Acrylic Painting on Location
by Donald A. Jusko
donjusko@realcolorwheel.com
Nahiku Porch
22x15, acrylic on panel
Well it was a cool rainy day here in Nahiku, the rain pouring from
the corrugated metal roof
caught my eye and I knew I found my next painting.
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First, because the light is cool I'll need the coolest yellow I have
in acrylics, Hansa Yellow. I also see a yellow medium so I'm choosing a
translucent Yellow Medium Azo. Looking hard I see Cobalt Blue is the dominant
middle color and the shadows are made with Thalo Blue. That would mean
load up the opposites also with Cadmium Red and Orange, Burnt Sienna. Ultramarine
Blue is all over the place so I need it and Burnt Umber.
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| Second I draw the big picture with a wax free pastel. Before starting to paint I brushed off the painting with a small feather duster, that's four macaw feathers tied together. This took all of the first day, 6 hours. |
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| This is the second day, painting over the chalk lines and washing the picture clean. After it was dry hee hee. I went over the chalk lines with an Isabey #12 extra long sable pointed hair, round ferrule. A scrubby kitchen pad did any erasing of dried paint I had to do. |
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| This is the most fun stage of the painting, in oil I would rag in the colors, in acrylics I wash in the first colors with a filbert sable squashed down water color brush. In watercolors it would be with a 5" elephant ear sponge. I'll get my first 100% of coverage with this brush plus a 1/4 inch round ferrule, flat end hair lettering brush, a rigger. |
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My friend gave me this nice bottle of 10 year old wine that we broke out to start painting. I thought it would be a nice touch to put it in the picture. |
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| Day four, Geez, I look at it and can't believe I spent another eight hours on it. Contrasts are what I was working on mostly. Before I started I rubbed my hand over the surface and removed any bump particles of pigment. Oh yea, the bottle of wine and glass, they took a couple of hours. I got most of the white spaces in and made new ones. |
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| Day five, Today was a cleanup day. Painting with white and darks I corrected everything I could see that was wrong. The brushes I used for this detailed work were a Langnickel set. Red sable, round ferrule, flat end hair, Series #167, #6 and #8, and a series 164 "Shorty" #4. This style brush is very good for long strokes of an even width, just right for making new edges and correcting old ones. |
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| Day five, after the cleanup came the chalk redrawing, this picture shows the chalk work, white chalk this time. Brush it off with a feather again before painting or you won't get an even stroke. |
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| Day 6, everything is finished except for the rain pouring from the roof. I have to leave the area today, my sister is coming to visit me here on Maui. |
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Here's the final painting 22x30, I still have to add the rain drops.
| These are the tools I can't do without. The scrubby, feather duster, straight edge not shown, brass brush for cleaning brushes, 1" sponge USA brush. The brush on the left is the squashed water color brush made into a filbert. |
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The sunny day photo |
The rainy day photo |
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