Owl Be Around

"Owl Be Around"

6x6 inches, acrylic on birch

Genre: animals

©Theresa Taylor Bayer, 2015

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At present with all my caregiving responsibilities, I'm doing a series of small studies. This allows me to keep improving my skills and provides inspiration for future projects. 

Work in Progress: Fairy on a Frog

The Fairy is a clay figure I made, and the Frog is part of my plastic animals collection. Here you can see the first 3 stages of this painting.

©Theresa Taylor Bayer, 2015

Title: Work in Progress: Fairy on a Frog
Genre: Fantasy
Medium: Acrylic
Size: 8x10

Treasure Map: The finished painting

"Treasure Map" Size: 10x8 inches. Medium:  acrylic on canvas.  Genre: Fantasy.  ©Theresa Bayer

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I went back to the original violet oxide underpainting; I really like that color. The face got changed because the painting insisted on looking like the model. You can't argue with a painting. It will beat you every time.

This might be called a spiritual quest. The frogs represent earthly concerns; the butterfly represents the spirit. One of the frogs is wearing a locket, and a key is dangling from her hat. This means that spiritual and earthly concerns are intermingled.

Treasure Map: Work in Progress

"Treasure Map" Work in Progress. Size: 10x8.  Medium: acrylic on canvas. Genre: Fantasy.
The face is finished, and hopefully the hand, although it may need a little pink added. Yup, that's a frog on her hat, but it's artificial, so it's not very heavy. The butterfly, however, is real. The butterfly is offering to lead her to the correct place to dig. The frog, being artificial, is entirely useless in that regard.

Food for Thought

"Food for Thought" 8x8 inches, acrylics on illustration board. Genre, fantasy.

The painting started out smaller, but it was too small to frame, so I glued it onto another illustration board, thereby adding a border. It can be framed as is, without glass. Note the heart shaped by the bird's head, the girl's elbow, and the greenery to the side of her.

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BTW I'm starting a campaign to get artists credited, especially when people share paintings on Facebook. Feel free to use this... it's signed. Or make your own and sign it. Writers get credited when they are quoted. Let's have the same respect for artists!

What's the Buzz?

"What's the Buzz?" Medium: Acrylic on panel. Size, 5x7 inches. Genre, nature. This was from the "insects" challenge on Daily Paintworks. I don't usually paint straight realism; I depend heavily on my imagination to create an interesting image. So it's a stretch for me just to keep it simple. Done from a photo I took at Zilker Gardens, Austin TX.

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Watercolor Mind and Canvas Resurfacing

In an effort to keep my acrylic paintings fresh, I approach them with what I call "Watercolor Mind." Watercolors can easily be overdone and become muddy, so the artist must know when to quit working on a passage.  My college watercolor professor Michael Frary used to say that a passage in watercolor could only be painted over twice without risk of becoming muddy.

With acrylics, it's a different story; passages can be painted over several times without harming the painting too much. For the perfectionist, this creates the problem of not knowing when to quit. Even though acrylics allow more chances to paint over an area than watercolors, freshness can be lost. Repeated layers of paint can cause the surface of the canvas to become slick and difficult to paint on. Despite the extra leeway, the best way to approach a forgiving medium like acrylics (or oils) is still to make freshness a priority.

However, if you do end up with slick areas on an acrylic painting, there is a remedy. These passages can be resurfaced using acrylic modelling paste and a coarse brush. Allow to dry completely before painting over it.  Note: this resurfacing method cannot be used with oils.

WIP Back yard underpainting grisaille

This is what I've done so far:

1. I put a "velatura" over the entire painting, of zinc white plus glaze medium. This this translucent layer of white pulls the darks up into medium value range, making the contrast very subtle. Use zinc white, because it's transparent. Do not use titanium white. It's too opaque. In some parts of the painting you can still see this, such as the cat's face.

2. Then, a faint green glaze over the entire piece, wiping off parts of it like the bird, the cat, and the little dragon.

3. I started in on the tree trunk, glazing greens and reds over it, and darkening parts of it. I also put some highlights on the tree trunk with zinc white, impasto.

4. There is a very thin glaze of magenta on the bird. Also the squirrel has been lightened up with some white/gray impasto.

You can go back and forth with thin glazes and impasto. For glazing with acrylics, I use

Matisse "Flow" acrylics (the Jerry's house brand) or Liquitex soft body. I like the Golden glazing medium because it dries slowly and allows you time to smooth in and wipe off an over-all glaze. I also like the Liquitex glaze mediums for glazes that don't have to be smoothed so much or wiped, because these mediums dry fast.

NOTE: Acrylics dry darker, so I add very little color to my glaze medium.

For more about velaturas, read "How to Paint Like the Old Masters" by Joseph Sheppard. He's talking about oils, so you'll have to translate it into acrylics. But it works the same way, to put a velatura over the finished underpainting, and also paint back and forth using impasto for highlights, and thin glazes.

Frog ACEO bottle magic prince TBARTS original acrylic painting

"Princely Spirits" ACEO, 2.5 x 3.5 inches miniature, acrylics on illo board

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This Frog is eyeing the bottle, thinking maybe, just maybe...it might work some royal magic for him. Should he take a swig?

"Tears for Captain Onion" Lady Ship Sea TBARTS

"Tears for Captain Onion" 5x7 acrylics on Everlast panel

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Inspired by Carol Marine's onion paintings, I decided to try my hand at onions. So I slipped one into my Funny Hat series. Then I added the ship, then the tear, and lo! a story seemed to loom on the horizon.

Her dress is done like an onion, and the earring and the moon echo the onion theme. I did find the onion challenging to paint, but it sure was fun and I'm ready to go again. I'm planning one with a red onion.

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Reflections

"Reflections" 11x14 acrylic on canvas panel.
I'm in this painting group on Fridays--affectionately known as "Hell's Easels"-- and run by Austin artist Eve Larson. The group features a clothed model in a long pose. This time our model brought in her vanity table from home and posed with it. She even had some perfume bottles to complete the picture (I ended up not painting the bottles, but they were really nice bottles).
From where I was standing, I couldn't see our model's reflection in the mirror; it was blank. I wanted to include a reflection of her, but do something different, so I put it looking back from the wrong direction. To balance the composition, I added a landscape with a river, and the river also has the model's profile.

I was very pleased with the colors from this painting. It's a limited palette: cadmium red light, yellow ochre, cadmium yellow light, ultramarine blue, black, and white. I used a lot of dry brush and the painting has a similar look to a pastel painting.

To photograph this painting, I used a flat bed scanner. I scanned the painting in 2 halves, and put the 2 halves together in photoshop. I had to adjust the colors on the 2 halves, using levels, to match them perfectly. There was still a seam, so I blended it using the blur tool, and textured over it to match the canvas texture. Even though this may seem like a lot of work, scanning a painting gives great results, so I'm happy with it.