Jul 18, 2008

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Don’t give up!

Yesterday I was at the store shopping for a chocolate bar (the local market must have about 40 different choices, seriously lol), and overheard a conversation between two employees. They were talking about art appreciation, and the initiation of an artist.

One of the individuals said that people can be attracted to a piece of art, have great taste for art but when they start to produce art, what they produce and what they like and appreciate is so different, and that sometimes it takes years to achieve the level where what the person appreciates and draws and/or produces is at the same level, he also said that people at some point give up the process and quit due to frustration, instead of continuing to try.

I thought I would post this here just in case you the reader happen to be in this situation, which I am guessing happens to all of us at various different times.

On a related note, I found a copy of this book at a local used book store “The New Drawing on the Right Side of the Brain” book by Betty Edwards, along with her workbook. Hmm, it turns out you can get a new book at Amazon.com for about the same price as what I paid for the used book (in the United States).

We already had an older release of the book (not the workbook) so my wife and I are both eager to see what else we can learn from the newer revisions. I can tell you this however, I did an exercise a couple of years ago from this book, in my case I had the opportunity to draw Woody from Toy Story by looking at a drawing that was upside down, I did pretty good actually… pretty close to the original.

If you get a chance check them out, either at your local store or by clicking on the images above.

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Mar 9, 2008

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Atelier Interactive Acrylics

This past Saturday I went with my wife to a demonstration of Atelier Interactive Acrylics at a local art store. While she is currently using acrylics, I have never used acrylics, so I was intrigued about this new type of acrylic paint, and acrylics in general.

I had fun playing with this medium because it is like painting with watercolors but in a way it’s better. With watercolor (and maybe it will change once I have more experience)  one has to be very careful about how to layer color otherwise it turns into mud. With regular acrylics you can paint on top of it if you make a mistake but apparently they dry too fast. The cool thing about this medium (Interactive Acrylics) is that you can mix it with water, work on your painting and later on when it dries apply another layer on top of it, or use water or some unlocking liquid and continue mixing the paint as if it had never dried.

Below are my two trials with this medium.

Atelier Demo Paintings

Left Image  Atelier Interactive Acrylics on canvas / Right Image – Atelier Interactive Acrylics on watercolor paper.

At the end of the class they had a drawing… I won the grand prize, this is great I can’t wait to try this medium again.

Below is a picture of the materials I won.

Atelier Interactive Acrylics Set

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