Finger-Painting for Fun

One of my playing-about-with-paint experiments this last month has been to try a bit of finger-painting, to see how I got on with a real hands-on experience in getting a proper feel for applying the paint. Here I was just trying to see how the acrylic paint blends and flows under my fingers, and ended up with a curvy colourful swoosh on a piece of practice paper…

And then I tried out a basic A4 landscape on canvas board, also done in acrylics with only my fingers. It worked reasonably well, considering, but I realise that any serious finger-painting is probably best done on much larger canvases, as the only way you can possibly create any level of detail using your fingertips is to have a large enough surface to paint on that your rather clumsy, blunt-instrument finger-marks look delicate and small!

I’m glad I gave it a go, and I may indeed spontaneously use a finger or two on occasion to blend in a bit of paint as and when needed, but I wouldn’t necessarily try to do a full painting again using only my fingers – I found I got cramp quite quickly, but then I do have arthritis in some of my finger joints so perhaps that didn’t help… 🙂

Ragtag Daily Prompt: Colourful

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A-Z Challenge: W is for Watercolour

I love looking at the kind of wildly expressive watercolour paintings that really push the boundaries of the medium, free and loose and with only the merest hint of suggestion at a subject which nevertheless looks immediately recognisable.

Initially I tried to emulate them, keeping my brushwork loose and truly going with the flow, and at times – on occasion – it has definitely worked for me. But all too often I seemed to end up failing miserably, left frustrated with muddy puddles of diluted pigment dripping off a rather soggy page in disgust, which is so disheartening.

As a result my most recent, reined-in watercolour paintings (like this Cajun camp on the bayou) have reverted towards remaining more carefully coloured within the expected lines.

But I’m secretly hoping all this concentrated experimenting and exploring with paint this month will unlock my inner rebel again and I’ll be able to break free once more from my cautious, closed-in creativity…

For this year’s April Blogging through A-Z Challenge I’ve decided to follow the art-inspired theme of me, now in my 60^th year, exploring and experimenting with how to paint using acrylics, gouache and watercolours. After a couple of false starts this is a relatively recent journey I began in earnest a few months ago. So far it’s been an even split between fun and frustration, getting to grips with all these new painting skills, but I’m determined to keep going with it this year and see where it takes me… 🙂

A-Z Challenge: R is for Reference and Realism

One of the many things I’m finding a bit easier now I’ve been painting for a few months is getting the hang of how best to interpret and represent a subject more effectively using a photograph as a reference.

To begin with I think I was trying too hard to put in too much detail far too faithfully, just because it was there on the image, and was failing dismally. But I soon realised that for me taking that kind of perfectionist approach doesn’t help me express myself, it just clogs up my brain and seizes me up.

Even when I’m painting something with an intentional nod to of realism, like with this old abandoned barn on my father-in-law’s property in Louisiana, I still have to remind myself I’m trying to paint a painting, not recreate an exact facsimile of a photograph.

So now instead of fretting about capturing every single detail of a scene I’m learning to concentrate on basic shape and form and line and colour to create a simplified composition that has enough room around it to breathe, and take it from there…

For this year’s April Blogging through A-Z Challenge I’ve decided to follow the art-inspired theme of me, now in my 60^th year, exploring and experimenting with how to paint using acrylics, gouache and watercolours. After a couple of false starts this is a relatively recent journey I began in earnest a few months ago. So far it’s been an even split between fun and frustration, getting to grips with all these new painting skills, but I’m determined to keep going with it this year and see where it takes me… 🙂

A-Z Challenge: N is for Not

‘Not’ is the common name for the type of watercolour paper I use, and apparently it is shorthand for ‘not hot pressed’, in other words cold pressed? I’ve no idea why it’s named that way, but all I can say is it has a nice rough tooth to it, which gives a bit of underlying texture to what would otherwise be a completely smooth painting…

For this year’s April Blogging through A-Z Challenge I’ve decided to follow the art-inspired theme of me, now in my 60^th year, exploring and experimenting with how to paint using acrylics, gouache and watercolours. After a couple of false starts this is a relatively recent journey I began in earnest a few months ago. So far it’s been an even split between fun and frustration, getting to grips with all these new painting skills, but I’m determined to keep going with it this year and see where it takes me… 🙂

A-Z Challenge: L is for Landscape

I really love landscapes in all shapes and sizes, and wherever I am I’m always capturing photographs of the scenery around me so it makes perfect sense that I enjoy painting them, too. Luckily a photographic archive built up over time means I have a ready supply of landscape reference pics to choose from, although for now I tend to find some favourite views feature more than once (probably because they are easier to paint), and sometimes multiple variants even turn up in more than one medium…

For this year’s April Blogging through A-Z Challenge I’ve decided to follow the art-inspired theme of me, now in my 60^th year, exploring and experimenting with how to paint using acrylics, gouache and watercolours. After a couple of false starts this is a relatively recent journey I began in earnest a few months ago. So far it’s been an even split between fun and frustration, getting to grips with all these new painting skills, but I’m determined to keep going with it this year and see where it takes me… 🙂

A-Z Challenge: J is for Journey

It’s maybe a bit of a cliché to talk about a painting journey, but for me that is exactly how it feels. I think about where I’m at now and where I’d like to go with it all, and in my head that requires a clear sense of a creative travelling from one place in the present to another in the future.

I’ve been asking myself – why is it suddenly so important to me to do this now? And I feel emphatically that this current desire to learn once and for all how to express myself effectively in paint is somehow linked to my milestone 60^th birthday coming up at the end of the year.

Since enjoying my art classes at school during my early to mid-teens I’d always felt deep down that someday I would pick up painting as a hobby, and I find myself feeling with some urgency that now is definitely the time to realise that desire, while I still can…

For this year’s April Blogging through A-Z Challenge I’ve decided to follow the art-inspired theme of me, now in my 60^th year, exploring and experimenting with how to paint using acrylics, gouache and watercolours. After a couple of false starts this is a relatively recent journey I began in earnest a few months ago. So far it’s been an even split between fun and frustration, getting to grips with all these new painting skills, but I’m determined to keep going with it this year and see where it takes me… 🙂

A-Z Challenge: G is for Gouache

To me right now, gouache still feels a bit… well… gauche, I suppose… Very like those old powdery poster paints we used to paint with at school, turning out paintings that looked permanently flat and matte and almost chalky-opaque. Yet recently online I’ve seen some truly beautiful paintings done in gouache, so I know it’s definitely possible to create ‘proper’ art with this medium.

I’ve learned that gouache paints are surprisingly versatile, they’re water-based so can be used effectively along with (or instead of) watercolours, dry really quickly but can easily be reactivated and reworked, and can also give good solid-body coverage a bit (but not quite) like acrylics – technically the best of both worlds, what’s not to love so far?

So although on paper I realise it should probably be the perfect medium for me, I’m still struggling a bit with it just now so am really not feeling it too much at the moment. I’ll keep on trying, though, in the hope that given time and experience, gouache grows on me…

For this year’s April Blogging through A-Z Challenge I’ve decided to follow the art-inspired theme of me, now in my 60^th year, exploring and experimenting with how to paint using acrylics, gouache and watercolours. After a couple of false starts this is a relatively recent journey I began in earnest a few months ago. So far it’s been an even split between fun and frustration, getting to grips with all these new painting skills, but I’m determined to keep going with it this year and see where it takes me… 🙂

A-Z Challenge: E is for Ethereal

One of the things I really love about watercolours is the ethereal translucence it can bring to a painting, a tentative delicacy of touch, a nuanced blending of barely-there watery pigments that can look almost luminous in their subtlety.

Even as I photographed this scene in Louisiana last October and noticed the warm autumn light falling so beautifully across the surface of the water, I pictured the view being painted one day in watercolours…

For this year’s April Blogging through A-Z Challenge I’ve decided to follow the art-inspired theme of me, now in my 60^th year, exploring and experimenting with how to paint using acrylics, gouache and watercolours. After a couple of false starts this is a relatively recent journey I began in earnest a few months ago. So far it’s been an even split between fun and frustration, getting to grips with all these new painting skills, but I’m determined to keep going with it this year and see where it takes me… 🙂

A-Z Challenge: D is for Density

One of the things I really love about acrylics is the density and intensity of the strong vibrant colour.

There’s no wishy-washy, sorry-for-existing apology in this medium, it’s loud and it’s proud and it’s out there making as bold a visual statement on the canvas as you can possibly wish for, like in this rather simple but bright painting of a field of yellow rapeseed flowers done with both a brush and a painting knife.

But I still tend to forget that the pigments can dry much darker, so am often surprised – sometimes good, sometimes bad – at just how dense and intense the colours can become once the paint has cured…

For this year’s April Blogging through A-Z Challenge I’ve decided to follow the art-inspired theme of me, now in my 60^th year, exploring and experimenting with how to paint using acrylics, gouache and watercolours. After a couple of false starts this is a relatively recent journey I began in earnest a few months ago. So far it’s been an even split between fun and frustration, getting to grips with all these new painting skills, but I’m determined to keep going with it this year and see where it takes me… 🙂

Today’s Winner…

Today’s winner for posting on my blog is… this Scottish landscape, painted in acrylics with a palette knife on a 10×12 inch canvas board 🙂

Ragtag Daily Prompt: Winner

One Liner Wednesday