Author Topic: A rat's journey into art. Acrylic paint.  (Read 14634 times)

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Offline cause the rat

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Re: A rat's journey into art. Acrylic paint.
« Reply #50 on: April 18, 2021, 04:48:54 pm »
I'M BACK! Well, sort of. Back to practicing brush work. Back to learning to draw what i see will holding a brush like a brush. Honestly the only advantage I see in learning to hold a brush this way is it keeps your arm off the painting. Back to listening to online instructors say things like "You need to learn to paint loosely. To much brush control and your paintings start to look stiff." Just to hear the same online instructor say. " Viewing your work upside down or in a mirror (backwards) will show you all the mistakes you made when drawing and blocking in your painting." The hypocrisy of art. Don't start off learning brush control. Spend years learning it by fixing all your mistakes. The very mistakes you wouldn't make if you learned how to draw with your brush. Learn to paint loosely? Yes! Even the most detailed painting you can view is a well done illusion. There are people who paint 'photo realistic'. But even then your brain is still filling in the blanks.

Why I'm sort of back. The painting style I like requires thick layering of paint on a canvas. Easily done with regular acrylics. But with regular acrylics you have to work fast. Color matching and mixing can be a real issue. You end up with wonky, somewhat cartoony colors. Slow drying acrylics give you a lot of time to properly mix colors. With a real drawback of not being able to paint thick. Anything thicker than a 1/16 ( 2.0 mm) and the paint wont dry properly.

My solution. Still going to learn to draw and control my brush. Still going to continue with color mixing and matching. Still going to paint thick wet on wet. My color mixing painting will be single brush strokes with no layering. The right color in the right shape in the right spot. My thick on thick paint will focus more on value studies and getting the textures within the colors you can only get when using thick paint. Dragging one color through another. Look at any John Singer Sargent painting. And when I run out of this small fortune of two types of acrylic paint I'm going to water mixable oils.

Still standing furn on learning all the basics. This works with digital art as well. You all have a set of problems I, no matter what medium I use, wont have to deal with. But you will learn that when you learn color theory.
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Offline cause the rat

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Re: A rat's journey into art. Acrylic paint.
« Reply #51 on: June 27, 2021, 07:40:56 pm »
I bet everyone thought I wasn't doing anything. Well as far as doing things to get better using a brush that's a no brainer. However the only way to get good at putting a painting together is actually painting. My frustration level with acrylics have hit a wall. Slow drying acrylics are like a horror movie. You know what's going to happen. But your not sure when. And the only way to keep it from happening is to never open the tubes of paint. I have an entire alchemy lab of chemicals meant to keep these paints workable. Or, putting it more realistically, turning them into Kool Aid. If I wanted to paint with Kool Aid I'd go back to water colors. I'll continue practicing value studies and composition with the acrylics I have. Because I can do that with one or two colors of paint. And not worry about the paint turning into plastic before I'm through using it. I have seven tubes of water mixable oils and two bottles of mediums on the way. One medium is for speeding up the paint's drying time. The other for the 'fat' in the fat over lean technique in oil painting. After a few months of reading other peoples research on line I've learned to never use water when painting with water mixable oils. Water is for cleaning only.

So from this post on there WILL be paintings to show. Master pieces? Hopefully not as bad as my water color 'Man who wet his pants', "Two headed thing on a flying table', and 'Exploding Tree'. No masterpieces. Just a rat learning to paint. And hopefully inspiring you all to know that art is more than just coloring between the lines.

My purpose for this tread was to inspire you all to take the time and learn the things needed to be a better artist. What this thread turned into is a frustrated old man screaming about his bad choices. Sorry folks. It will get better.
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Offline cause the rat

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Re: A rat's journey into art. Acrylic paint.
« Reply #52 on: July 14, 2021, 04:41:31 am »
I did something today to prove something to myself. Did a color and value study.  Three small three by fives of distant hills with a cloudy sky. Without any reference picture. What did I end up with? Three levels of horror.  Every really good artist on line will tell you the very same thing. You need to have visual references of what your painting. Doesn't matter if it's only one reference or ten. I've seen painters on line take an interior shot from one picture and put people from another into it. Art has nothing to do with reality. No matter how many years they have been painting they still needed the pictures to put it all together. That didn't stop me from trying. It was both fun and a good learning experience. I've wiped off two of them. Kept one. Already have a simple picture picked out. Hopefully be able to do this the right way tomorrow.

I like learning new things. I like to create. And i love making a mess. Art is making me a very happy old man.
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Offline cause the rat

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Re: A rat's journey into art. Acrylic paint.
« Reply #53 on: July 15, 2021, 03:53:39 am »
I"m posting this because it will help those doing digital furry art as well. If you paint someone's head the correct size to the body the head will look to large. If you reduce it's size slightly it will look right.  If you follow the link to Wikipedia' page on Philippe de Champaigne you will see, in every painting, all the heads are not the right size for the bodies that support them.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Philippe_de_Champaigne

From what I understand this is common practice.

Wasn't able to get to painting tonight.
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Offline cause the rat

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Re: A rat's journey into art. Acrylic paint.
« Reply #54 on: July 18, 2021, 03:23:38 am »
Posted my first WIP ( work in progress ) on the oil painting portion of Wet Canvas. And as promised it's horrible. Learning to color match and do a value study at the same time. I think I remembered all the beginner mistakes everyone talks about and non of the right things to do. :) This panting is so dark and drab it would make a sewage treatment plant in the rain look like a cheery day. I really do need to learn to lighten up. I'll post a link to the thread once I get the painting done.

There is one thing I can say I'm very happy with. Everywhere I wanted to put the tip of the brush is exactly where it ended up. I'm painting 'alla prima'. Wet on wet. With no mediums. Said to be the hardest to learn. But it's the look, style and way I want to paint. I'm having no trouble with the technique at all.  I would not be able to do this had I not struggled for three months. Writing out the alphabet as small as I could get it. With a large brush.  i have the technique down. Now I have the 500 more things I need to learn. Never tell yourself "It's just my style". Because there are 10.000 other artists out there with the very same 'style'. If there is something your struggling with take the time to work it out. Keep working on it until you get the result you need. Doing the same thing over and over isn't fun. It's tedious and boring and at times the last thing you want to do. Get it right. Then go back to making art. You will see the difference. And it's guaranteed you'll find the next thing you need to work on. Every time you isolate something and work on it the results will come quicker. Because your training yourself to learn. And you know more.

and for fun,
Why alla prima is hard to do.
Fat over lean in oil painting means your adding more fat ( oil ) to your paint as you add layers. This changes the thickness of the paint. A thinner, more oily layer will lay down easy over a dryer ( less oily) layer. There is way more to this. But we'll stick with the simple for now. Alla prima doesn't use that technique. Every layer of paint is the same as the layer underneath it. What happens is, if your not careful, the paint your applying over the paint that's already there will start to mix. As you pick the brush up and place it on the painting again you end up carrying paint from the first layer. Applying this mix of paint on your brush and you end up with a mix of the two. This is referred to as 'mud'. Now there is nothing saying you can't use fat over lean when doing alla prima painting. I may end up have to use this technique when applying the highlights. Will have to see how it works out for me.
It's been said that rats can gain access to your home by climbing up threw your toilet. I prefer to use the front door.

Offline cause the rat

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Re: A rat's journey into art. Acrylic paint.
« Reply #55 on: July 19, 2021, 02:00:18 pm »
Found my next challenge. Color matching. And understanding that the value ( how light or dark the color is ) is more important than the color itself. Then there's the entire color theory spectrum to learn along with color matching. But for right now I'll stick to trying to get the color I see in the paint I'm using. And how all this end up in being totally unrealistic in color once it's in the painting. Painting isn't about color. It's about value relationships between colors. How these relationships interact to create the illusion of depth. A wrong color with the right value is more important than the right color. The link below is to a painting that demonstrates everything. If you were actually looking at a photo it would not look anything like this. So let's play "What's wrong with this painting that's hanging in a museum and worth millions." by asking a few questions.

How many trees have you seen with orange bark?
There is a view into the distance through the trees. Why is thee not a single realistic color in that view? Trees and all.
It's a painting of an overcast day. The majority of the light is coming from the right. So why is the left hand side of this hill also in sunlight?
Looking a the trunk of the tree. The distant trees to the left are all in shadow. So how did the distant trees to the right side become bright?

The answer to all the questions above is? Color theory! Color value is more important than the color itself. Art is the interpretation of reality. Photography is reality turned into art.

OK. Great. So that's painting with paints. How does this relate to digital art. Disney uses color theory to make their animations look 3D. That may not be digital art. But it is cartoon style art. Both Marvel and DC comics us color theory. 90% or better of furry art is done with no color theory what so ever. Taking the time to learn all the crazy and off the wall techniques of color theory will take your art above what most consider the best of the furry art out there. 

https://www.questroyalfineart.com/wp-content/uploads/Bierstadt-A-Trail-through-the-Trees.jpg

So after finding out that color theory is more important than color why are you going to take hours to learn to match colors you ask? I'm using white and seven colors. I have an eight on the way. To help knock down one of the colors I'm using. The painting in the link has a good chance of being painted with less color choices. Most of the time spent painting is mixing colors and adjusting their values to work within the painting. I need to wrap my head around mixing unrealistic colors. Instead of trying to mix the colors I see. Learning to mix the colors I see will teach me how the paints I'm using relate to one another.

It's been said that rats can gain access to your home by climbing up threw your toilet. I prefer to use the front door.

Offline Jade Sinapu

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Re: A rat's journey into art. Acrylic paint.
« Reply #56 on: July 20, 2021, 03:17:01 pm »
Does the "color" you see change as the paint dries?
I see this with interior house paint.
Bear your soul and take control
If the wolves are howling outside your door
Invite them in and make them beg for more!
(Name that tune!)

Offline cause the rat

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Re: A rat's journey into art. Acrylic paint.
« Reply #57 on: July 21, 2021, 02:25:16 pm »
Jade, with acrylics and watercolors yes. Acrylics become darker wile watercolors lighten as they dry. With oils what you see is what you get.  Linseed oil ( flax oil ) does lightly yellow over time. But because color is relative to the colors around it if all the colors slightly yellow the colors will still appear right.

I think color shifting would be more of a problem with digital art. The artist may be using some ultra high resolution monitor to do the art. Where the buyer might have a cheepo windows box that lights up. Or worst, the other way around. This is where relying more on color value instead of the color itself would help. Even if there is a shift in color the art would still read the same because the values wouldn't change.
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Re: A rat's journey into art. Acrylic paint.
« Reply #58 on: July 23, 2021, 02:36:25 pm »
Starting a color study. If you can't get it on a 3x5 your not going to get it done on a 12x14.  :D  Concentrating on areal perspective. Working on color more than shape and form.

https://www.facebook.com/photo/?fbid=1156599338184145&set=gm.4370290496355173
« Last Edit: July 23, 2021, 02:40:14 pm by cause the rat »
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Offline cause the rat

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Re: A rat's journey into art. Acrylic paint.
« Reply #59 on: July 24, 2021, 08:51:20 pm »
Yep, the same thing I've heard over and over again. When posing about doing small color studies I heard it. 'That's nice. But it's still going to take hundreds of paintings to get it right.'.  The idea of braking things down. Getting better at what your worst at. Then do a painting is totally foreign to these folks. If it doesn't look good at 3x5 it's not going to look good at 12x14. Size doesn't matter. Did my first color study. Eight lines of paint. Eight lines of complete disaster! But i"m loving it. Because each color has to be mixed I'm learning what can be done with the paints I have.  Learning to mix color for it's value in relation to the colors around it. And it's placement within the painting for areal perspective. That is what I'm bad it. Doing one bad painting after another and hoping I get it right is not the answer.

 I did add a color to my pallet. Varidian green. Decided to add it because Phalo green is kryptonite. The pigment is so strong it stains plastic. Really hard to control when mixing small batches of paint. Phalo kryptonite isn't going anywhere. ( phalo green blue shade ) Because I can use it to change the properties of ultramarine blue. And it makes a strong turquoise color that's great for mixing other colors with.

Just a rambling. First I would like to say everything you have heard about oil painting is true. It is way easier than watercolor or acrylics. Now that i know about solvent free brush cleaners and oil mediums I'll be e switching over to regular oil paints. Once I've used up these water mixables. Because you can mix water soluble oils with regular oil paints I'll be replacing the colors with regular oils as needed.  For brush cleaning I'm using a product called 'Bristle Magic'. According to the MSDS sheet it's non toxic and biodegradable. With the only safety warning of not inducing vomiting if swallowed. And the best part is it works. Way quicker and easier than using soap and water with water soluble oils. Because I'm no longer using soap and water I can use the non toxic Alkyd I have. M. Graham's 'Walnut Alkyd Medium'. Alkyd makes oil paint dry faster. I've read the MSDS sheet on this stuff. It's not got anything in it that will evaporate or harm you if you get it on you. I now have a non toxic oil painting studio. Now I need to hire someone who can actually paint. :) Also wanted to add, I LOVE the smell of oil paints.

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Offline cause the rat

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Re: A rat's journey into art. Acrylic paint.
« Reply #60 on: July 25, 2021, 06:57:13 pm »
The good the bad and the ugly. Hope you like ugly because I'm not good at painting yet. :)

First three value studies. From left to right.

'Yay Stripes!' Thought I could simplify and represent color spectrum using only stripes. Nope.

'Ugly Stripes.' Honestly wanted to stop after the second stripe from the bottom. Had I stopped it would not have looked this bad. :) Actually learned a few things form this.

'Worm Monster.' From right to left. A mouth, eye and three dots. Don't know where this thing came from. Didn't notice it till the end of the painting. Still lots wrong. Mid and far are still to dark. Need to stop relying on white to make a bright sky.

After my 'ugly stripes' I went on line and looked at hundreds of old landscape paintings. Noticed something I hadn't before. The majority of these old paintings don't use color spectrum to create depth. Instead they relied on color value. Color spectrum is the farther an object is the more color drops out. The first color to drop is yellow. Then red. Till you end up with nothing but blue. For now I'll work with color spectrum. Then I plan on tackling light direction and shadow within color spectrum. This will really help me to understand how to create value relationships. It's one thing to be book smart. It's a whole new world when doing it. And a whole lot more fun. Right now i'm book smart and brush dumb!
https://scontent-ort2-1.xx.fbcdn.net/v/t1.6435-9/214541885_1157918811385531_5602317715829141030_n.jpg?_nc_cat=100&ccb=1-3&_nc_sid=825194&_nc_ohc=tpeyQNVfChQAX-AqudH&tn=ZMy4BhR4dhObnveV&_nc_ht=scontent-ort2-1.xx&oh=6813979d1b24d94e36e347c42c2a4943&oe=61221FF5
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Offline cause the rat

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Re: A rat's journey into art. Acrylic paint.
« Reply #61 on: July 29, 2021, 02:04:48 am »
My adolescents is over. From this point in time on it's nothing but serious studies. I had fun throwing paint. Glad I used 3x5s to play with. Can imagine all the paint I of wasted if I did all those on 8x10 or 10x12 panels. I'll still be using the same 3x5 format. Turning them upright to give more room to work on the changes in value and color that creates the illusion of depth. Also known as. 'The Theory of Angles and Consequent Values'. That's a thing. It's part of color theory. Then there's the 'Theory of Halation' or how we visually perceive two objects of contrasting color and value when they are next to each other.  These two theories are covered in depth in a book I was recommended. 'Carlson's Guide to Landscape Painting'. This book was originally published in 1929. However the English used is much older. Reads more like a manuscript from the mid 1800's.

Gone back to doing brush control exercises. There is one really big difference between doing these in oil instead of acrylics. When mixing the oil paint to the consistency I need it stays good for hours. Acrylics harden up quickly. Spent most of my time remixing. I can tell I let this go for a bit. My arm gets tired quickly again. 
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Offline cause the rat

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Re: A rat's journey into art. Acrylic paint.
« Reply #62 on: July 30, 2021, 02:57:33 pm »
Would like to change one statement from the above post. The oil point I've stet up for doing line study lasts for days. House makes it sound to close to acrylics. But I guess 96 hours is hours. However comparing that to a workable time of up to ten minutes is kinda understated.

This will be my last post in 'A rat's journey into art. Acrylic paint'. I'll start a new thread for oil painting. With paintings. And lots more to rant about. My journey so far. Watercolors: The paper and paint control you. One mistake and your threw. Acrylics: You have two choices. You have five minutes to paint the entire painting. Or Make mounds of paint so high you can cut through the already hardened plastic to the still workable paint below. Oils: You can control the drying time of the paint. You can sculpt by moving wet paint around. Had I known it was possible to paint with oils without all the toxic chemicals I would have started with them.

Thanks everyone for reading through all this. Looking forward to seeing everyone at the oil painting thread.

Cause the Rat.
It's been said that rats can gain access to your home by climbing up threw your toilet. I prefer to use the front door.