Some Chit Chat

I've been painting all my life. Its second nature to me. So when my neighbor told me she had started attending a painting class and wanted to know what medium I was using I kind of realized its not second nature to everyone. She began a class for oils and hated the smell and hated how it really didn't dry and wasn't very forgiving. I told her why not try acrylics since that is mainly what I use these days and she looked at me like I said a dirty word. No! They are not at all forgiving....my instructor said so. Well, to all those who think acrylic is cheesy, or unforgiving, or anything else I can tell you its a wonderful medium. As for drying quickly, you can stop that by keeping a spray bottle of water around and one other little trick that has saved me tons of expensive paint. I use a Sta-Wet Palette. It is a plastic box with a tight-fitting lid. It comes with a thin sponge on the bottom that you wet and then put a palette paper on top of that. Fill it with paints as you would any other palette. Occasionally spray it with water when you feel its getting too dry and always keep the lid on it when not in use. I go weeks and weeks with the same acrylic paint in that box. When you clean it, use some bleach to keep any mold from forming.

Don't be afraid to try any medium...watercolor, oils, acrylics, pastels, pencils, graphite. Each one has a charm and some magic all its own. If anybody is reading my blog and has questions, please don't hesitate to ask.

....and here's a graphite I did for a monthly offering from a group of artists who call this the Nibblefest Art Contest. On the 20th of each month we put an auction up on Ebay (the topic is different each month) and we start all of our offerings at only 99 cents. This month's topic is "portraits" so I did a scene with Gene Tierney and Rex Harrison from my favorite film "The Ghost and Mrs. Muir". This is a 5 X 7 inch on Bristol paper:

Link to this Auction