Jan 7th: Acrylic on Canvas

I have a little side business since I only work part-time. I sell custom glass ornaments and canvas paintings. People send me pictures of whatever and I'll paint it on Christmas bulbs or canvas for them. This week I'm painting the Santiago family.

I started earlier this week with the youngest boy since he's in the center. I used grid lines and lightly sketched his main features with very diluted paint. Layer by layer I built up skin color and shading. I usually take forever to do a painting like this, but that day, I was ridiculously caffienated and got three of the four faces done. I was slightly freaking out at how quickly I was painting!

Today I began work on touching up the kids' faces and working on the father. His skin color is slightly lighter than the children and I found myself struggling to find the right shade. This is my main issue with acrylics. It's very hard to find the right shade because the color changes when it dries. Eventually I found a shade that I was happy with. I heard this week that soft brushes aren't ideal for acrylics, but I'm not sure if I agree. It's the soft brushes that allow me to blend colors fairly easily.

Not as motivated (or perhaps caffienated) as I was when I began, I only got the father's face partially completed today and rudimentary shading on the kids' ears. I also began to realize that I hadn't laid down a background... which is probably something I should have started with. Also, I paint in such a random order... the clothing hasn't even been started. Not sure why I wanted the faces all done first. I'm just wierd. So far, I'm happy with how it's turning out.