Every weekend Daniel Smith Art Supplies offers free demos from local artists. I’ve been to several including demos on oils, encaustic and acrylics. They are really informative, especially for me since I am mostly self taught. The thing that’s nice is that I get reassured that what I’m doing is right and I also learn some new techniques. I get insight on details of applications that really help.
Today’s demo called ACRYLIC: Painting on Pre-Textured Canvas and was taught by Washington artist Jennifer Bowman. She was really informative. For my mixed media panels that I’ve been working on lately, I often lay down some sort of texture whether it’s in the form of molding paste, collaged papers, or a thick gel medium, etc. But I’m always up for learning something new or seeing a familiar medium used in a different way.
I am really glad I went. Since switching from oils my biggest complaint with acrylics is that they dry too fast for me. It drives me nuts! But she went over some of her techniques of painting wet on wet and using a spray bottle to wet the canvas. I had never thought of that! duh. I also feel that nothing compares to the vibrancy of oils. But her paintings proved me wrong. I have a lot of experimenting to do now on my own.
I still miss oils, but now I am excited to try out some of the new things that I picked up today.
Check out her Web site above. Her poppies are just so vibrant.
It’s strange to realize that we were probably both at Daniel Smith at the same time, but didn’t see each other since you were in the class. I was there buying some supplies.
Her work is vibrant and full of movement.Very nice.
That’s so funny, angela, that we were there at the same time! How crazy!