This week we tackled glazing and blending in acrylic. Instead of a still life, I suggested splitting up the paper into sections with masking tape in order for each box to be a different experiment. We used soft brushes in order to get a softer effect than is possible with the stiffer ones, and diluted the paint with water in order to build up translucent layers. It’s a great technique for making abstract patterns – I could imagine many of the results as…
So again this week we were painting without brushes, this time with sponge brushes – actually pieces of foam stuck on a stick. We looked at the work of Howard Hodgkin for inspiration, as his broad brush strokes with multiple colours on them are exactly the effects that sponge brushes can do so easily. It’s particularly exciting when the colours mix on the sponge, and when you twist and twirl the brush. This is another technique in which giving yourself less control –…