Small Works

White Doughnut

| cathmary1030

Here, I was experimenting with making my white paint (aka the frosting) glossy. It definitely painted on as very shiny, but now that it’s dry, much — but not all — of the shine is gone. It looks like I will need to continue to experiment with the ratio of glazing medium to paint. Or, I may need try some of the other mediums I have like matte medium.

(UPDATE: I just learned that the likely best candidate for making my paint look glossy is the gloss medium — NOT the glazing medium. I’ll have to purchase some and test it out.)

This doughnut was painted on an 8×8 canvas panel, and the image is by Ali4364 from Pixabay.

Stack of Doughnuts

| cathmary1030

I got this reference from a January 2026 Open Studio Hours Session for Fresh Paint VIP members. I didn’t attend the session, and went my own way with the colors. This was painted on an 8×10 canvas panel.

I painted glazing medium on top of the dark paint after it was dry — turns out that’s a mistake. (Hence the weird blur on the finished painting on the left.] It’s better to mix in the glazing medium with the paint so that it ends up shiny and glossy like frosting. Live and learn! I may redo when I have more time.

Bold Brushstrokes… Playing with Paint

| cathmary1030

A few weeks ago I watched one of the videos on the Acrylic University site. Jed Dorsey was painting a vase of sunflowers from a reference photo (likely his own). So, tonight, I felt like painting more sunflowers and decided to just wing it mostly from memory, doing my own thing rather than copying Jed’s work, or copying the reference photo.

This is the result. 10×10 canvas panel toned in burnt umber and white. Colors used were naphthol crimson, cadmium yellow, ultramarine blue, and a bit of Mars Black.

This was fun! I wasn’t trying for realism or polish, just playing with paint.

Sunflowers in a Vase

| cathmary1030

This painting was done on a 6×8 canvas (Blick Premier — I surprisingly liked it) and it’s based off of one of my own photos. The background is Dioxazine Purple (PV23) tinted with Titanium White, as a complementary color to the various tones of yellow (Yellow Ochre, and Cad Medium Yellow mixed with Yellow Ochre).

While I’m not entirely happy with this effort, on the whole, I think it’s one of my better sunflower paintings.

  • Work in Progress
  • Finished Painting