Online Class

Holiday Candy… Acrylic University Challenge

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This was painted on a 12×12 canvas panel, and is based on a paint-along work done by Dianna Shyne in Acrylic University for a winter challenge back in December 2023 (before I had joined AU as a member).

I started out following her, but then I gave up and focused just on the reference photo for guidance.

My husband thought they were Christmas lights until I had completed the tags. (That said, I’m now working on a piece that IS of Christmas lights, part of this year’s winter challenge. Hopefully, I’ll have it done before Dianna’s paint-along this Friday.)

Beach Birds

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As with my sunflower painting posted the other days, this is on a 6×6 “Claybord” panel with the undertone painting done in metallic paint — this time silver. I still don’t care for the slippery metallic paint and/or the Claybord.

The beach birds are based on one of the 7 challenges demonstrated at the 2024 Summer “Challenge” at Acrylic University. For drawing out the scene the birds and key lines of the waves), I used a Posca paint pen (uni® POSCA® PC-5M, Earthtone Water-Based Paint Markers (8 Pack)) in a navy blue color that I bought at Michael’s.

Painting the scene, I used just 4 colors: Ultramarine Blue, Anthraquinone Blue, Payne’s Gray and White.

Big and Bold: Chickadee

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This bird was painted on a 11×14 canvas which I toned with Blick Studio neutral gray — but I should have added at least one layer of gesso. (Cheap “pre-gessoed” canvases are less and less appealing to me.)

This is from another class on the Acrylic University website, originally shown to the public on YouTube for a brief period of time back in January 2022. The focus of the week’s classes was “Radiant Landscapes” and this class was about going big and bold with your brushstrokes to paint a chickadee.

There were 4 ways suggested to “go bold”: 1) limit yourself to 30 minutes painting (and that’s it, no going back later); 2) Limit yourself to a certain number of brushstrokes — say, 50, or 75; 3) use a large brush throughout; 4) paint with your non-dominant hand

I went with a larger brush than I typically use, and I had a lot of fun with this painting. It makes me happy to look at.

52 Mini Paintings Challenge: Week #19

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This is the week 19 painting for Jed Dorsey’s Mini Painting Challenge at Acrylic University. (I’ll get back to weeks 17 and 18 some other time). It’s called “Roses for Mom” and is based on a reference photo by Ann Dorsey. 6×6 canvas panel, toned in Naphthol Red.

I listened to the video of the class weeks ago — we’re already up to week 23 — and just used a grayscale printout of the photo as my reference. For the roses, the darkest red is Quinacridone Magenta, otherwise it’s just Naphthol Red with varying amounts of Titanium White.

This was a fun one to paint.

Monochromatic Man… a “Fresh Paint” lesson

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Back in March, I posted about painting a vase of purple tulips, from a one-off online class by Ali Kay. I had decided I would consider joining her “Fresh Paint” membership, which from what I can tell operates more or less like Jed Dorsey’s Acrylic University.

So, the doors opened for a limited time last week, and I joined for a year. We’ll see how it goes. I like the work she posts on Instagram, and I like her subject matter — a lot of people and animal portraits, as well as flowers.

This painting is actually based off of an Unsplash photo. I struggled a bit with her process, which seemed a little bit paint-by-number to me, but I wanted to try it. Hardest for me is remembering to leave touches of the underpainting visible, as I’m used to often painting on white canvas and skipping the whole underpainting thing. Also I rarely layer to the extent she does — but perhaps I should.

She also primarily works from photographs, and transfers the key lines from the photo to the substrate so you focus on painting rather than drawing. Also, she works on gessoed wood panels, using fluid acrylics, while I’m working on canvas using heavy-body acrylics so the flow is obviously different. (It’s too hot where I live to use a lot of fluid acrylics — they dry in something like 2 minutes.)

I’d like to try doing this on a wood panel to see the effect; I might like it. But I’ve got a stash of canvas to work through first.

AU: Simple Shapes… Week #4

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A few weeks ago I signed up for an 8 week class at Acrylic University called “Simple Shapes” taught by Dianna Shyne. I wasn’t overly interested in painting the still lifes for the first 3 weeks, despite watching the videos and downloading the reference photos, but I did want to try painting the red onion.

This was on 6×6 acrylic paper (SoHo brand). The first time, I put too many of the colors Dianna used, and the result didn’t look much like an onion! (Hers did, mine didn’t.) So the next day I painted over what I had before, and tried again. I think the second attempt is much improved. I also used smaller brushes, especially for the onion roots.

Field of Daffodils… After Dianna Shyne

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One of the perks of Acrylic University membership is weekly classes/workshops livestreamed on YouTube. Last Friday, the instructor Dianna Shyne led a workshop on the “Colors of Spring”, which included her painting four small studies of flowering trees and spring flowers. One was of a field of daffodils, and since daffs are my favorite flower, I tried my own version of the reference photo she used.

This was done on an 8×10 stretched canvas, and the yellow used is (mostly) Liquitex Cad-Free Yellow Light (Lemon), with some Cad-Free Yellow Medium in the foreground. All the various shades of green were mixed from Cad-Free Yellow Light and Mars Black.

52 Mini Paintings Challenge: Week #13

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This is the week 13 painting for Jed Dorsey’s Mini Painting Challenge at Acrylic University. I’m not certain where the reference photo was taken; it’s not one of Dorsey’s. The painting he did in the paint-along is called “Big Clouds” and he uses a magenta red underpainting. To be honest, his version of this painting is one of the reasons I signed up for this challenge. I’m not over-crazy about my own version; it’s just another study of clouds. I need more practice.