Get my hand dirty with acrylic

some thoughts on my approach with acrylic illustration

Hello Friends: I have been trying out acrylic recently, and here I would like to write about my process of approaching this type of art materials.

Learning from the great artists

As I mentioned in my previous post, I have travel to Japan this summer. There are so many great Japanese artists that inspired me a lot. Among them is the awesome ミロコマチコ. I immediately drew into her loose and free artwork. She use acrylic as one of her main medium. therefore I came back to my own studio want to create something with acrylic

I know acrylic is something quite different from watercolor or gouache, it relies on many layers. As I observe the art of ミロコマチコ, I can vaguely see the underlying color. for example in the art of sheep, the underlying color is ——black, and the upper paint is completely opposite one —white. in this way, the illustration create a interesting texture. As I start to dig deeper with this materials, I find another wonderful artist: Simone Rea.

you can search his acrylic painting process on youtube, he gives an such good example and made a very clear step by step tutorial .

After watching his video many times, I am now ready to get my own hands dirty.

Sketch book as my experimenting field

My first attempt is to use very light watercolor and try out my color palette, however, It can not reveal the essence of acrylic paint, which is coloring in multiple layers .

so very soon ,I started to paint again and again. and noted down what is my color choice in each layer. surprisingly , the underlying color is very important. although acrylic is famous for its capability to cover up. I find out that the first layer of color will always affect the overall color tone. another fun trick I would like to share is that: when acrylic is not completely dry, you can actually use a pointy stick to draw, get rid of some of the paint on the surface, because the bottom layer is very dry, you will be able to see the color of the bottom layer. I use this method to create my rock. I am quite happy with the orange color behind the black paint.

My final art

my final art is the little lion roar in a beautiful morning . the bottom layer I use orange, andon the top I use white paint. so overall the scene is bright and you can see some hint of orange color behind. this might be like the beam of sunshine.

I am adding some details in procreate, creating some more birds. I hope you like this piece~ and started to try out acrylic yourself !