During the process of making my first acrylic painting, I have read a few books about painting, including Dynamic Acrylics and Keys To Successful Landscape Painting. By doing my best to apply some principles, I have learnt that:
1. Group lights and dark to increase contrast. It is not really about the colors, but the contrast.
For example, I learnt that cool shadows to make the sunshine look warmer so I was less hesitant to add some very dark areas into the painting.
2. Make the focal point the tonal climax.
This is because viewers’ eyes go from great contrasts to areas with high tonal relationships and to the focal point of a picture. As a result, I intentionally include more values and tones in the three human figures and the dogs surrounding them.
3. Play!
I realized how much fun I had painting because it was my first time and I did not stress myself to create a masterpiece. As a result, I intuitively sprayed paint using a brush, grabbed a palette knife to apply paint, used my fingers to rub, and generally, not thinking much about what I would put on the painting.
Almost counterintuitively, I accomplished more thanks to that because I made a lot mistakes, which caused me to apply extra layers of paint. And according to my teacher, “the more layers you have, the more seductive your painting is.” So, I will remind myself to play the next time I pick up a brush or even a pencil.
Grape Le 