Acrylic University

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.

The Messy Middle… a painting from a “Bloom with Jed” lesson.

| cathmary1030

This 10×10 painting is one I’m doing as a paint-along effort from Acrylic University‘s “Bloom with Jed” paint-along video class.

The focus is on seeing the beauty in a gray, rainy day, of an ordinary (if not ugly, to my mind) marsh near a beach. But Jed points out ways to bring out the natural beauty via the painting — and of course, one way of doing it is using a magenta (PV19) background and letting bits of that tone shine through. We’ll see how it goes.

Daffodils.. calling it done… “Bloom with Jed”

| cathmary1030

Last time I said I was undecided about how to finish this daffodil painting from Acrylic University‘s “Bloom with Jed” paint-along video class.

I ended up going with my favorite default… cerulean blue mixed with titanium white for a light sky color. (In the photo it doesn’t look all that much different than the version with a still-white canvas panel!)

The reference photo was taken by Jed Dorsey.

Daffodils.. work in progress… “Bloom with Jed”

| cathmary1030

I love daffodils, and this 10×10 painting is based off a reference photo from Acrylic University‘s “Bloom with Jed” paint-along video class.

Still need to do the background, and am undecided how to proceed. Jed tones his canvas black, and then does a kind of gray & brown shadow mosaic — bits of black peeking through — so that it almost looks like a stone wall of a background. But that’s not my speed.

The reference photo was taken by Jed Dorsey.

Travels Near & Far – Dianna Shyne – Week #7 (mini Painting challenge)

| cathmary1030

This is Week #7 (called “Boathouses”) of “Travels Near & Far” — a mini painting challenge at Acrylic University, and the artist is Dianna Shyne who also took the reference photo used. As with the week #1 work, the photo is of Prince Edward Island, Canada.

This was painted on a 6×6 canvas panel, and the swirly brushstrokes in green — meant to represent grass! — remind me of some of Van Gogh’s swirly painting (but not in good way, ha-ha!) To the right is supposed to be a boat, but since I painted it in the same colors as the water, it now appears “lost” or, rather, more like a bridge.

The thing is, I’m so focused on painting other things, I don’t care enough to paint it in, say, black and white so that it appears as a boat.


Puppy At The Window

| cathmary1030

I painted this dog on the sofa based on a reference photo by Alyssa Fleischer, part of a January 2022 “painting party” at Acrylic University. It is also viewable on YouTube here.

This was painted on an 8×8 canvas panel. The dog was done in Titanium Buff (aka Unbleached Titanium (PW 6:1) and Burnt Umber. For the window panes I used the same — but added a touch of Mars Black. (I am going to go back and redo the panes, painting with a straight-edge 🙂

The greenery base was Chromium Green with some Ultramarine Blue, Titanium White, and Cad-free Yellow Light. The sofa I painted using Liquitex BASICS blue-gray and since it’s a “student” color, it darkened a whole lot after drying, but I think I’ll leave it as is.

Aspen Forest in the Snow.. After Jed Dorsey

| cathmary1030

Earlier in January I watched a paint-along by Jed Dorsey of Acrylic University for their Bloom Membership level. He painted this scene from one of his own photos, and his painting was striking in its use of color, reflecting a golden sky from the sun setting behind the trees in the distance.

I was all set to try that myself. But when I downloaded the reference photo and a photo of his painting, on a whim, I set the saturation to zero — and found I absolutely LOVED the black and white version. So I decided to try painting it to play with the values.

This was done strictly as a study, on an 8×8 wood panel that I had gessoed a while back. The sky, in fact, is simply the white gesso. (It’s more yellow here in the photo than it is in real life.) I deliberately painted the snow thick just for the heck of it.

“Low Tide” – Calling It Done

| cathmary1030

For what it’s worth, I’m done with this painting from Acrylic University‘s 2024 Summer Challenge based off a photo by Doug Greenman of a Puerto Rico beach.

I’m not super excited about it. I don’t like the orange — but come to think of it, I really didn’t like the magenta tone on the board to start with. (Maybe I should’ve started by painting over that!)

One thing I AM happy with is the father and child figures, and their reflection.