Refining Acrylic Paintings

Following a 'friends' art day' I have been refining acrylic paintings straight from my walls.

The piece that got the bulk of the refinement was this one which has been re-named Big Dream, Big City. Do you see a cityscape in it too? I always loved the colors in the original, but felt it was too flat. It now has depth and is much more exciting.

After:


Before:


Here is City Night before and after. Not as much refinement on this one, but I think it is a little spiced up from the original. I also added some foil gold to the yellow rectangle, something I always thought it needed. Along with that I streaked some gold lines into it and some small gold dots in the yellow spatters. The top photo of City Night is the 'before'. The three lower images of it depict its colors in the sunlight, on my wall, and a more detailed view of it. (Click on images to see slightly larger.)





The lighter version was photographed in sunlight. The darker version is how it appears on my wall.

This post really began on April 12th with Voulez-vous. Here is the completed painting from my April 12th post.



I'm not sure that it's complete yet. My original intention had been to cover up the lettering and have it as a peek-a-boo element of the background, but instead I enhanced the lettering making it darker and sharper. I may add some jazzed writing in a light color under the navy lettering to make it a more calligraphic piece.

All of the 'afters' have received many coats of gloss varnish. This makes photographing them more difficult...lots of sheen.

A future post will take a painting from start to finish and includes the refinements I made last week.





by Jan Hurst