Painting the Pileated Woodpecker in Acrylic (4)

Expanding Your Artistic Horizons Series

Painting Session 4
Date: 05/06/2017
Subject: Pileated Woodpecker
Medium: Acrylic on Paper

In this session, I spent time refining the woodpecker by darkening the red tuft, shortened the beak, and painting the feathers. On the tree, I changed the hole and added details to the bark of the tree. Now that I am getting several layers of paint on the paper, I noticed a couple of things.  If you add too much water, the paint will bead up and pool on the paper like rain on a waxed car. It makes sense because of acrylic, not water being soluble like watercolors. I think it might be helpful to try a glazing medium or flow improver instead of straight water. I still want to be able to blend the paint similar to oils. Maybe in the next painting, I will get some of the medium to see if it helps aid in the blending. When I used acrylics a long time ago, I don't remember the paint drying so fast. I am sure it is because I am painting in much thinner layers, and possibly the paper is absorbing the paint more quickly. I wonder if painting on a smooth gessoed panel has the same characteristics as painting on paper. Now I am thinking of several things to try in future series. In the next session, I plan to work on the details of the background and foreground leaves.