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Showing posts with label acrylic paints. Show all posts
Showing posts with label acrylic paints. Show all posts

Monday, July 15, 2013

Artists' studios online

The original idea for this post was offering information on webcams in artists' studios.  Apparently the idea is passé, since most of the links found were broken or hadn't been updated for a long time.  Ustream/art does offer some current live studio feeds.

Two exceptions to the lack of accessible webcams are Ai WeiweiCam (has an interesting back story) and Damien Hirst's site, which features timelapse videos taken in his studio.  I guess watching art being created realtime is as interesting as watching paint dry (if that's a pun, it was intended).  Here's a link to one of his works being created, "Monochromatic Sectors from Primary, Secondary & Tertiary Colour Ring, Dark Centre."

Weiwei's studio cam story goes like this: Chinese Artist Ai Weiwei Installs Webcams in Studio. Twenty-four hours later, China Pulls Plug on Artist's Webcams.  However, it looks like his cam page is still live (but slow) and it offers his twitter feed.

It seems the majority of artists have moved to YouTube.  While I was looking around, I found some interesting stuff about painting techniques.  You can take a look at what I found in this playlist.  Here's a sample, one by pdranitsin:
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-- Marge



Wednesday, July 03, 2013

DIY: easy, affordable wall decor

Today we'll be venturing a little deeper into artwork via projects and techniques using acrylics.

Use gesso for this example of raised letter art. First published on Pinterest, the idea has been expanded by Kelly at View Along the Way.  Note that the appearance of the artwork will change with the angle and color of light in the room.
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image: raised letter art from Pinterest via View Along the Way
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With acrylic paints, painter's tape and a stretched canvas, you can achieve something like the following, depending on what colors you choose and patterns you tape.  You may also choose to distress the painting by sanding it, splattering it with a contrasting color, or using some other technique (YouTube is a great resource for acrylic painting techniques).  Refinery29 has a how-to on this; be sure to look at the comments for some good tips on how to work the painting.
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image:  taped painting technique from Refinery29
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This third idea was found at Apartment Therapy, a site with many good suggestions for sprucing up your apartment or home.  Here's a link to Amazon for pricing the ceiling medallions; I've seen ones like them in local hardware stores.
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image: ceiling medallions as wall art from ApartmentTherapy
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If you find yourself hungry to delve into painting effects deeper, here's a video by Mark W. of ExploreAcrylics showing us how to achieve the faux effect of marbling.  You'll probably want to tape the edges of the canvas on this one or finish them with strips of lath.
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Venture well, keeping in mind that 'mistakes' are O.K.

-- Marge