Creative Whim

Let me start out by saying that I have never taken an Acrylic Painting class; I really don't know what I am doing, besides the few times I have been brave enough to grab a paintbrush and play.

I guess that's my thing... I would say I am more "brave" than I am artistic, lol. I have never made a "masterpiece" by professionals' standpoints, but I love to play with paint and new mediums. I absolutely love paintings with lots of layers and textures and have always wanted to try one out.

I saw a tutorial a long time ago on how to add texture to a painting and the approach that this guy took was really cool so I have always wanted to give it a try. So, last night my courage built up and I took a wack at it. Lets just say that what I produced was NOTHING like the instructors, nor was it ANYTHING like I have hoped it would come out looking like.

That being said, its growing on me and I think I like it...

The first step was to get some joint compound at the hardware store. This proved to be harder than I thought when the guy at the store gave me spackling instead. I didn't realize this until after I started the painting; I was not a happy camper! Stupid hardware store guy! ugh.... I was not off to a good start.

After getting the spackling smoothed out on the canvas as good as I could (joint compound would have laid a LOT smoother so I had to overcome the "crumbles" that spackling would make) I was able to add some texture. I used lots of random things from around the house like a spatula, pine cone, one of Avery's teething rings (don't worry i through it away after I used it, lol), a garlic press, and doilies, etc. I was a bit disappointed with the way the spackling took the textures, also; they were not as deep and pronounced as I would have liked. Oh well.

Here is a pic of just the texture:

Once this dried overnight I was able to add some color. I had originally planned on doing layers of color, letting the dry in between applications and then wiping away where I wanted the under color to show. Due to the consistency of the spackling, it was not as firm as joint compound would have been, or smooth, so I just started adding a bunch of colors all at once.

At first I was really hating it. The man in the tutorial made it look SO MUCH easier and the paint glided on so smoothly. It was very frustrating. But, after working with it for a while and going back 15 million times to add a little here and a little there, I decided I had done all I could do and it was as good as it was going to get.

The picture really doesn't do it justice... Well, to some they might think the picture is better than in person, lol. What is kind of a dark blue here is more of a purple; it's mainly greenish/blue and purple.

I love the colors and I had fun making it. I would really like to try it again, though with the right materials and see if it makes a difference.

I know where I am going to hang it, I just need a beautiful frame to make it look better than it is ;).