An Old Friend

During my diversion into watercolor, the acrylic paints were set aside. Occasionally, I added water to the palette so they wouldn’t dry out, but other than that they were ignored.

Yesterday morning and this morning, I pulled out the acrylics and it was like visiting with an old friend. The relationship felt both comfy and rusty and I felt both less in control and more in control. Mixing colors was much harder and just working with the acrylics felt unfamiliar. At the time time, in same way I can’t put into words, my understanding of the medium deepened or changed somehow and that came from working in a different medium. I don’t know if it’s simple as coming back to the medium with a fresh brain and less expectations or if it’s more than that. What I do know was that prior to taking a break from acrylics, I was in a rut. It was like running lap after lap on the same track, in the same way, in the same place, until there were deep grooves which preventing seeing other possibilities.

#348 - Pear - 6” x 6” - paper

I did both pears with a #10 brush. I want to work on my paint strokes. Too often, I think mine are big and blobby and could use more variety. Plus, playing with watercolor made me think about how to build shapes with paint strokes (and values) in a different way.

#349 - Pear - 6” x 6” - hardboard

This one is on hardboard, so I will keep it as a reminder of the great pear adventure of the last 30 days. For the rest of December, I am going to paint more on hardboard, since I haven’t done that for some time.