The Artist

Dick Blick had a sale on their acrylic brand of paints and you could buy 12 2oz. tubes for $33. Since I haven't used acrylic paint in years, my old tubes were as hard as rocks so this sounded like a good deal to me. For a couple of extra dollars I could also buy a chart that was designed to show you just what happens when each color is mixed in equal amounts with the rest of the colors in the chart line. Of course, I'm the proud owner of 12 colors and the chart has 40 colors. I got the feeling the acrylic painters don't like to mix much and would rather buy a bunch of premixed tubes. For my first project I wanted to do a 6x6 portrait of an interesting face. I chose a photo of an artist with a Beret who is standing in front of his painting. After penciling in the face onto the canvas board, I got to work with the acrylics. I think I painted 90% of the portrait before I started in oil. Acrylics are so fast drying and so opaque that the subject can be completed very quickly. I was ready for the application of oil in no time. I would guess that the finished work is 60% acrylic oil and 40% oil. I think this gentleman turned out quite handsome.