This lesson is dedicated to some practices that help develop a painting with expression and perhaps with a little flourish!

Painting thick over thin

There’s a maxim in oil painting: “Thick over Thin”. The same principle can be applied to acrylic painting – start with washy paint and build up to the thicker stuff. This is quite important with oils because, as the paint dries unevenly, the surface can become unstable: cracking, milkiness, separation….you name it, none of it is good. Acrylics are perhaps more tolerant to cracking, however I want to talk about why “Thick over Thin” also makes sense from an image point of view.

Developing your painting with expression

A thinly painted work can look unfinished, perhaps somewhat watercolourish. This is particularly true if white space is still evident. During the layout stage, image problems are solved and there is not too much to worry about in the paint surface. As key aspects of the image become established, the paint surface becomes important and generally, thick paint, decisively applied, creates painterly effects that are irreplaceable. Here are a few common threads in my painting:

1. Paint lights more thickly and expressively than darks.
2. Use the fewest brush strokes, with a largish brush wherever possible.
3. With each stroke, limit brush movement – apply – modify and leave it be. This is good advice for palette knife painting too!
4. Propagate effects that work – that is, when you like an effect, protect it and replicate it (sometimes easier said than done, I grant you).
5. Attempt to turn errors into opportunities before suppressing or eliminating them – it’s invariably easier to use something than cover it up in it’s entirety.
6. The effect of an image is often about the absence of “wrong” rather than the “correctness” of anything.
7. Thinly painted backgrounds rarely work – I often restate backgrounds with thicker paint, often matching the previous colour application.
8. Take a photo before getting the impasto going – then in a pinch, you can retrieve any effects that might be lost.
9. If in doubt, stop.
10. Really, STOP.

Impasto painting – adding colour on sunflowers

In the following video, I add colour and impasto effects onto an already-formed image.

Exercises

1. With the experience you’ve gained through the course to date, revisit the early brushwork exercise and now see how many different types of brushstroke you can devise with a single brush …. and plenty of paint.
2. Following your foundation painting, put out (say) 4 times as much paint as you might think you need.  Apply paint to your areas of focus without moving the brush back and forward – as much a practical, use a single brush motion.

Tips

• Make some practice strokes on the side first.
• Have a rag and water close at hand – with acrylics, mistakes can often be removed when you get to the brushstroke immediately.
• Optionally, mix in some gel medium to give your paint extra body.
• Go slowly and pause to see the effect you are creating.