Time for art!

Today was a lovely day spent with family. In addition, I had time to spread a bit of acrylic texture around on a few canvases to get them ready for painting. Opening up jars of paint and holding a palette knife or paintbrush brings me great joy.

I love that beat up old brush. It gives me textures that I can't get with a new one. The canvases on the left were gessoed. The one on the right has been spread with acrylic texture medium to prepare it for painting.

My paintings are taking many days of prep work, lately. It is a little difficult to hold on to the spark of delight that led me to want to paint each scene to begin with. I guess I've been spoiled by my acrylic paints. Oil painters deal with this all the time, unless they only paint alla prima.


I also had a chance to do a bit of sketching today. In my Christmas stocking was a Lamy Safari pen, so I have been trying it out. I am able to get a bit of variation in my lines, which was not the case with my fiber tipped and technical pens. I'm going to load it with a more water-resistant ink and see if I like it combined with watercolor. I've never been an ink/watercolor sketcher before (always preferred the softness of pencil!), but ink shows up better when you are sharing sketches online, so I'm giving it a try. And I love the raspberry color of my new pen!