My favorite medium is acrylics.  Why?  Acrylics are like no other medium.  They can mimic most all other painting mediums on the market.   You will learn to appreciate the scope of this delightful medium after testing all of the different techniques with acrylics.

With acrylics you can mimic watercolor, gouache, oil, and egg tempera.  Yet, you have the option of departing from these methods and use techniques only reserved for the acrylic system.  It’s almost like having your cake and eating it too.

The acrylic artist whose paintings inspired me the most was Barclay Sheaks (b. 1928, d. 2010).  This was an artist that mastered all the different techniques and took acrylics to a new level.

In his painting, Dune and Gulls, Mr. Sheaks wet the Upson board and painted wet in wet the sky and basic dune form.

After letting the board dry, he painted the grass and sea gulls.  A carefully planned layering sequence allowed him to create contrast between soft blends and crisp lines.  When planning a layered sequence Sheaks tried to visualize his subject in simplified groups.

He never attempted layering sections without studying and planning well in advance.  This only goes to show all of us wannabe artists the consideration a good painting requires.  My challenge to you is to continue painting.  Try the different painting styles the acrylics allows you to mimic.

I posted the 30X40 acrylic painting below on this blog before.  I took great pleasure in mimicking an oil painting style with this work.  When I photographed the painting, the  reflection of the flash of the camera makes the clouds seem as if the sun is shining behind them.  It is not.  The light source comes from the left of the painting as the shadows depict.