ATS, let's see your acrylic or watercolor paintings...

originally posted by: Night Star
a reply to: recrisp

Wow! I love how vivid the colors are and how beautiful this piece is!

Do you sell your work anywhere?

Thank you, Night Star!
I no longer paint, draw, or anything. I went to digital years ago and don't do that anymore either.


Also, I removed my 'drawings' because I somehow overlooked that it was all supposed to be 'paintings'.
Sorry, I can't read, I guess.

a reply to: recrisp

That is beautiful! I would hang it in my house.

My mom, aunt and the entire side of my mom's family are all artists or have the talent. My Nana did acrylic, watercolor and pastels. I myself want to do acrylic and oil but I honestly need some guidance. What brand is the best, what brushes do I need and what tools. I go online and I get bombarded with a million choices. Could you offer any suggestions.


My favorite artist is Van Gogh and I love his style! I was at the Van Gogh Museum in March, my BF took me as a surprise. It was amazing!

a reply to: mblahnikluver

Thank you!

That's a good thing to have all of that creativity in your family. I guess it's in your blood.

My aunts, mother, father, and brother and sister were all good at painting or drawing, it was just something that we did back then.

I wish that I could help you on that stuff, but I haven't painted since I went digital, that was back in 1996 or so. I would suggest to buy quality, name brand paints, and brushes too, of course. I can't tell you the name of those though, Liquitex is the brand of acrylics that I always used, I haven't kept up on any of that though.
I learned all that I know (well, mostly) by the seat of my pants, there was no internet back then. Now, I see artists learning stuff and growing right before your eyes, online. It's a cool thing to see someone that doesn't know much, then become great.

I would first suggest looking at some YouTube videos and learning who you 'feel' is good for you, someone that you can watch and learn from, that's what I do on most anything that I want to learn. If they are a good teacher and it keeps your interest, then you will learn better, I feel, some people I can just watch because they teach you AND it's entertaining.

After you get a feel for that person, or persons and you trust their judgement, 'usually' they will have a video somewhere closer to the beginning of their YouTube first videos, 'usually'. They will show you what they use and you can kind of go from there.
Like you said, watching too many things can get so confusing and that alone can make you want to give up.

Places online, forums, etc., that have a lot of artists is a really good place to learn too, just by osmosis.
Deviant Art and Wet Canvas were places that I used to go, there is a really diverse group there on both of those places.

I wish that I could tell you more, but I am out the game, so to speak, I was just kind of 'O.K.' anyway, there are much better artists out there that would know a lot more.

Good luck to you, there is a video and teacher out there 'just for you', I am sure, I mean that too, "just for you", that can get you started and help you grow.

I sure hope this helps, and I wish I could be of more help.

a reply to: mblahnikluver


You might be interested in this type of painting, it looks like a lot of fun, and, it doesn't appear to be too hard to learn.
It might get you started.
www.youtube.com...

Hopefully, this has worked. This is actually mostly oil but some acrylic as I ran out of oil paint to cover the sky and I ran out of time as this painting was for one of my papers for a Bachelor of Early Childhood Education.

The painting is of the west coast of Auckland New Zealand, and it reflects the Te Kawerau ā Maki the local Iwi or Māori tribe of the area and their connection to the whenua or land. There are many details to the painting and a lot stories to it.

I have really enjoyed looking at all the paintings in this thread.

Not a very good photo but, thems the breaks.

a reply to: Cloudbuster

Spectacular painting. I only wish I could paint as well as many of you here. Perhaps someday....if my muse stays around long enough this time. She can be fickle and wander off for months or years at a a time.

originally posted by: Cloudbuster

Hopefully, this has worked. This is actually mostly oil but some acrylic as I ran out of oil paint to cover the sky and I ran out of time as this painting was for one of my papers for a Bachelor of Early Childhood Education.

That's beautiful, and I love your palette (it'd match my bedroom). I'm not too good with oil, but I like mixing different types of paints. I use mostly acrylics but use sharpies and water colours to enable me to get colours to bleed through in attractive ways, using brights under lights, acrylics aren't too good for that for a number of reasons, but are otherwise, I find, idiot proof. I generally find the whole thing more satisfying when I mix up all sorts of media, everything from bits of string to irridescent eyeshadows (a technique I learnt here on ATS from LadyValkyrie - who might just be my favourite artist if I was forced to choose).

Doing art for and with children is enormously rewarding. One of the things that I have most enjoyed about being a parent has been about finding out how much I love making things out of bits and pieces of what would otherwise be rubbish. I only wish I had a proper work space that I could leave messy all the time but one day...

Thanks for sharing.

bugger I am a pencil and ink man. That's me out.



Still some nice pieces here.

thanks for your comments about my painting. I was so happy to have some creative assessments to my study as I am not very academic. I struggle to paint with acrylics as they dry to fast, and my paintings evolve and change over time so oil is nice that it drys slower so I can blend it later. yes, I love doing art with children but as a teacher of little people you need to give the materials and stand back and observe, these guys just need to explore and play to learn and learn to play. when you are 0-5 years it's all about playing to learn, and it should be like that for any more years to come but the establishment says you must learn your times tables like this.

keep creating everyone.

oh and on a side note I can only get to ATS on my computer now as my stupid phone says this site is unsecure and wont let me log in. I miss being able to participate on my phone. any ideas, oh its a handme down phone from my mum, it use to work fine but now not for some sites. I miss my ATS whanau family.

Oh and to KilgoreTrout I normally only paint in shades of blue but have been putting in a bit of green lately and symbols or highlights of red, this painting required a lot of green as its subject was the whenua or land. cheerio.

a reply to: WhiteHat

I like your style, it reminds me of a guy called David Oxtoby whose book, 'Oxtoby's Rockers,' I used to have. You bring more life and motion to the work than he did or maybe not 'more' rather than a different approach to capturing their essence.

Some great artistry in the thread.

Hello fellow ATS artists, cool thread, I recently started painting more regularly and I'm pretty proud of this little fellow I made a few months ago, although I'm not completely happy with the background color.
Definitely my only good work so far, I'd like to do more animals like this in the future.
Some honest criticism is welcome too!

a reply to: athousandlives

I love your painting. and I do really like the background colour, its almost as if you are looking down on the elephant and it's in the water looking up at you. yes, I love it.

a reply to: athousandlives

I agree with cloudbuster. Lovely. And like her's, it too would go perfectly in my bedroom.

Viridian is the favourite colour in my paint box.

Very fine artwork so far. I painted this triad years ago during my foundation arts class, so please be kind, I was only a beginner dabbling and experimenting.

a reply to: InTheLight

The bottom right one, the mountains and the tree, is lovely and shows a greater confidence and a lighter hand. Water colours, in my experience, are really, really frustrating requiring a delicacy I lack but you seemed to have been making good progress. Did you continue after these three?

originally posted by: KilgoreTrout
a reply to: InTheLight

The bottom right one, the mountains and the tree, is lovely and shows a greater confidence and a lighter hand. Water colours, in my experience, are really, really frustrating requiring a delicacy I lack but you seemed to have been making good progress. Did you continue after these three?

Nope, life got in the way.

originally posted by: InTheLight
Nope, life got in the way.

Life has a habit of doing that doesn't it?

a reply to: Kandinsky
Oh thank you. I tried to borrow some "jazz spirit" for these two works so I went a bit wild lol. Like I said my usual style is much more clean and precise, oil and charcoal portraits to be exact. But they've told me I have to loosen up so there you go )

My latest work in acrylic. It is based upon a photo a friend posted online that was my inspiration.


Link to Full Size Image.

a reply to: Krakatoa

I really like the blocky (not sure that is the right word, maybe blobby) impressionistic style you have here. And the dirty clouds really give off a mood or atmosphere of foreboding.