Beach Scene: miniature acrylic canvas

I am still going strong with these miniatre canvases, only one this week but the group had an influx of fourn new members and I had a little "admin" to take care of. A small group, even smaller than us, had decided to wind up as it was difficult for them to pay their Hall rental. Still wanting to paint every week they had decided to ask if they could join us. We of course were delighted to welcome them into our fold, as it eases the financial issues for us of course.

Anyway back to the point of this posting, an empty beach with a stand of trees in the near distance. there should have been a couple of bathers but I am still wondering how to best depict them on such a small scale. I may pluck up courage next time and will update the image if I do.

The one thing that I have to say about this image id the overall lack of contrasts of tone. Colour contrasts are fine but we all know that tonal contrasts are what makes the image zing. I toned down the beach and the clouds and am unhappy. Here again, I will be trying to make up for this. Something that can be done in acrylic I am happy to say. Maybe I had other things on my mind.

What do you think?

So there it is: more tonal contrast on the beach and in the clouds and a couple of bathers in the mid-distance. Shouldn't be too much to ask?

I think I now have enough of these to write a Squidoo lens on the subject. My experience with a new medium and how I approached painting miniatures. Why not? Oh and yes they will be going up for sale sometime soon, just trying to settle on a selling price - or in the case of Ebay an opening bid. I will be posting results when (and if) I sell my first miniature canvas.

Two more acrylic miniatures on canvas, ATC size

I really am finding these fun, lost my sense of time tonight at the art group and all the tables disappeared around me whilst I finished the second of the two paintings - in a hurry; can you guess which one it was? I will touch it up later, something that you couldn't do with watercolour.

just a quick post to put up the two paintings tonight. Here they are. One is a generic and the other is from a work in the lake district which I used as a reference.

Running out of the miniature canvases, will have to see if I can get some more.

One of the members at the club tonight was painting a very large oil painting about 10-12 times larger than my miniatures, I very nearly suffered an inferiority complex. However he was kind enough to praise my work so all's well that ends well, LOL

Autumn - acrylic, miniature paintings

Oh boy, I really am having fun with these aceo / atc sized paintings. It has been so long since I used a brush - except to brush away the pastel dust - and I am feeling a little awkward but I will persevere. I have used a relatively large brush for the paintings in the last couple of posts, hence the lack of details. I have tried using an 00 size brush fo a couple of details in these paintings but have been having problems with the viscosity of the paint - I need more practise.

Anyway take a look and see what you think. I have now done seven of these and am considering trying to sell them on Ebay or Etsy. I have received some complimentary comments on Flickr and Facebook. No one seems to read this blog though, note the lack of comments. That's not quite true I know that I do get readers from the stats supplied by Blogger perhaps these are people who come here from those two sites (Flickr / FB) and feel that one comment is enough, LOL.

Here they are:-

Red Sky At Night

The Way Home

As you can see the detail work, especially, leaves a lot to be desired. I will be practising with that brush which may even be a 000. It does not seem to have much in the way of hairs in it, and my old eyes have difficulty with using it. The images are just about life size, on my screen anyway.

If you would like to see some of my watercolour ACEO / ATC's from a while ago then take a minute to watch this video, well it is actually 7 mins but you dont have to stay until the end. The sountrack is also by me. Composed and created on the PC.

Sunset/Sunrise; Acrylic paintings on stretched canvas

 

Two canvases, each on its own easel, But hang on they are standing on my laptop! No, it's not a composite image, they actually are that small. In fact they are 2.5 x 3.5 inches (64x89mm), the regular ATC/ACEO format. If you don't know what this is read my article on Squidoo titled "Making Artist Trading Cards - 1001 Technique". 

I have been considering creating some art to sell, it is coming up to christmas, and the small ACEO was very profitable for me at one time. I found myself trading work rather than selling and moved into mixed media and collage but there has always been a desire to move back into that activity. Most of the ACEO's that I sold were actually in watercolour but when I saw these dinky little canvas and eaasel sets I thought to myself, "I must get a few and see where it takes me". Last night at my art group I finally decided to make a start and try to capture a few skyscapes. A subject I love painting.

These were the outcome, took me about 45-50 minutes for each one, I do put a lot of myself into these paintings even though they are quite simple and very small. Here is a close up view of both of these paintings. The size of the weave on the canvas is obvioualy quite big relative to the canvas size.

In actual fact, I painted them from imagination so they do not represent any particular place or time but I will still call them sunsets. I have a few more to paint and then I think I will be posting them for sale on Etsy, I have not tried this site yet but I am loathe to go back to Ebay and other sites I have tried have not been very successful.

I will accept offers before they are posted for sale, LOL. Expect more in the near future.