joeHi Darrell,I have purchased your set of 10 DVD’s and having watched 6 of them already I am really excited about commencing painting. My husband bought me a set of waterbased oil paints as I have had respiratory problems in the past. Can I still use your painting method with these? A couple of questions: What medium do I use for wet on wet painting and what do I use instead of liquid white. I have a lot of acrylic paints which I have been using for decorative art . Is there any method I can use acrylic for landscaping so that it doesn’t look static and two dimensional. Your painting comes alive and I can’t wait to get started. I really look forward to your reply. Yours in anticipation,
June, Goonellabah. NSW Australia
June,I’m sorry to hear that you have respiratory problems. I have diabetes which sometimes causes respiratory problems with me so I well imagine some of the things you must be going through.
I explored the use of acrylics and water-based oils to find something for me which would paint exactly like traditional oils but without the problems. I’ve also found that many of my students live in apartments, rooms, and motor homes where ventilation is not that good. So I had a dual purpose in looking for a good substitute.Water-based oils, or rather water-soluble oils, or water-mixable oils work very well with this technique.
In fact, there is no difference, aside from the medium.I put together a DVD, Adapting the Basic Techniques of Oil Painting to Water-Miscible Oils to show just easy the technique adapts.
What you primarily learn in this video is the use of new mediums. And clean-up is much easier. I just absolutely love, love, love this medium.
When I travel, this is the set of paints I like to carry with me.
When I go plein-aire painting in my own territory, these are the paints I take along. The traditional oils are just too messy for outdoor use. The water mixable oils, travel well.
About the mediums. There are mediums prepared especially for water-mixable oils and then, of course, one can use plain old water. I’ve used both extensively and have found that I like the water.
The water has worked superb for landscapes, seascapes, florals and tall ships.
I havn’t tried them with either portraits or pet portraits. Primarily because I havn’t seen a good fast drying or lean medium for water-mixable oils.
One change I’ve been doing lately is when I’d normally use medium white or Magic White as a medium I’d mix the water with a bit of white paint and then spread it over the canvas and then paint as I’d normally would with oils.
Recently, I’ve simply been wetting the canvas with water, then mixing the exact sky color I wanted, painting it on the canvas, and so forth. Essentially putting the white into the paints and not so much on the canvas. This is having the same effect and took a little getting use to.
But for you, simply put the water on mixed with a little white paint and just follow along with the DVD and you’ll have amazing results..
I actually like a brand of acrylics from an Australian company, Chroma. They make a brand of acrylics called Atelier and their acrylic mediums is second to none.. Great stuff. My advice is to learn to paint with the water-mixable oils and once you’re proficient and happy with the results, start playing around with acrylics. The name of the game is always …. Practice, practice, practice.
Once you learn to paint with oils, you’re essentially learning to paint with acrylics. The skills and techniques are very, very transferable. And that’s easily seen in my DVD, Adapting the Basic Techniques of Oil Painting to Acrylics.
June, keep up the good work and let me know how you make out.
Darrell