"Struggles in the Sourthwest", 24" X 34" gallery wrapped fluid acrylic on paper

Struggles in the Southwest by April M. Rimpo

You may remember my June blog post called Pouring Paint, about a workshop I had taken from Linda Baker.  During that workshop I painted Harder Times which was a close up of one grave in Mission Tumacácori.  I designed Struggles in the Southwest earlier but decided it was too much to tackle in a workshop and went with the simpler version. I visited Mission Tumacácori sometime in the 1980s as part of my explorations of Arizona. After moving to Arizona in 1980, my husband and I continued to explore many National sites with Indian ruins during our 17 years in the state.  One of my interests, in fact my initial major in college, was archaeology, so visiting these sites allowed me to catch a glimpse of the past.  To learn more about this Mission visit the National Park Service site.

Like Harder Times this painting was poured, but with fluid acrylic instead of watercolor. Below are a few images showing steps in creating this painting.

Value Sketch

I generally start each painting with a drawing of the outlines of the shapes in the painting, but this one was complex enough that I decided to do a value sketch. The purpose of a value sketch is to work out the darks, mid-value, and lights in the painting. I admit I went beyond a value sketch and toward a much more complete drawing. However this was done on tracing paper to allow me to more easily transfer the drawing to watercolor paper.

The image at right shows the result of the first pouring of acrylic paint.  The acrylic was poured after I transferred the drawing, then masked areas I wanted to keep white. The first pouring uses the lightest colors in the painting, filling the role of the lightest mid-tone.  To accomplish this with acrylic, the pigments are very diluted with water.



When the first layer dries, more masking fluid is added to some areas where I want the lightest mid-tone.  A second pouring is done that has nearly the same amount of water mixed with the paint. Since it is on top of the first layer of color, it looks darker.  I added more blues to the second pour allowing them to mix with the Quinacridone Coral pigment to create lovely lavender shades in areas where there are shadows.

In this third process photograph I have added a few darker areas and, when the paint dried, I removed the masking.  

Notice the golden tan stripe along the left edge.  After I gallery wrap the painting over a stretcher frame, the stripe will be on the edge of the painting. Sometimes I run the image around the edge and sometimes I use color stripes.

    

This last photo was taken after several touch-up sessions. A variety of dark colors is added in the darkest shadows under the rocks and more color to the crosses. A great deal of work was done on the rocks to blend some of the dark edges and to emphasize the twigs and grasses in the sand around the stones.

There was a small amount of additional touch-up to finish the painting after this image was taken.  The finished painting in the top image shows just the front of the painting after gallery wrapping. 

"Icicles", 26.5" X18" fluid acrylic and watercolor.

Icicles by April M Rimpo

Yesterday the Mid-Atlantic region what glazed with ice.  Lots of people shared their photos of beautiful chrystaline scenes.  This storm reminded me of another we had a few years ago that had resulted in my painting, Icicles.

I've loved icicles as a child in New England when they grew from the gutters into long swords. Here in Maryland the icicles create amazing fringe on the plants and trees.  The ice encapsulate berries and seed pods.  Trees bend like they are bowing to Mother Nature.

Creating the delicate pale pastels of the ice while achieving the bold and varied colors of the leave led me to use a combination of watercolor and fluid acrylic.  Combining these two media let me use their strengths to capture this icy scene.

Below are photographs that show a few of the steps along the way.

Icicles

watercolor & acrylic on paper, matted and framed 35.5" x 27"

$1000 shipped within US

"Aerial Bikes II", 13.5" X 22" gallery wrapped acrylic & watercolor

Aerial Bikes II by April M Rimpo

Aerial Bikes II

acrylic and watercolor

13.5" X 22" varnished gallery wrapped paper*

SOLD

PRINTS AVAILABLE FOR PURCHASE HERE

More inspiration from aerial photographs I took in New York City resulted in Aerial Bikes II.  I am really happy with the clean lines I achieved in this painting. I decided to do this as a gallery wrapped painting so the image doesn't have to be constrained by a frame.  Since gallery wrapped paintings are varnished there is no need to put the painting under glass. The gallery wrapped edge eliminates any visible staples.

Here is a little on my process for this painting. Because this is a small, non-standard sized painting I decided to use an old frame as the stretcher bar. No need to buy special stretcher bars when other materials are available. The frame is cut to 13.5” X 22”, the final size of the painting.  I varnish the frame, as I would varnish a stretcher bar, and then stretch the paper over this frame. I put the drawing on the paper before wrapping it on the frame. A 1.5” boarder was left around the image which wraps around the frame. Normally I stretch the paper first so I don’t have to worry about the alignment being perfectly square on the frame, but since this is a small painting I believed I could control the stretch.  This approach worked out well.  I do like to experiment with different methods to allow me more flexibility in my work.

First step prior to stretching

While preparing the frame for stretching I went ahead and used very watered down fluid acrylic to splatter the paper, as shown at right. The splatter is an initial textural layer for the building and sidewalk.  A lesser amount of splatter is on the umbrella to unify the painting.   

Four colors of acrylic were used alone and in combination for the splatters: Cerulean Blue, Paynes Gray, Quinacridone Burnt Orange, and Permanent Alizarin Crimson.  These same colors were used throughout the painting.  I used some granular watercolor pigments (Daniel Smith Buff Titanium and Olive Green) in the walk and in the bushes.

* Framing not required on gallery wrapped paintings
** Contact April regarding shipping outside the United States

"Through the Willows" step-by-step, fluid acrylic and watercolor

Through the Willows,  fluid acrylic and watercolor 

by April M. Rimpo

Through the Willows

Fluid Acrylic and Watercolor

27" x 20" painting

with white mat and 35" X 28" frame

$1350

Available through Xanadu Gallery's Online Artist Studios

You may remember that last summer my husband and I visited the New York Botanical Garden.  Their feature exhibit was of Monet's Gardens.  A set designer from Broadway had been hired to make sure the garden had accurate colors and structures to match Monet's.  One of my favorite features was a bridge over a pool of lilies with a Weeping Willow tree cascading behind it.

My husband stood on the bridge reading about the plants while I walked around admiring the lilies. When I got to the back side of the bridge and saw my husband through the willows I shifting from photographing flowers to photographing him on the bridge.  You know me and color; seeing his orange shirt and blue jeans peeking through the willows with the beautiful color of the bridge just screamed out to me, "Take a picture, quickly."

I've always loved the variety of greens that I achieved in Poinsettia Tree so I decided to use the same approach combining fluid acrylic and watercolor.  The series of images at the bottom shows the progression.

The left image is only masking fluid (which is really thinned down rubber cement); it covers areas where I want to preserve the white of the paper.  I don't generally use this much mask but, when using fluid acrylic in a very wet-into-wet style, the paint is flowing like water over the surface of the paper and is difficult to control where it might run.  I find mask necessary since you can't lift off acrylic like you can watercolor.

The right image below is all fluid acrylic.  I worked in sections in an attempt to get some hard edges in the acyrlic to add texture to the leaves.  Normally I do this by applying the acrylic to small areas, drying it partially with a hair dryer then washing off the wet areas leaving behind hard organic edges.  However, I used a different paper (Fabriano Uno Soft Press) this time and was afraid the mask would stick to the paper surface after heating and tear the surface when removed.  Given the amount of mask on the paper I let the acrylic dry on its own, putting small dots of water back into the painted areas in hopes of keeping part of the acrylic paint wet.  Although this worked to a small degree I did not get as much texture as I originally intended.  In the end I don't think the painting suffered.  I like the surface of this paper and will no doubt use it again, but I'll need to do some experimentation to see how much abuse it can take. 

Once the acrylic was totally dry I applied more masking fluid over the acrylic in places where I wanted to be sure I preserved the light colors.  I often get so absorbed, reacting to what the paint does, that I forget about the pattern of lights and darks in my design.  The mask helps keep me on track.  From this point forward I paint only in watercolor.

In the two photographs below you see the addition of watercolor for the darker leaves.  You may think it is counter-intuitive to use acrylic for the pale wash and watercolor for the darker leaves, but this is because I wanted a background that was fixed and not going to change.  I could layer a variety of colors over the fluid acrylic greens and purples to achieve the colors I wanted in the front foliage.  Putting blue-greens over purple acrylic make great dark green leaves.  With watercolor over acrylic it is easy to remove watercolor and redo an area to get it right.  The photo below left had only a few sections of leaves painted.

The right photograph was taken after all the leaves had been painted, the masking removed, and the turquoise blue bridge structure added. There is one tiny orange patch just above the upper bridge rail and to the left of the white area.  That is a hint at the shirt my husband was wearing.  I had placed it there to make sure I knew where the edge of his back was going to be.  This acted as a visual barrier, keeping me from painting the wrong color where the orange shirt would be.  After adding my husband I dotted orange and blue tones throughout the painting to make him fit into his surrounds.  I also clarified the edges of some leaves.

Take a look again at the finished painting at top. In addition to the color scheme and the horizontal bands of the bridge rails, I love the dappled light coming into the painting in the upper left corner that leads you to my husband. Let me know your favorite parts of this painting.

Follow this link to see more of my paintings that combine fluid acrylic and watercolor 

I have prints of many of my paintings available at my online store.

Copyright April M Rimpo All Rights Reserved. You may share my work with attribution and a link to this source site, but all other uses are prohibited.

A Favorite Color Scheme demonstrated in "His Dugout"

His Dugout, 32.5" X 23.5", fluid acrylic
and watercolor, by April M. Rimpo

His Dugout

acrylic & watercolor on paper

32.5" X 23.5" image

39" X 31" silver brush frame

 

One of my favorite color schemes is a triad that uses primarily blue and orange with smaller hints of green.

Source: www.colorschemedesigner.com

I use www.colorschemedesigner.com to preview the triad and zero-in on the shade of blue and orange that I want to use.  Often the next step in my process is to use Adobe Photoshop to vary the colors in my reference photo(s) to try out my plan.  The Photoshop version never looks quite like the final painting, but gets me close enough to know whether I want to go forward. 

His Dugout is an abstract, representational painting that shows a Guatemalan man beside his dugout.  He was getting ready to repair the dugout using a molten, tar-like substance in his wooden boat.  As I mentioned in my blog post on Basket Maker, few of the Guatemalan men wear traditional clothing, but many of them build and use these dugout boats.  I'm sure I'll paint examples of these boats in the future.

His Dugout received an Honorable Mention Award at The Pennsylvania Watercolor Society's 34th Annual International Juried Exhibition. Many thanks to Pat Dews for selecting this painting for the exhibit and to Frank Webb for granting this award.  

Click the link at right to hear me discuss this painting. 

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Jht7P1m60bI 

Like many of my paintings I used a combination of fluid acrylic and watercolor in His Dugout.  Only two acrylic colors were used: Da Vinci Leaf Green 945A and Da Vinci Cerulean Blue (Hue) 921A. I wanted the bright intensity I could get with acrylic for these light valued colors. The balance of the painting was done in watercolor. Below are three photos:

1. A picture of my source photograph before I manipulated it to push it to my desired color scheme.
2. An initial work in progress (WIP) after lying in the first blues and establishing some of the darkest values.
3. A later WIP photo after many of the orange hues had been added.

        

Below are some of my other paintings in which I used a similar blue/orange triad color scheme

             

Taking a Break

Woman with a Wrapped Hat

The Vendor

Related post on combining fluid acrylic and watercolor 

To see available prints check my store.