i’m making the switch from oils to acrylics. i’m using golden’s open acrylics, which are supposed to simulate the feel of oils, but fall short. everything from the fluidity to the smell is off.
but there are upsides. paintbrushes can now be cleaned with water instead of turpentine, and the lack of authentic smell also means a lack of the bad-for-my-brain chemicals. this is also a benefit for the cat and the husband who often accompany me in the studio.
my favourite feature is the unbelievably fast dry time. there’s no next-day stickiness, even with sap green and yellow ochre. most of it is even dry enough to work on top of within several hours, and i’m finishing smaller paintings in record time. i have yet to take on any large scale pieces with the acrylics, but imagine that will be the ultimate test. until then, i’m hanging onto my gamblin oils, just in case.
over the holiday break, i completed a mural in our second floor bathroom. it’s an intimate space, and the mural ended up wrapping around three of the room’s four walls.
mural painting is, of course, very different from the paintings on canvas i typically do, and i often found myself sore in the mornings from the previous day’s contortions. aside from the difference in scale and mobility, i worked in acrylic housepaint, a much faster drying medium than the oil paints i’m used to.
as far as being finished, i doubt the mural is. i envision myself revising and adding creatures over time, aiming for that ever-elusive perfection.
lastly, i was kind enough to document my work throughout the process, so enjoy the timelapse video:
with over one hundred engagement photos, five hundred wedding photos, and two thousand honeymoon photos to show off, it hardly seems right to do one simple “we’re married!” entry and be done with it. so here’s the start of a series of posts, beginning a handful of engagement pictures taken by my good friend and talented photographer, june.
alberto cerriteño never fails to impress. his latest creations that have me drooling: two paper-cut scenes from where the wild things are. the pieces will be showing at the nucleus gallery september 19th through october 6th.
this is the girl who made my absolutely amazing wedding dress. she too is absolutely amazing.
now it’s my turn to make something fabulous for her: a portfolio site. what’s up now is a placeholder while hans and i are off galavanting about the eastern mediterranean. i’ll post again when the real bit goes live.
the lesser known alice will be showing for a month at zero zero, with a closing reception thursday, 9 july.
as i wrap up the pieces, my mind churns with thought. by monday’s install, i will have completed a series of sixteen drawings and nearly twenty framed sketches for this show. the equation looks something like this:
two months - forty plus hours per week - wedding planning time = studio time
pushing myself for this show has done nothing but raised my ambition, which mostly takes away from my time sleeping, but also leaves me little time to enjoy seattle’s beautiful weather. along with the drawings for ‘through the looking glass’, i’m also working on a piece for a show in portland and five more for one in texas [dfw]. exhausting, perhaps, but more invigorating than anything.
as if the pending deadlines weren’t enough, i’m also experimenting with acrylics and custom toy painting, both together and separately. more on that soon.
for now i must hide the charcoal stains and assume my secret identity.
