Tags
acrylic paint, acrylic paints, dictionary page, dictionary page art, Etsy, learning to paint, mandalas, painting
Yesterday in church our pastor was talking about the practice of giving up something for lent. She also talked about increasing an activity or behavior instead. I’m going to focus on using what I already have for art supplies and really focusing on painting. Well, I have been playing around with this book about learning how to paint with acrylics through the creation of 50 small paintings. I have done one and they make lovely backgrounds for mandalas.
So my plan is to make a painting a day as much as possible and work on the mandalas on the days I can’t paint. We are going to be heading back to WI in a few weeks and I wanted something more portable for while we are traveling.
Here is the book and the 2 paintings I did yesterday.
As you can see I learned that using masking tape on the dictionary pages doesn’t work very well so I’m just trying to keep tidy edges. One thing that is interesting about the picture of fields and trees is that the darker field is on the word “field” on the dictionary page. That was totally coincidence, but once I noticed it I tried to keep that part translucent. Something I learned in the making of the painting is that you can combine Mars Black with Cadmium Yellow Light to make the darkest green of the trees. The Moonlight Delight painting is for sale in my Etsy store. More paintings will be available by the end of Lent.
lunanista 
These are really cool. 😀
Thanks. They are really fun and this year has been all about changing how I approach acrylic paint. I didn’t paint yesterday, so I have to go and get busy to paint 2 today!
This is great. I’m looking forward to seeing how it goes. More! Yes!
Thanks! I’m looking forward to it too! Your encouragement has been such a help. Thank you for that. I frequently think of your suggestion to use bigger brushes when I’m having vision problems and I bought a bigger brush that I have been using for these paintings. I’m thinking of buying a bigger round brush too, but I want to do a few more paintings to see how well I can work with what I have.
Glad to help. I’ll be interested to see what you think about the brush idea. Not only seeing what you’re doing, but I also think just the feel of it in my hand affects how I paint.
I have a few favorite brushes and I do like how they feel in my hand. Fun stuff! I don’t know if they have an impact on how I paint
I think they must, because you feel comfortable with them and I know that makes a difference with me, maybe the same with you?
Book looks like a great way to learn incrementally. Cool B&W mandala.
Thanks! This book has been really helpful. Most of the other painting books that I have really liked suggest interesting techniques, but this has the best plan to get me to my goal of bigger blocks of color. I’m glad you like the b&w mandala, it is actually one of my favorites.