"Traffic Jam" 8" X 16" fluid acrylic SOLD

Traffic Jam by April M Rimpo

Traffic Jam

Fluid Acrylic

8: X 16"

SOLD

Traffic Jam is another one of those scene that I just had to paint. The combination of the shadowed versus light areas on the hillside and the light on the ferries was mesmerizing. 

The title Traffic Jam is a bit tongue in cheek since this small town on the fjord had essentially no car traffic, but lots of ferry boat traffic. Two huge ships docked in this tiny town made me laugh, but also demonstrated how popular the tours on the fjords are. There may not be a lot of residents but there are a lot of people who want to see the pristine countryside. This was a truly beautiful place with wonderful views everywhere you looked.

You can see more "Traffic Jam" paintings at these links:

• Traffic Jam at the Concert - Concert goes waiting on the ticket takers
• Rush Hour - Enjoy the view when trying to get home
• Traffic Jam III - Cyclists backed up at a crossing
• Full to the Limit - An overloaded canal
• Thoroughfare - Amsterdam: More bikes and trikes than you can believe
• Traffic Jam II - No spot at the port for the incoming boat
• Country Tour - Cars waiting on a bike race
• Trapped - Traffic congestion in a tunnel

Since I'm often asked about my painting process and the pigments that I use I thought I'd include that information in this post. I started by using bubble wrap to dab various soft acrylic colors throughout the tree and grass areas. This adds a lot of texture to the painting.

The Golden Soft and Medium tube acrylics (dabbed on using small bubble wrap):

•         Diarylide Yellow (OPEN)

•         Manganese Blue (hue)

•         Titan Buff

•         Naples Yellow

•         N8 Neutral Gray

•         Pyrrole Red Dark

•         Leaf Green

•         Cadmium Red Light (hue)

•         Cobalt Blue

•         Quinacridone Burnt Orange

•         Phthalo Blue

•         Indigo

Once dry I use fluid acrylics for the balance of the painting. Building color through wet-into-wet application and later I layer more colors to provide depth.

Daniel Smith Quinacridone Coral watercolor mixed with Golden Fluid Matte Medium

Golden fluid acrylic – Cobalt Turquois

Davinci fluid acrylics:

• Quinacridone Gold
• Cadmium Red Medium (hue)
• Leaf Green
• Dioxazine Purple
• Phthalo Blue
• Cobalt Blue

Contact April here

Interested in learning more about April's art inspirations, tips about her painting process, or art business tidbits? Want to know when her art is in exhibits? Consider joining her friends and collectors by signing up for her twice-monthly email.

Copyright April M Rimpo 2016 All Rights Reserved. You may share my work with attribution and a link to this source site, but all other uses are prohibited.

"Country II" 12" X 14" fluid acrylic

Country II by April M Rimpo

Country II

12" X 14" fluid acrylic

$395

Available for Purchase Now

I live in an area with a few farms and some new housing developments. Before the developments take over the remaining farms, I periodically take photographs of the farms. They are so tied to nature and the environment I hope they don't all disappear. These farms definitely are part of what drew my husband and I to live in this area. 

Often I spend a lot of time planning out a painting and deciding on the color scheme that will convey what I feel about a place. However, this painting was spur of the moment. I had printed out the photograph some time ago.  I found it when rummaging through a pile of similar photos on my studio desk. I happened to also have one of my "paper gallery wrapped canvases"* sitting on my desk so I decided to go with the flow, grabbed the "canvas", and started to paint.  I really had no plan when I started.

I put some random patterning on the tree and grass areas to get some texture on the paper.  The patterns are done using household items with interesting raised areas and soft acrylic paint.  Once the patterning was almost dry, I started with my fluid acrylics. Because they were a little damp, the color from the soft acrylic bled slightly, integrating the colors. 

I was feeling inspired by some oil paintings I had seen recently and decided to start with blues on the barn, coming back in with the reds once the blues had dried.  I'm a bit impatient and spontaneous once I start painting, so although my initial thought was to let the blue dry thoroughly, I didn't.  Much like the background patterns, a little color blending occurred. This means the edges are NOT all hard and I ended up with a touch of purple on a barn that still appears weathered red. My spontaneity paid off.  

The trees were also painted quickly by applying the lighter yellows and leaf green and then adding in phthalo blue here and there while the paint was wet in order to create shadows and shape to the trees. By this point I wasn't really paying much attention to the photograph, just adding tree shapes and colors that I felt created a vibrant interesting scene. 

I had masked off parts of the horse to remind me not to paint over him with the trees. I have to do little tricks like this because when I am "in the painting zone" I can easily forget important things like the horse and before I know it the horse is gone.

* I stretch watercolor paper, generally Arches 140 lb cold press paper, over a stretcher bar and staple it to the back.  To stretch the paper I wet the paper first, just like you would do when stretching a sheet and stapling it to a painting board.  You let it dry thoroughly before painting. (Note: I usually create the painting first and then stretch it over the stretcher bars, but occasionally I stretch the paper first.)

Other rural landscape paintings by April can be seen at the links below.

• Floral Wonderland - SOLD
• Simple Life
• Rolling Hills - SOLD
• Looking Up - SOLD
• Springtime - Lost in Flood
• Relaxing on Top
• Historic Train Station
• Under the Canopy
• Spring by the River - SOLD

Interested in learning more about April's art inspirations, tips about her painting process, or art business tidbits? Want to know when her art is in exhibits? Consider joining her friends and collectors by signing up for her twice-monthly email.

Copyright April M Rimpo 2016 All Rights Reserved. You may share my work with attribution and a link to this source site, but all other uses are prohibited.

Demo on Fluid Acrylics: Similarities and Differences from Watercolor

Village in Watercolor by April M Rimpo

Village in Fluid Acrylic by April M Rimpo

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Above you can see the same scene done in watercolor and in fluid acrylic. The watercolor version was created in preparation for a demonstration to a watercolor club on the similarities and differences between painting in fluid acrylic versus watercolor. I started the fluid acrylic painting at home leaving the darker passages unpainted (e.g., the darkest foliage behind the house and the shadow on the houses). When I arrived at the demo, the foreground grass was a single wash with no shading to indicate some textures in the grass. The unfinished areas allowed me to demonstrate some differences in using fluid acrylic compared to watercolor. 

I used colors that had the same pigments in them for both paintings.  I saved darker passages to demonstrate because I wanted to show two differences in the mediums.  

The dark trees behind the house were painted quite differently. For the fluid acrylic version, I first applied a very wet yellow mix, followed immediately with phthalo blue to shift it to a variety of greens as the phthalo ran and mixed. While that was happening on the paper, I added dabs of dioxazine purple to increase the dark. The puddle of paint was very wet so I moved some of the wet paint around to other places on the painting.  When the puddle was less wet, I lifted out some of the dark to reveal the golden hues that I applied first.  They were still there underneath the darker mixes allowing me to reveal some highlights in the greens.  To demonstrate the point that acrylic is more forgiving about applying complementary colors next to each other, I added a couple dabs of quinacridone gold right next to a purple spot in the trees. They nestled in next to each other without creating a muted, muddy blend which would have been likely in watercolor. All of this happened in a very short period of time (at most 10 minutes) since I wanted to work with wet into wet paint to stress how quickly you could work with a variety of colors in the same area and achieve a variety of darks and lights at the same time.

The second characteristic of fluid acrylic that differs from watercolor is how the paints don't fade. To do this I created the very dark shadows on the houses using a variety of pigments and let them blend on the paper giving depth to the darks.  I shifted the darks to a dark green to create the darks under the bush, working around the lighter colors that I had painted before hand.  

I did not take the time during the demonstration to go back and create a middle value passage to blend from the dark shadows on the bush to the light flowers at the top, but I do plan to do that before I declare the painting complete. I will also add a few darks in the background trees to create a little more depth and distinction between the trees, much like I did in the watercolor painting.

Other similarities and differences were discussed using other paintings to highlight these characteristics. Separate from this demo painting I showed how to create some interesting organic textures with fluid acrylic, which would be quite difficult to do in watercolor. I also demonstrated creating drips using fluid acrylic, just like you can do in watercolor.  

Interested in learning more about April's art inspirations, tips about her painting process, or art business tidbits? Want to know when her art is in exhibits? Consider joining her friends and collectors by signing up for her twice-monthly email.

Rimpo 2016 All Rights Reserved. You may share my work with attribution and a link to this source site, but all other uses are prohibited.