Donkeyblog

I’m getting close now. Hopefully I can have this finished by next weekend.

I’m starting to get used to these paints now. The slow-drying does make the whole painting process take a bit longer. I have to wait for certain areas to dry even to work on other areas because I can’t rest my hand in the wet areas.

I have now started painting:

Getting this far took me much longer than I expected. I am using these new paints called Golden Open Acrylics, and it is taking some time to get used to them. The advantage is that they dry very slowly, so it’s easier to blend colors and make smooth gradients. What’s difficult for me, though, is that because it dries so slowly,  you can’t put colors on top of each other without mixing them. I have to be careful not to make a big muddy mess. I’m starting to get the hang of it, so hopefully, it will go a little faster now.

I haven’t had a lot of time to work on this, so it may not even look much different than it did after the first day. I am done with the pencil sketch, at least:

I’m finding pros and cons to drawing on the gesso board as opposed to plain illustration board. On one hand, the graphite stays completely on the surface, so it can be completely erased, if necessary. That is helpful. On the other hand, the hard surface wears away at the pencil pretty quickly, and it’s difficult to have complete control of tiny lines without a good point. And since I have to keep sharpening it, I am burning through this pencil pretty quickly. I am also expecting it to smudge a lot if I have to lean on any parts of the drawing. When I start the painting, I’ll see if the gesso is helpful. I’m guessing it might be beneficial not to lose that first layer of paint. On plain illustration board, it soaks in. We’ll see.