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  • Annie Troe

Behind the Scenes: Acrylic Under Painting Tips


Hey Happy Campers!

Showing some more process photos of my brand new Birdie Bunch Collection. A few weeks ago I did an overview behind the scenes post of the first 4 paintings in this collection. The bird painting are created on 8x8 canvas panels from Michaels, using Liquitex heavy body paint and my trusty and favorite palette knife from Blick Art Materials.

To under paint or not to under paint, that is the question

I under painted white and gray on the Goldfinch painting at the top of this post. I didn't do any under painting for the blue jay above. Why?

Well first, I want to mention that I used a bright brush and not a palette knife for the white and gray under painting to speed things up and keep it smooth. (Bright brush is a shorter hair flat brush). I didn't have to under paint the branch white, I was on a roll and kept going :)

The blue colors I used for the blue jay and the white and black are very opaque colors. That means they cover other colors well. So on the orange cream cycle background the blues/black & white cover beautifully. Now for the gold finch above, I used primarily cadmium yellow light hue which is a translucent color. It takes only one - two coats to cover the white under painting. It may take several more coats (and time) if I didn't under paint. I didn't need to under paint the black wings on the gold finch, but I thinned the black to get more depth and some of the gray to show through. Besides, the grayscale version of the gold finch looks kinda neato.

I uploaded a 1 minute time lapse video of a new Halloween painting I am working on that you might like :)

Follow me on Twitter, Facebook & Instagram, links at bottom of the page. If your are an Art Director / Manufacturer / Retailer you can see the entire collection on ArtLicensingShow.com (you can join for free).

Are you an acrylic painter? Share your experience :-) Looking forward to your comments below - So great to connect with you! Spread Joy Today!

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