Acrylic Painting

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I am very happy to have now completed one of my latest paintings - 'Close the gate at Oatlands'. It is acrylic on canvas - and a small amount of fine liner can be found in it too.

I started this on the 8th Sept, and completed it 20 x days later. This is quite a long time in my terms, as usually they take me about 1 x week.
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[form development after figuring out the composition]
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After I have loosely mapped out the composition with lines and chunks of paint - usually either yellow, blue, or red (all of my paintings are based around only the primary colours + black and white). Then I observe the painting for a little bit to see if anything needs adjusting or changing to that composition.

Then it's sessions of layering up for me.

If there is water involved, as well as sky, then it usually consists of at least 6 x washes of paint.

All areas are layered.

I try and add more detail in the foreground, and have it more 'washy' in the background - to help take the eye back into the landscape.
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[working through the layers - usually from background to the foreground - leaving the rainbow to last]
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I like using quite a large straight ended / square brush at the moment, and tend to use this throughout the whole painting. Sometimes I will go down to a smaller version of that same shaped brush for some of the foreground.

The tweaking at the end is usually slow.

I find it important to leave areas that I like - because it is very easy to wreck a painting.

The areas that I don't like as much, I slowly change. Because it is hard to tell the impact of a line or change in colour tone while the paint is wet, I often need to wait until it is dry to see how that shifted an area.

For this particular painting, my final focus was on the rainbow. I didn't want it too bright and eye-catching. I wanted it to be subtle, yet present. I wanted it to be something the eye was lead to, rather than saw immediately. I see the rainbow as the 'gate' referred to in the title.

It's a boundary gate - keeping what needs to be 'in' in. And keeping what needs to be 'out' out!

It is a window to look through.

It is a bridge to cross.

Have yourself a wonderful day,
Lee-Anne <3
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View this painting for the first time in person at the Grand Opening of Harmony on High Street, Campbell Town, Tasmania - Cory and I are opening a Gallery & Art Hub in town.

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