Two New Paintings!

I LOVE color, and am continually exploring it! I did this with liquid acrylics and inks on an 8x10 board. Many layers have been built up because I enjoy seeing depth in my paintings. When you see them in person, it actually looks like some colors are floating on top of others, and other colors recede. In this particular one, the parts that are glowing orange are actually gold pigment.





My favorite medium is liquid inks and liquid acrylics on YUPO. I also add a powdered gold pigment to a lot of my paintings. YUPO is a completely polyurethane 'paper' which has a, well, polyurethane or plastic-y (good word) feel. What this means is that it is absolutely non-absorbent and the only way for the inks to dry is for the liquid to evaporate. This makes it a difficult medium because you're at the mercy of the paint's movement while it's drying. On the other hand, your mixing-abilities and on-surface freedom are just crazy! It's also heavy and virtually indestructable, which means I can add many layers to get the effect I want. Many of my paintings have a number of layers, probably averaging between four and six. The downside here is that it has to be absolutely dry before the next layer is added, and you can only make one brushstroke in any give place, or you will lift the previous layers right up!

For the leaf, I used a nice board, I think Mona Lisa brand, but I'd have to check on that to make sure. It's small - 8x10. The boards also afford some layering and are really nice because you can hang them without bothering with framing. I give each one of my paintings two layers of archival UV spray varnish, and then I brush on an archival UV gloss varnish. These varnishes preserve the pigments from damaging UV rays by scattering them as they hit the painting. I brush on the liquid varnish in different directions to help with that; believe it or not, it makes a difference.

The ocean painting is on YUPO, and is 11x14. I use this size almost exclusively because it's a really perfect size once you mat and frame it. My ocean paintings individually take a lot less time to paint than others because I have to get them down quickly to capture the moment. However, I usually have to paint five or six of them to get one I LIKE! Nothing like a perfectionistic artist - sheesh!  My ocean paintings are layers of blues, violets, greens with iridescent greens and some pearlescent whites.


Let me know what you think of my paintings!