Painting with Acrylics

I spoon enough color into each compartment to last for three or four painting sessions (maybe a rounded teaspoon of some colors, several tablespoons of white), and arrange the colors as I would on a conventional palette, working from the greens through the blues to purple on the bottom layer; yellows through reds to magenta and purple on the top layer; fitting white and violet oxide where there is room.

You can add comfortable padded, adjustable shoulder straps, made for backpacks and available at mountaineering stores, or, as I prefer to do, slip the easel into a small backpack. Beats carrying it in one hand, and I can put my water bottle in the pack and my stool folded on top!

These panels are not cheap (though they probably cost less than any other linen panel you will find), but they are archival, high quality, and extremely lightweight for their size and hence great for air travel. There are several linen surfaces to choose from, and if you tell Tim you plan to use the panels for acrylic, he will order acrylic-primed linen. These panels have the most beautiful surface I’ve ever found. They’re slightly rough—just enough to grab the paint—but with a fine weave.

For a very short trip, I might take only a few panels, my paint box (already filled to capacity), an extra tube of white, brushes, French easel, and a couple of plastic water holders (I like one-quart yogurt containers). I also take a screw-top plastic half-gallon water bottle for carrying water to the site, and pack my oldest T-shirts to wear. As each is ready for the wash it becomes the next day's paint rag. Do not use paper towels! They’re useless for acrylic painting, and you’ll save a lot of trees over the years by using rags.

My friend Pat keeps a bucket of water near her washing machine and throws her acrylic paint rags in it as they accumulate; every so often she dedicates a hot water wash just to cleaning rags.

When my heart is set on taking canvases by plane, I find buying sizes that nest within each other is a space-saving trick (30x30”, 24x24”, 18x18”, and 12x12”, for example). Or if I'm hesitant to take all the same shape, I try to get one dimension the same so they are easy to bind together with a strap, for example 10x20”, 16x20”, 20x20”, 20x24”, and 20x30”.

Most recently I’ve pared this down to two sizes and shapes—18x20” and 10x18”; these can be layered with the two smaller panels exactly fitting between one larger panel, the whole package bound with a Velcro strap in each direction. The 10x18 panels can be slipped in behind my folded French easel and carried inside the backpack.

Painting with high quality paints with excellent tinting ability is an absolute necessity. It's impossible to achieve great results with mediocre materials. Scrupulously avoid any paint called a "hue," which is another way of saying the color has been approximated with cheaper pigments. Also avoid student grade paints, which have lots of filler and relatively little pigment.

Currently I use mainly Golden heavy body acrylics.

For Hooker’s Green, I highly recommend you buy Miami Brera 60ML Hookers Green.

You must have at least white and the three primary colors I’ve highlighted in order to be able to mix the full range of hues.

These brands can be obtained through Art Supply Warehouse. Golden Heavy Body Acrylics, Liquitex High Viscosity, and Maimeri Brera are all high quality paints.

To those who use only a few colors and like to mix as much as possible, I'd encourage you to do that as long as your palette contains at least the primary colors highlighted in red, plus titanium white. Working from primaries (as opposed to a limited palette  that does not give a full range of color) will give you a great knowledge of both color and value.

Since I spent 15 years working with a bare-bones palette, I now relish using a full range of colors. If you can afford it and have no problem establishing values, I recommend you use a full palette.

For the smallest brushes, buy flats or filberts rather than brights. In the small sizes, a bright will splay almost immediately; because it is proportionately longer, a flat isn’t so likely to do this.

I keep some old bristle brushes around for times when I want a fuzzier, easier edge. If you use both oils and acrylics, or if you have a lot of leftover bristle brushes you formerly used for oils, they can be great for acrylics. All that oil paint will have conditioned them beautifully and they’ll far outlast bristle brushes you buy and use just for acrylics.

Covering the canvas completely with large areas of color shows me whether the composition is workable and roughly sets values. At this stage I often work transparently, and since I begin with a white primed canvas or panel the transparent paint can produce vibrant clear effects.

Still using the large brush, I gradually refine colors and shapes, making sure the composition has the force I want. It’s hard to resist the pull to go straight to detail, but I’ve found that nothing ruins a painting so fast as getting out a small brush too early. Very few artists have the skill to keep all the values, shapes and colors correct while working solely with a small brush.

Since acrylics tend to dry toward the middle tones—that is, the lights dry darker than they look when wet, and the darks dry somewhat lighter—I’ve developed the habit of unwittingly exaggerating value relationships when I paint. I do the same for color, though not for any logical reason. I just emphasize the colors I like best--that's why my paintings tend to be skimpy on earth tones.

As my painting comes into focus, I shift to progressively smaller brushes. But if I see the painting going awry, I go back to a big brush and ruthlessly repaint.

I avoid putting in details because I believe each viewer needs to bring something to the work. Painting every blade of grass can turn a poem into a tract.