Acrylics, watercolour style

Acrylics can be diluted and used just like watercolour says Amanda Hyatt as she demonstrates an interior scene and shares her top ten tips to get you started

Acrylics can be diluted and used just like watercolour says Amanda Hyatt as she demonstrates an interior scene and shares her top ten tips to get you started

An artist should be able to paint in all media with equal proficiency, even though the artist may prefer one medium as their favourite. As a watercolourist primarily, I prefer the spontaneous flow of the watercolour medium. This flow can also be achieved when painting in acrylic. Acrylic does not have to be used thickly as most people assume – it can be diluted to the point of transparency and is just as good as watercolour for doing a wash.

The exact same method that I teach for watercolour, in my Five Steps to Watercolour (see The Artist November 2020) and my DVDs* can be applied to painting in acrylic. The acrylic can be diluted to whatever consistency is required; you can then either dry it off and paint over the top of it, or leave it wet and apply thicker paint straight into it according to the wet-in-wet technique.

To be honest, an artist can create a painting out of anything; boot polish, toothpaste, strong black coffee, liquid paper, grass stains, beetroot juice or that diabolical yellow stain from the stamens of some lilies. Let’s face it, cavemen used mud. It’s how you put it on the surface that matters.

Papers

Watercolour paper comes in three basic surface textures. These are:

• Hot Pressed (HP) paper is smooth, with little to no surface texture, which means the paint covers it uniformly.

This paper is therefore suitable for detailed work such as botanical art. Mistakes are more obvious on this paper because the edges of your brushmarks stay sharper. To get a softer look the wet-in-wet method works quite well on this paper, although it is easy to lose control of big washes.

• Cold Pressed (Not) paper is the most popular and frequently used. It is easy to use and has a medium texture. The paint fragments slightly. It can be used for detailed or non-detailed work.

• Rough paper is not suitable for detailed work or correction. The paint must be applied correctly the first time and does not cover the dips in the rough texture – it fragments greatly unless a loaded brush with lots of paint and water is used.

My painting Glen Coe (left) was done on Hot-Pressed paper and The Rialto, Venice, (top right) on Cold-Pressed paper. If you look closely at each painting you can see the sharper ‘edges’ of the paint on the HP paper but on the Not paper the edges of the painted brushstroke sink into the textured surface and disappear, creating a more uneven edge. My demonstration painting (right and over the page) was done on Rough Baohong paper, a new Chinese paper that is proving to be excellent.

Details

As previously mentioned, Rough paper allows for less detail. As a ‘big picture’ artist, I usually leave out all unnecessary details and put some in at the end to finish off the painting. I look at the ‘overall feel’ of the subject and decide which items are necessary to balance the painting. In the demonstration painting I omitted the apron hanging on the door as it would have been too isolated, dominant and distracting. The

eye would have constantly been pulled towards it. Copying the details of the tea set on the table correctly as well as the items on the mantle and around the oven is a waste of time. A ‘suggestion’ of kitchen utensils is better and the eye ‘reads’ the information correctly rather than having the items detailed.

My art focuses on capturing the light rather than the colour so a reduced palette was used: cadmium yellow, burnt sienna, black, white and ultramarine blue. The window and the play of light on the table and floor were the defining highlights of this painting. The shadows cast by the table items were also important.

The subject image is of Martindale

Hall kitchen. I painted the Martindale Hall study for a previous article (see The Artist December 2019). Martindale Hall is a magnificent Georgian mansion in the middle of seemingly nowhere in the outback of South Australia. Its rooms are decorated with original William Morris wallpapers and English and Australian antique furniture. The history, ambience and visual impact creaks throughout every majestic room.

As always, know when to stop. View the finished painting in a mirror and the mirror will speak to you loudly saying either ‘put the paintbrush down now’ or ‘ just fix that bit but nothing else, don’t fiddle!’

*Amanda has three DVDs, available from APV Films, including Tonal Watercolours and Five Steps to Watercolour (www.apvfilms.com)

DEMONSTRATION Martindale Hall Kitchen ▲ ◀ The Rialto, Venice, acrylic on Baohong paper, 14320in (36351cm). Even though Venice is a much painted location and to some extent its images end up on biscuit tin lids or place-mats, I still adore painting it and have been there many times. This painting was done on medium (Not) paper in diluted acrylics. The transparency creates the light in the central area, the darks on the left push the eye across the painting to undiluted spots of white acrylic on the right. Undiluted acrylic was used as highlights in the shadows on the left. The painting was kept loose with reduced detail My palette and brushes This is an upturned lid of a watercolour palette. I chisel off the dried-up acrylic paint when finished so I can use the lid again. The paint is squeezed around the rim and mixed in the centre then wiped off if required, although I rarely wipe away paint and just add new colours to the ‘gunge’ already there

▲ My reference photo, the kitchen of Martindale Hall, South Australia  STAGE ONE The drawing on watercolour paper

STAGE FOUR ▲ A mixture of cadmium yellow, burnt sienna and a touch of black was glazed (layered) over most of the painting, except for the highlight light/white areas For the initial wash, I used a hake brush with mixtures of cadmium yellow, burnt sienna and black, leaving some white areas All the defining shapes were painted in using burnt sienna and black. This was then dried off with a hair dryer ◀ STAGE TWO ▼ STAGE THREE

▲ FINISHED PAINTING Martindale Hall Kitchen, acrylic on Baohong Rough paper, 18¼324in (46361cm). Individual items such as the pots, pans and teapots were exaggerated with darker colours. Shadows in ultramarine blue were placed in and around various items such as under the mantelpiece, to the left of various utensils and on the wall. The painting was finished off with the crucial minimal details which are highlights in black or dulled-off white (white and cadmium yellow). These were done using a small round synthetic brush for the lights and a rigger for the darks

has exhibited widely, including in New York and China. She is a member of the Australian Watercolour Institute, the Victorian Artists Society and the Twenty Melbourne Painters Society. Her paintings are in collections throughout the world and her book Watercolour: Tonal Impressionism is available from Amazon. Amanda tutors workshops and painting holidays, for details http://amandahyatt.co.au