounded the cap out. You did a great job of capturing the movement, as well as the ripples and reflections in the foreground. I have often made water a study-- it is so hard to capture accurately! Keep up the awesome work!
Thank you so much! Yes, I mentioned that looking back at my progress photos that I wish I wouldn't have painted over certain things, at the time it doesn't look right, and then I go back and see what I had and think "Oh man, that looked better." Lol but more practice I might be able to spot those things. Thank you for looking at my painting : )
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Lovely color pallet, interesting to see your process. Definitely giving you a follow! I posted a couple new paintings of mine, feel free to tell me what you think! xx
Oh thank you so much! : ) I have seen your art actually when you posted your introduction post, your art is amazing! I also love your hair by the way! I will check out your other stuff too : )
Very nice! Seascapes are so beautiful! Following & Upvoted!
Oh thank you! And thank you for checking out my painting! : )
You're very welcome! :)