There's optimism in the air...can you feel it?

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Humanity can withstand and grow regardless of the circumstances we experience.  It's been a long pandemic period and slowly, like new shoots in Spring, we celebrate small positive changes, while maintaining caution in our environment.

I have taken time to train my covid pup and contemplate the many changes.  We all have.  There was a long period of imbalance where my creativity ceased.  Then little traces of optimism  sparked and new ideas started to flow.  Perhaps you feel this process in your own life and find yourself moving towards enthusiasm.  I'm painting now and would like to share my thoughts, process, and outcomes in monthly updates.  Here we

This is a good painting to display with all the recent cold,snowy weather here in Portland.  As an Oregon-inspired painter I captured this scene up in the Cascade Lakes outside Bend.
Yes, I have put my transparent watercolors away for now and am experimenting with another water-based paint medium:  acrylics.

It's interesting to me that acrylic paints are still new on the art scene compared to oil paints or watercolors.  First developed in the 1940's as house paint (!) this synthetic paint became popular with artists so manufacturers improved methods by adding richer pigments.  This resulted in a paint that produced the sharp effects of oil paints (with much less drying time) and soft effects like watercolor, and became popular and versatile with artists working in  mixed media and experimentation.  Pop artist Andy Warhol,  for example, explored acrylic's with his famous Cambell Soup Can.  The future of acrylics continues to unfold but it's clear that it has become an important  and powerful medium in the evolution of the visual arts.

​Acrylic paintings do not need glass protection as watercolor paintings do, so there is no glare, which I like. Plus, one of the biggest benefits of acrylic paints are the intense saturation of colors, what joy!

In both paintings you can see the opague and sheer/transparent effects of the paint, both created by the amount of water with the pigments.  In my watercolor paintings I would pencil in the sketch on the paper but now use a small flat brush to make small marks on the canvas for guidance.   Next month I'll talk more about this...how I start, progress though, and finish a painting.

Have a blessed January.

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