Tom:

Posted September 23, 2006 08:33 PM
I've been painting now for 5 years after a long career as an Art Director. I've tried all the mediums and love them all for various reasons. I love to bounce between them for variety.
I am writing because there was nothing being said about Acrylic's on this new forum and found it sad.
Acrylic is a wonderful medium but it seems to get the backseat. Other than the "quick dry time" ( and there are solutions to this ) it is a wonderful medium that's versitile and durable and the price is right!

loxley:

Posted September 24, 2006 11:24 AM
Glad you posed that question about acrylics. I use the exclusively. Love them and my web site, loxleystudio.com, is 95 Percent acrylics. I find them easy to work with, long lasting, fast drying if you need them to be, but also with and extender you can stetch the drying time and make it similiar to oil. I also do pastel which is fantastic, but hard to ship and lost if dropped. Loxley

DR4lyfe:

Posted September 28, 2006 10:47 AM
I like working with acrylics, too, but I can't recommend them for plein air work if the weather is at all arid or breezy. No amount of glazing liquid or other retarders make them a match for oil.

Posts: 14 | Registered: September 05, 2006

I too work with acrylics, but contrary to the above I like using them for plein air. There are ways to keep your palette wet (wet paper towel) and when you want to pack up the painting is dry.

Acrylics are great. I use both oil and Acrylic. If you're interested, I wrote an article on the two on my site at:

http://www.outer-island.com/Articles-painting.html

I'm not selling anything or a commercial Co.

acrylics are rilly fun for layers and playing with color.

my experience has been that most people using arylics use them too thinly. When used in this manner, the pigment sometimes braeks up into particles over the substrate and ultimately looks weak.

The cool thing about acrylics is their modelling ability, with the right emulsifiers you can really lay down some intersting textures with both a brush and palett knives.

as long as I've used acrylics, I still struggle with flesh tones. Any insights would be great. My site is www.leokahl.com

thanks
Leo

Yellows and oranges for flesh tone gives a flat appearance,especially if you make all the flesh tones in the painting the same colors. Instead of using yellows and oranges, you could try earth tones for your palette. I suggest burnt sienna mixed with a little titanium white, and then you can blend in a small amount of yellow ochre; burnt umber mixed with phalo blue or Viriidan green is nice for the deepst shadows, and if worked keeping the tones in mind as if you were working in grays to black, this will also give volume. There are other palettes depending on the nationality of the model, so it is key to really look at the cool shadows to the warmest areas of the flesh for clues as to what comes closest to the individuals "flesh tones".

I have been painting now for over 45 years. In the beginning their were both oil and acrylics. I liked both for different reasons. Oils can mimic any painting technique but required patience between layering unless you use the horid Japan drier. The stench is repulsive and the added dulling was unacceptible. Painting is a sensual afair.
Acrylics are great with impasto, but in the early years the colors of acrylics were asidic and plastic looking. That has changed. I chose to lean toward oils after I finally mastered my patience (that took 30 years). My technique repetory is more deliberate and with oils I am still learning new techniques and they work for me. Whenever I go back to acrylics I revel in the new colors and enjoy the playful spontineity, but have learned how to make a livng with oils. It is not true, but the general public thinks that oils are a more serious and profesional medea, even though they would pick an arylic over an oil when the two are on a wall. (Go Figure)

I work with both acrylics and oils, and in my experience at least, I have found acrylics to be a boon for painting on site. There is a recently "reformulated" acrylic paint on the market that is supposed to have the longest open time-up to about a half hour for blending. I got some tubes along with what is called an unlocking formula (designed to let one go back into recently set up passages)to test out. I found the results promising.I also use a spray mister and wet paper towels on a butcher's tray to squeeze my paint on. There are more things going for acrylics than not.As far as the public perception of acrylics vs. oils, I can only say that it hasn't been much of an an issue with my work. I just sold a landscape done in acrylics.

I use both oils and acrylics, as the mood and subject take me.

I prefer acrylic for still life and oils for landscapes.

I've tried acrylics au plein air without much success, so I will try the tips in an earlier post and see how it goes.

quote:

Originally posted by bruce:
There is a recently "reformulated" acrylic paint on the market that is supposed to have the longest open time-up to about a half hour for blending.

Bruce, what is the name of this brand of paint, and where did you find it?