Thursday, February 13, 2014

February Rainbow Trout - Acrylic On Canvas


   In my last post you saw that I hit up a South Carolina mountain stream and battled my way up a cold and steep gorge all in search of that perfect rainbow trout.  Well with the snow and treacherous roads keeping me bottled up indoors I decided that I should be a little productive and paint up a rainbow trout while the beauty of my recent trip was still fresh in my mind.
   For this painting I took out a 24x12in stretch of canvas and some new top quality acrylics.  Sketching out the basic form of the trout in pencil I then began to lay down a base color of pale yellow for the body of the trout.  Then just like I do in my watercolors I began to build up the colors and adjust them as they get laid down.
    Surprisingly I find that working in acrylics is in many ways easier than working with watercolors.  They are a little more forgiving and if I don't care for something then I can cover it up or re-work it in a way that more readily represents what I am trying to accomplish on the canvas.  In watercolors it is more a difficult to correct something once it is on the paper.  Often the little mistakes end up being just part of the uniqueness of the finished work.
  There is a different set of challenges with acrylics which I am learning how to deal with along the way but I think I am getting the hang of it.  Once the base layers of colors are set, I then begin to work in the details of the painting which end up making the finished piece a work of art instead of just a rough representation of a trout.
February Rainbow
    I call this painting 'February Rainbow' because the model in my mind while painting this work was the single rainbow I caught while fishing on Monday.
February Rainbow
24in x 12in.
Acrylic On Canvas
FOR SALE
Email me for Purchasing

    As an added bonus I sketched out this crazy looking bug the other day.  Its a random design, just me messing with an ink pen and a blank piece of paper.

1 comment:

cofisher said...

I love it! Makes me wish I had type of talent that I could show off.