Adventures in Acrylic

The art class painting away!

Back when I was a kid and classes took a regular trip to the room with paint-splattered tables, I remember loving acrylic paint: the smell, the feel of it messing up my hands, the smoothness with which it colored the canvas.  But I remember the medium not liking me very much.  Even as a wee artist, I knew I didn’t have the best sense of proportion, shading, or dimension, though I couldn’t name these terms yet.

Yesterday, I took an acrylic painting class at Art Uncorkd in Whippany, New Jersey. I walked in and found it was a nice, small gallery space with a custom framing section and plenty of room for a painting class You’re even allowed to bring a snack and some beer/wine if you like!

The class was two hours long, and the instructor was great.  She took us through a step by step process of making our own interpretation of a picture very similar to this painting:

I decided to do something a little different.  I essentially cut the picture in half and only painted the right half (all of those fish were intimidating!).  At first, I thought I messed up right off the bat because my light half circle of water in the middle was not blending in to well with the rest of the color I put down.  But the instructor gave me some tips to smooth it out. The rest of the class and painting all the fishies was a lot of fun!

When I first sat down in front of my blank canvas, I was prepared to create something that, while fun to paint, wouldn’t live up to my perfectionist expectations. But for the first time, I pleasantly surprised myself!  Here is my finished product:

And here is a group shot of all the participants with the finished pieces:

I’m so happy with my finished piece!  So happy, in fact, that I worked up the nerve to list it in my Etsy shop, Lady Velociraptor.  Check out the listing here.

What is something new (or old) you have tried recently?  Did you like the results?