Oooo hello! Who are you? Wigeon

My latest acrylic. Bit of a hard slog, this one. So much detail. I was getting sick of the sight of the thing towards the end. Had it not been for lockdown, I would may be have finished this sometime by the end of May. Post processing in FastStone might have made it a tad dark. It's hard to tell on my laptop.

An A3 print will, as usual, be winging its way to both the RSPB and David Shepherd Organisation. Possibly this coming week or the next. They have skeleton staff working at their respective head quarters, but I doubt they will be able to do much until lockdown is lifted.

  • Very nice, Angus, I can see how much detail there is in it. Full of admiration of someone can produce work like that..

    Don't forget if you label it before you send it off, there's no  "d" in Wigeon. Grin

  • Thank you, Tony. Post title dutifully edited. Your reply did spur me on to try figure how to edit my posts. Finally discovered the edit option under the More option.
  • A quick update.

    I have not sent a print of this painting to The Lodge. Instead, I have been asked to hang onto it until nearer the end of this year where it will be available at the Nature of Scotland awards; Covid-19 and lockdown restrictions permitting.

    As this is such a special event I'll probably push the boat out and frame it in an Ikea frame: partly to keep postage costs down, but mainly as only a small handful of courier companies will transport glass. The Ikea frame comes with clear acrylic sheet; which ParcelForce will handle, and I can afford.
  • If you hadn't said it was a paining, I would have said you had taken a cracking photo. You certainly have the eye for detail and great patience to get it right
  • That painting is amazing Angus, just started using acrylic paints myself recently. I'm blown away by how much detail you've put in the picture, as others have said its like a photograph.
  • Hello Jill,

    I converted from watercolours to acrylic. An interesting exercise, which I still haven't cracked. I started off using acrylics the same way I painted with watercolour, even though I knew that you could put light colours (e.g. white) on top of dark colours.

    I still instinctively paint as a watercolourist, but eventually start layering light on top of dark.

    I use a combination of inks (Liquitex, mainly. Not entirely sure I like Daler Rowney inks), but also more heavy body acrylics e.g. Pebeo, Daler Rowney System 3, etc. I have to water down the latter to the consistency of watercolours.

    I do miss the ability to re-disolve watercolours on a painting. What I hated about watercolours is that when applying another coat of watercolour to an existing coat, invariably the existing coat lifted! Acrylics do not lift.
  • I quite enjoy using acrylic paints, though I am still getting used to them. They dry a lot quicker than oil paints which I used to use. I did try watercolours but found I was really hit and miss mixing the paint, I would end up too frustrated in the end. I tell you what else is quite good and that's oil pastels, absolutely love using those.