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Start Art 5 62 RT START www.painters-online.co.uk Use acrylics like oil paints to create this bright summer scene with Soraya French Sheep in a summer meadow A crylic colours offer the artist enormous possibilities. This is due to the fact that they come in different consistencies, starting with the very fluid acrylic inks, then the runnier type or ‘soft body’ colours, like Daler- Rowney System 3, as well as the heavy body colours, which are slightly thicker, and finally the super heavy body colours such as Daler-Rowney System 3D, which can retain brushmarks and be used for impasto-style paintings. All these paints are intermixable and can be used together in one painting. In this exercise I will use System 3 in its opaque form, and in thicker applications similar to oil colour. The fast-drying nature of acrylic colours makes it possible to layer colour in quick succession and you spray the colours from time to time to stop them from drying. As a support you can use a variety of different surfaces including acrylic paper, watercolour paper, canvas or canvas board; MDF board primed with a couple of layers of gesso makes a fantastic and inexpensive option. Introductory sets of colours are a good option to start with and you can add more colours as and when you need them; generally you can mix a good range of colours from the tubes provided in these sets. In acrylic painting white is a very important colour. By adding white to any colour you can make it much more opaque and create better covering power. Mixing the white with another colour gives you an infinite number of tints. don’t have to wait a few days before applying a fresh layer. For this reason it is also necessary to work quite quickly if you wish to blend two colours on the surface of the painting. There are no rules, you can start by applying thick layers or thin washes of colour and build up the thickness of paint – it is entirely up to you. When using acrylic in its thicker form, it is best to use brushes with stiffer hair, made especially for acrylic painting. A painting knife is another great tool and the marks made by a painting knife are much more random and less stylised than a brush. To keep the colours wet and workable a stay-wet palette is a very handy tool (see page 58). During the painting session you can You will need… Daler-Rowney System 3 acrylic colours: Lemon yellow Cadmium yellow Titanium white Ultramarine blue Prussian blue Cadmium red Burnt sienna Brushes: System 3 1in. wash brush sky flow Round brush size 6 Round brush size 8 Short flat size 4 brush Support Daler-Rowney Langton 1401b, cut to 14 14in. Stay-wet palette