Detail

A Question on Transitions

Hey Eric,

I had a quick question I was hoping you could help me with. You say that you use thin layers of acrylic washes, are you using regular acrylics, liquid acrylics or something else? I've been using regular Golden acrylics for washes but when I thin down the paint too much the pigment doesn't go down too smooth. Also, with whatever you're using, are you able to pull any of the color back up should you need to? I like using acrylic washes b/c of the muted tones I can get but have had to switch to watercolors b/c of the less than smooth washes and ability to pull color back up but am now getting colors that are way too bright.

Anyway, thanks for the help, hope I'm not taking up too much of your time.

I shot another video to try and answer this question. I put emphasis on experimenting and practicing. The more we practice the more we learn and refine our work, technically and conceptually. Another important factor to acknowledge is that these things can take a lot of time and patience. But if it's worth doing, it's worth doing right. If you're not happy with how you're paintings are turning out perhaps you're not quite finished yet.

In this particular case it seems the person may be going back and forth between watercolors and acrylics. I have nothing against mixed mediums. So perhaps a combination of the two will suit you best. As for color, I usually keep a test strip of watercolor paper that I brush colors on to in order to see if the colors actually look the way I want them to. Test out your colors on a sample sheet of paper first. If it's too intense make appropriate adjustments. With my technique I would either tone it down with other colors and/or thin it out with more water. Hope this helps.

Art Update

Here are shots of some of the paintings I'm currently working on. As I sometimes forget one needs the right tool, or brush, for the right job. I try to hold off on noodling any details too early in the painting as they often get lost in the following washes. This can be hard because it seems all the cool washy wet on wet goodness happens in the beginning. I immediately want to jump in and refine the nuanced transitions and granulations with a number 4 round brush. Having a little confidence that cooler washes will present themselves later takes some experience and trust in the medium. Even now this is something I'm still working on.

A lesson I learned from a painting teacher back in college was to paint the entire piece with one large brush and put off the smaller brushes completely. Of course I compromise a bit but holding off on the smaller brushes does seem to help in the long run...when I can resist.

Update 2, Still in NYC

This is a continuation from my recent posts. I've added in the previous images for easy viewing and comparisons. There's some interesting/nice things starting to happen. Hopefully, I can maintain some of these. And there are some ugly things that aren't where I would like them to be. This is going to be a short read with mostly images. Of course any and all questions are welcome.

Painting

Here you can see a few different levels of finish in the chair. At the top there's basically just one ugly wash. Some cool things going on there. Bottom right some refinement. And on the left getting much closer to looking finished.

Progress

I think both of the pieces are pretty much done as far as drawing is concerned. Tomorrow, I'm going to start throwing some paint down.

Random Progress shot.

I was thinking I rarely put up a pic half through refining a drawing. So here's a random pic. I'm currently working on the wrinkle's in the shirt. I tend to transfer my sketches onto the watercolor paper very loosely. Takes about three minutes to loosely transfer. Using a 3B or 4B pencil is nice because you can get a fairly dark line without pressing too hard. It's quite easy to erase as well. 2B is nice for continuing my refinement. With these two pieces I'm working on I'll try to post up more frequent progress shots as I feel I haven't been posting as much.

Happy Holidays :)
Eric