Artwork Slideshow

Goldfish Painting, Finishing Touches

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Underpainting

   Underpainting is basically adding an opaque color to the base of the painting; much like building the foundation of a building before constructing the building itself. Usually a thin layer of white is added to the pre-draw on the canvas. Just filling in the spaces and outlining the lines. Then you can layer on other colors, mostly blue or purple to show lighting. The final layer is the real colors of the subject. Experiment with underpainting and it can transform amateurish paintings into a bit more like the professional ones.

Translucent and Opaque

  Without an underpainting, acrylics can become translucent a bit. Like the colors yellow, pink, and blue can all become quite translucent. Great for painting windows and glass, but maybe not so much when it comes to painting other subjects. To fix this problem you can add an opaque color to the translucent color, like adding white to yellow or black to blue. The color will change, so if a change in color is not of your preference then be sure to do an underpainting. I will explain underpainting in the next post.

Texture

    Acrylic Paint is well known for it's outstanding texture. You can use acrylic paint to add texture to bark on trees, rocks in riverbeds, grass, and leaves. Acrylic can also be very smooth, just add a bit of water or acrylic medium and you'll be able to create smooth, gentle strokes perfect for painting the portrait or adding smaller details to a painting.