Week 5 - There's Always Time to put Brush to Paint

Our gallery, Cranston Gallery, opened for the 2023 Season on Thursday, February 2nd. Very exciting, but also very work intensive. So many jobs to take me out of the studio and into the office such as, ordering new rack cards, business cards, invoices, and printing out price tags. Then there's the gallery prep, cleaning, signage, curating, and hanging. Let's not forget varnishing and framing my new work. Yikes! Even so, I managed to find time to put brush to paint. 

Low Light, Acrylic on canvas, 12"x12". This is my third painting for the upcoming online Square Foot Show,  www.squarefootshow.com The show runs from February 23rd to 25th.

In fact, I decided to work it up bigger, into a 36"x36". I'm just loving the contrast of light to dark in this one. I didn't get very far with the large version. Something to work on this coming week. Have a look... 

Workshop News!

I have just confirmed a 3 day, acrylic workshop at the Chester Art Centre, in Chester, NS for May 4, 5 & 6. "The Expressive Landscape", so stretch your creativity, move out of your comfort zone. Push past what you see, to what you feel, and to what you would like to express through your painting. For more information on my workshop, visit www.chesterartcenter.ca

Varnishing Acrylic Paintings. I always varnish my acrylic paintings. Think of dry stone, wet stone. All of the richness and subtle hues within the work can get lost when the paint drys. Varnishing pulls them all back out. So, if you want vibrancy, varnish your paintings. Varnishing also protects your paintings, for example, recently I noticed a painting of mine had a scrape across the varnish. Something must have come in heavy contact with the painting to create it. If the work had not been varnished, the scrape would have dug into the paint layers and consequently be a hard fix. But because the painting was varnished, I spot varnished the mark to create a seamless fix.

I use Liquitex Varnish.
Gloss for the first coat. Using a gloss varnish for the first coat maximises the varnishes ability to pull richness out.
A mixture of 50% gloss and 50% satin varnish for the second coat. This coat adds extra protection, and leaves a sheen I like, somewhere between satin, which is dull, and gloss, which is too shiny.

Stay warm everyone!