My Paint Brushes

Week One: Sept 14th

I am choosing the free inquiry topic of painting with acrylic paints. This is something that I have been doing casually for about a year and a half. I chose this topic because I want to push my boundaries with what I can paint. I specifically want to learn how to paint portraits, as this is one of the more challenging things to paint. Most portraits that are hand painted are done with oil paints. However, I do not have the resources, funds, or patience to try oil paints, so I am sticking with acrylics. Acrylics can be challenging because of its quick drying time, so blending is difficult. I want to challenge myself to paint these portraits, and learn the techniques to create realistic pieces of art. I plan to document my progress through pictures of my work, as well as reference photos to make comparisons. I think some questions that I have about this project are what techniques I will need to learn, and how I might have to adapt my art style to achieve the goal of creating pieces of art that reflect realism.

Photo by Me: my paint brushes that I use for my artwork

 

Week Two: Sept 21st

This week has been a busy one for me, so I have not been able to really get around to pulling out my paints yet. However, I have been watching tutorials, getting inspiration, and planning out my ideas for my upcoming projects. I have actually started tracing/sketching out what I will be painting my first portrait of. I did this by finding a picture of someone online, getting tracing paper and giving it a rough outline, and then transferring it with transfer paper onto my canvas. I have completed the tracing part so far, as you can see from the image below. The reason why I trace instead of free-hand sketch is because drawing is not my specialty. I would like to learn how to sketch free-hand, but I want to focus on my painting skills first, because that is what I am interested in right now.

Tracing paper over painted canvas – Ready to be transferred

I used basic tracing paper, which looks a lot like parchment paper for baking, and black graphite transfer paper for this process. I decided to paint the background of the canvas before I transfer the drawing over. I plan to take more time this week to do more test runs of how to paint shadows, highlights, and different sections of skin/skin tones. I will be uploading my trials and progress.

Week Three: Sept 28th

This week has had me at a slight setback for my artistic progress. While I was able to transfer the original drawing over to the already-painted canvas, I still have not started painting it. I have been doing tons of research on tips and tricks to paint portraits with acrylics, but the idea of putting my paintbrush to the pen has been daunting for me! With setbacks in my personal life as well this week, I decided to work on a smaller, new piece of art instead of the original portrait above. This piece is an original, based off of a photo that some friends of mine took. I have worked on the background so far, and plan to add in the people and details later this week.

Reference Photo

WIP of Reference Photo

Painting clouds is definitely something that I enjoying doing most, because it is what I do best. It is nice to know that I have a style I can always fall back on and rely on, but I have realized that I really need to push myself and work toward trying new painting styles. I think in order to make progress in art, boundaries need to be pushed, and I have already done that in the past to get to where I am today with my work, but I know that I can push myself more.