ARTIZAN ACEO - Brush with care

PHOTO OF PAINTING

ARTIZAN
ORIGINAL ACEO BY SEA DEAN
3.5" x 2.5"
On Auction


To view my Gallery or purchase this painting please visit Daily Paintworks. Larger originals or prints may be available by contacting me. You may also view ALL my available ACEO in my Facebook Gallery here.

I've drawn many figures in my time but I used to struggle with painting them, especially with Acrylic. Acrylic paint dries fast and has a tendency to create hard edges as it dries. I'm learning though. A prime example of portraiture is of course Leonardo's Mona Lisa and you can see there isn't a hard edge to be seen in her features.

Part of my learning process is adding a few key colours of GOLDEN OPEN which is a slow drying professional Acrylic paint. In the beginning I didn't like the runny consistency of OPEN, which seems to get everywhere, but when it's combined with more structured paint like HEAVY BODY LIQUITEX, they moderate each other. OPEN encourages the HEAVY BODY to dry at a more leisurely pace and HEAVY BODY thickens OPEN to a more buttery consistency.

SCAN OF PAINTING

Another part of the process is placing each brush stroke with care and precision. I've always admired Artist who have a loose style, because my natural style comes from my graphic design days of precise and hard edges. I've spent many hours working on looseness, but with portraiture precision is the key. In the last few months I've managed to combine loose style with precise brush strokes and it must be working because I love the last few portraits and I'm not spending a whole day on a figurative ACEO like I used to.

The original image for this painting was taken by a friend, Bob Jones, on a trip to Peru. I felt a real connection while painting her. Here I was, an Artizan working in pigment and there she was, an Artizan working in textile. That's what I love most about portrait painting, the human connection which erases all barriers of language, race, status etc. 


Cat 13197 Artizan