We had a fine time with painting images of flowers at Susan Allemand's studio. There were ten students, from beginners to professionals, and they did great. As I tell students, everyone starts where they are at.
We worked with Golden Liquid Acrylics on Roclon canvas, and we talked about how this combination worked especially well with painting flowers. Flower petals, for the most part, are transparent, tender forms, and watercolor paintings of flowers, because of this transparency, are especially effective. The techniques of watercolor....glazes, transparent levels of pigment...are easily transferable to working with acrylics on canvas....especially Golden Liquid Acrylics mixed with medium or water on Roclon canvas.
Roclon canvas doesn't need to be stretched before painting, and because of it's unique blend of cotton and polyester and texture, washes and glazes of acrylics go on beautifully. The artist has a choice to built texture and opaque paint if they wish.
The class tried some single blooms....roses and peonies first.....and some did bouquets later.
And some rugged individuals did palm trees! (It pleases me when I see people pushing in different directions.) I DO NOT teach splinter skills. These techniques are effective for many approaches and subjects...from abstract to figurative....flowers petals, water, glass and splashes of color with great marks. Try them all.
I get depressed and irked when students strive for a perfect copy of my work, take it home and put it on their website as their originals. First of all, they are not me and their body talks differently from my body. Secondly, it always looks like student work because....well, it does. No ifs ands or buts about it. Also, it crosses an ethical line.
Your creativity is a precious gift. If you never use it and continue to copy and copy, it will atrophy. If you use an age old motif, ie. an acanthus leaf border, somehow expand it to make it your own.
I also demonstrated how I created borders with acrylic metallic tube paint (more body) on Roclon. (Roclon doesn't fray) and mounted it with wallpaper paste on a rigid surface. With the right paste, you can remove the mural if you want after a few years without doing damage to either the mural or the wall. Another method is to attach grommets and hang the painting like a tapestry. Lori Wilson of Golden Acrylics showed me how to do that. Another tapestry look can be achieved by hanging the work over a painted dowel.
Transparency, layers of color, organic forms overlapping in subtle arrangements of color and shape and value. Sounds like a rose, doesn't it?
Name this Rose ©Jennifer M. Carrasco 9/23/42
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