Wednesday, September 26, 2012

Acrylic Painting - Step by Step

One day I received a commision painting job from Sherri. She and her husband were visiting the island of Kauai on their honeymoon (Congratulations!), and she wanted to have a painting created of the bungalow where they stayed.

She came across my website and loved the style of my Kauai Coffee Visitor Center painting and wanted something similar. After a few emails (we've never met in person), I took my camera and headed out to the famous "Baby Beach" of Kauai's south shore. I snapped several pics of the house and also a few of the beach itself .

Well, I always wanted to capture the "steps" that I take to create an acrylic painting. So I remined myself to take a picture every so often while working on this piece. In my acrylics classes, I always stress the importance of blocking in the major colors and shapes before painting the details. This is what you see in step #1. I love the bright blue color of the sky here in Kauai! 

bungalow Step 1
Next, I started to slowly develop the painting. Added a few details, but mostly working on the underpainting. Acrylic paint can be very opaque especially when mixed with titanium white. Therefore, if you make a mistake at this point, you can cover it up and keep on paintin'!
Bungalow Step 2
  
In Step #3 I started to develop more of the house, porch and garden. I didn't like the blue color I put on the left-hand side of the house because it looked too much like sky, so I greyed it out a bit. This was challenging to get the right shade.
Bungalow Step 3

Finally, I started to work more on the palm trees on the sides. I wanted to get a lot of detail in the underpainting part of the trees. Lots of details in the background without worrying about the foreground until last.
Bungalow Step 4
 
In Step #5, I worked on more detail of the house and palm trees. I also painted the adorable coconut that was so appropriately placed near the entrance to the house!

Bungalow Step 5 
 Here's the final version of the painting!  I spent lots of time on the palm tree details. Whew!
Bungalow Final 

Baby Beach Bungalow
11"x14" on Canvas (painted on the edges in a 
 Gallery Wrap Style)

I hope you enjoyed seeing this painting in progress! 

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