Painting is messy. There is water, a whole lot of color mixing, and timing contraints because of quickly drying paints. And there is something about holding a brush that I just find uncomfortable.
I chose pastels a long time ago because of the brighter colors, not having to mix, the minimal setup/cleanup and necessary space, and their dry nature. The choice was based on practicality rather than personal taste. I do not know if pastels also happened to be my favoite medium, or if I convinced myself they had to be.
Pastels are still my favorite. But now I want to learn how to use acrylics because of similar practical reasoning. Pastels are delicate and are easy to store, but hard to display. Being able to throw something on the wall and not worry about storage or expensive framing would be great, and painting with acrylics would let me do that.
I noticed I do not know how to paint, therefore I do not know if I dislike it (as I had been saying). So I am giving it a fair shot.
So far, I have learned that my expectations were right: I find holding a brush extremely awkward, but I think I can get used to it.
I also learned that color mixing is not as intimidating as I thought. It is hard to mix the right color and even more so to replicate one. But that ends up not being a problem. What happens is that I attempt to mix a color for a certain area and it ends up being completely different from what was in my head. I stare hard at it and decide to use it somewhere else, or tweak it until it is usable somewhere, anywhere in the painting. I've found these odd patches of color everywhere are good for making the painting interesting without too much conscious intent. I wonder how this will change when I actually get enough practice to mix the colors as they are in my mind or the reference picture.
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| In Progress |
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