Misty Lake Acrylic Painting for my Neighbor Lucille

 

Misty Lake following tutorial by #Joony Art

So I can't write "Today's Art" Anymore...

Because this took me several days to paint.  Pretty soon I'll have to do "this week's art" instead.

I chose this tutorial after looking at hundreds of tutorials because I wanted something special, something beautiful but soothing to look at, and meaningful.  My best friend's brother passed away suddenly and her Mom is devastated.  He was 65 and battling cancer, but still had time left when he had a massive heart attack. We are all happy that he didn't suffer and go slowly, the way the cancer would have taken him, but it is still sad, and no mother wants to outlive her child.  She lost her husband a few years ago too.  I chose this picture because their whole family loves fishing, and I wanted to paint Larry and Louis fishing together in heaven.  The original artwork had a different style boat (rowboat, no motor) and only one person,  so I changed the boat a bit, and added a motor and another person to represent Larry and Louis.  

I have only done a few paintings before this, and felt comfortable with the sky and water and trees, but was worried about how to do the fog, the boat, the people, and the geese.  I spent more time worried about it than it took me to finally do it; most of my problem is building up the courage to keep going, because at every step I was sure I'd ruin what I had so far. I need to get over that.  I'm not usually as timid as I was with this painting; I think it's because I was attempting it as a gift for someone other than my parents. When I just paint for me there's no pressure. 

I don't have my own art room, but I have made a space in the changeroom/storage area.  My table is next too my huge portable air conditioner, and my Dad's window air conditioner is stored under the table.  The roof slopes down and I hit my head EVERY time I get up (you'd think I'd learn by now, lol), and I had to order extra lights becaue the lighting is bad, but despite that, I love my little art space.  I even bought an Alexa Echo Dot just for the room. My Mom uses it too because she has her makeup table directly across from my art table.  

I'm going to give the painting, a card, and a box of chocolates to my neighbor tomorrow, hopefully. I hope she'll like it.

Spring Lake Landscape Painting in Acrylics

 Spring Lake, Acrylics on Canvas Board

Spring Lake, acrylics on canvas board, following a tutorial by Joony Arts on Youtube

It came out great even though I followed the wrong tutorial, lol.

I'd originally planned to do a late winter scene, showing melting ice on a lake. I watched that entire tutorial, and I guess when it ended the next one (this one) queued up but I didn't notice and was half way through before i realized I was painting an entirely different painting than the one I thought I was doing, lolol

Here is the tutorial for this one, by Joony art, if you want to give it a go: Spring Lake

I did the sky and the mountains first, then added the base water color.  I really liked how the water looked real hear and was worried about continuing.

I added some darker and lighter spots to the water. I hated doing this because i really liked the water in the first section but I figured I'd better follow the tutorial.

It was at this point, adding the greens and yellows, that i FINALLY realized I was following a different tutorial and not the one I had prewatched, LOLOL.

I was terrified to add the long grasses, but they came out nicely. I used a fan brush. 

Finally added the flowers and the sun.  I didn't want to add the sun and the rays because I thought they looked strange and not sunray like at all, on the tutorial, but the tutorial is way better than mine, lol.

Finally, I added more light ripples to the water and to the mountain and more light on the flowers too. 

This is only my 3rd or 4th try at acrylics and I'm very happy with it.  So far I've done the Christmas ornaments, the sunset couple, the rose (twice) and this one.  I'm only counting the rose as one as one of those was just testing the watercolor paper at the dollar tree (not the best for acrylics but OK if you tape it down; it will warp otherwise). 

Rose Acrylic Painting

 Rose(s) in Acrylics

Roses in acrylics (left is on watercolor paper, right is on a canvas board)

So, I have been learning how to paint with acrylics...

And I am absolutely loving it.  I followed a tutorial by Aham Art on youtube, and you can find it here: Red Rose

I did these paintings with Monte Marte Acrylic paints.  It's a really nice paint, I think (but keep in mind I have nothing to compare it with other than dollar store paint, which I also like for priming the canvas, lol).

Acrylic paint on dollar store watercolor paper

I did this one (above) first, using my Monte Marte paints and dollar store watercolor paper.  It came out nice but the paint dried much more quickly than I expected so I had a hard time blending the backgrounds.  I got the hang of it better for the rose.  The leaves were my favorite part of this painting. 

Second try, acrylics on canvas board, following tutorial by Aham Art

I decided to try the painting again, this time just looking at the finished product on Aham Art's youtube channel, and my own finished painting. I added more leaves this time as I really loved doing leaves, and opted for a yellowy green background instead of yellow. I sketched the rose out first in pencil.

Red rose, acrylics on canvas board.

I did this as a belated Valentine's day card for my Mom (I was a day late because I also did a diamond painting of cute valentine gnomes for my parents and finished that on Valentine's day.). 

All in all, I'm happy with how this came out, but next time I want to do one without the dark outlines. I think the outlines give it more of a cartoon or comic book effect. I didn't outline the leaves.