Continuing my series of acrylic painting lessons from Will Kemp, today I chose his simple snow scene project. I had all of the paints for it (well, except Neutral Gray 4 and 8 but those were easy enough to make with what I do have) and I was excited to do a soft grey toned ground.

I’m not exactly sure how I feel about this painting exercise — if I look at it solely as a learning experience and ignore my actual finished piece it was well worth the time. I learned some new techniques for brushwork, glazing, and working with a limited palette. That stuff was all awesome. I’m just not pleased with how fussy and dark my painting looks.

The trend I’m noticing is that the first time I do these lessons, my painting is quite stiff and overworked. I guess that’s because it’s such a broken-up experience, following the instructor piece by piece as opposed to making artistic decisions on my own.

Another trend: going too dark. I’m working on referencing my grey scale & value finder more and attempting to lighten up a value. Using the value finder more is something I want to be doing more of anyway, so I just need to develop the habit of picking it up. At least it’s sitting out on my taboret now, so hopefully it’ll start to stick!

One thing I did love about this one was using one of the new canvas panels that I’ve been making. It’s cotton duck canvas that I adhered to mat board with matte medium and covered with 2 coats of Jerry’s Studio Acrylic Gesso. It’s amazing how much nicer it was to paint on compared to the gessoed paper I’ve been using. No issues with the paint lifting, and the textural experience was just so much nicer.

If I do this one again, I’d like it to be lighter, looser, and less literal.