Learning with Acrylic landscape paintings
In many ways, contemporary artists working with acrylics are at the forefront of painters, producing extraordinary and unusual works.
If we combine the principles of classical painting with the new modern materials of acrylic painting, we create a method of painting that is both easy enough for beginners to achieve pleasing results and easy enough for experienced artists to keep learning.
If you want to talk about success stories in the medium of modern art, look no further than your next acrylic paintbrush. It was the medium of choice for leading 20th-century artists such as Andy Warhol and Mark Rothko. It puts thousands (and counting!) of contemporary artists on the path to excellence.
If you're surrounded by a lot of nature, try hiking to local scenic spots, or take your easel with you the next time you have a chance to travel. Artists are often inspired by the surrounding landscape, so painting in different places is a great way to broaden your horizons.
One of the best things about landscape painting is that you can experiment with different perspectives. Consider the composition of your composition before you start, and make some compositional sketches so you can decide how to arrange elements to achieve exact proportions.
One of the best things about landscape painting is that you can add people or animals to the scene to create more interesting compositions. This can add a sense of scale and provide an eye-catcher for viewers. When drawing people in a landscape, make sure they are small enough that they don't dominate the scene. You can draw a group of people in the foreground or a single person in the distance.
Branching out into Oil Pastels
It all begins with an idea.
I’ve been hitting a wall creatively with watercolours recently, as I lack confidence in my technical skills, and get frustrated with the outcomes as a result. Now, I love creating and I do enjoy putting in the effort to learn new techniques and develop my skills, but I don’t want making art to become a negative process. That means I have to know when to pull back and gain a different perspective on creating.
Changing the medium I’m using always seems to do the trick! While working with watercolours I tend to get caught up in the details and realism, so when I picked up oil pastels the thick crayons made it so I had to let go of the small details and instead focus on the large shapes. I also love how pigmented and vibrant the colours are! Something I don’t get with my watercolours.
Blooming Tulips
One of the first oil pastel pieces I did! You can see how flat the drawing is, and how it comes across as more of an illustration, which was so new and fun to me!
I started out by drawing flower still lifes, very simple and flat drawings that have an illustrative feel to them. I then branched out into landscapes and got more comfortable with layering the colours, blending the elements together and adding depth and dimension to the pieces. I feel like I can now draw just about anything in pastels!
What started as a creative outlet to re-invigorate me turned into a whole new obsession! I now have just as many oil pastel paintings as I do watercolour paintings!
So if you’re in an art block and in need of a change of pace artistically, try picking up a new medium (it doesn’t have to be professional quality, these pastels were $1 a piece! $26 for the set!), you never know how it will affect your art making!