HOME | DD

Description
18x24" 45x60cm acrylic on canvas

Around 2005 they came out with watercolor canvas (water based paints don't bead up on them like they do on regular gesso). At the time I was trying to sell my work, and had found that watercolors did not command much money in the market. I thought that if I painted on the seemingly more durable canvas, it might be a selling point. So I found a good deal, and bought a bunch. Watercolor on watercolor canvas was a bust. The regular weave of the canvas did not allow for watercolors to do their thing, and the result looked very dull and lifeless. However, acrylics painted as watercolors on the watercolor canvas turned out great. It cut their harshness a bit, and offered several advantages, not the least of which was that you could fix mistakes by simply rubbing them off (or painting over them with white acrylic paint). Plus you could mount the canvas on mat board or hard board using acrylic medium and then with several coats of mat varnish, you could frame the final work without glass. Having watercolors framed professionally was usually far more expensive than the painting itself, so eliminating the glass and matting would save lots of money, and bring the painting out from behind the glass. The little disadvantage was that the canvas would shrink a bit, being cotton, so you had to have it securely taped or stapled down when painting on it.

This piece is a sample of how things turned out on canvas. As you can see, by this time I've abandoned the "blue sky, green grass, brown dirt" approach to painting and used colors somewhat unrealistically for effect, especially in the shadows. The other nice thing about using acrylics is that if you cared to, you could put paint on thickly for special effects, spots of light, or leaves close up. Whatever.

As far as I'm concerned no matter how you paint, acrylics is the way to go, if only because you can paint anyway you like with them.

Description
18x24" 45x60cm acrylic on canvas

Around 2005 they came out with watercolor canvas (water based paints don't bead up on them like they do on regular gesso). At the time I was trying to sell my work, and had found that watercolors did not command much money in the market. I thought that if I painted on the seemingly more durable canvas, it might be a selling point. So I found a good deal, and bought a bunch. Watercolor on watercolor canvas was a bust. The regular weave of the canvas did not allow for watercolors to do their thing, and the result looked very dull and lifeless. However, acrylics painted as watercolors on the watercolor canvas turned out great. It cut their harshness a bit, and offered several advantages, not the least of which was that you could fix mistakes by simply rubbing them off (or painting over them with white acrylic paint). Plus you could mount the canvas on mat board or hard board using acrylic medium and then with several coats of mat varnish, you could frame the final work without glass. Having watercolors framed professionally was usually far more expensive than the painting itself, so eliminating the glass and matting would save lots of money, and bring the painting out from behind the glass. The little disadvantage was that the canvas would shrink a bit, being cotton, so you had to have it securely taped or stapled down when painting on it.

This piece is a sample of how things turned out on canvas. As you can see, by this time I've abandoned the "blue sky, green grass, brown dirt" approach to painting and used colors somewhat unrealistically for effect, especially in the shadows. The other nice thing about using acrylics is that if you cared to, you could put paint on thickly for special effects, spots of light, or leaves close up. Whatever.

As far as I'm concerned no matter how you paint, acrylics is the way to go, if only because you can paint anyway you like with them.