I am often asked by people what mediums I use to create my art. To help answer that, I thought I would share a little bit more what goes on behind the scenes in my studio.
Today, more than ever there are so many choices when it comes to producing fine art. I have always enjoyed working in a variety of mediums. I have experimented with quite a number of them such as oils, acrylics, watercolors and now more recently digital tools. Along with these mediums come a number of different brushes, pallet knives, stroke styles and techniques.
Using just a pencil on paper has always been the way to get an accurate painting having guidelines to stick to in terms of composition, perspective and shadows.Recently I have been trying to be more free with my painting. Using my pencil less has enabled a more spontaneous piece of art. When working with just pen and ink the art tends to be more detailed work and I have to work hard to create contrast to between darks and light.
As far as mediums go, watercolor is definitely my favourite. With watercolors you can achieve a very high level of accuracy yet you have the freedom to be more spontaneous. Letting the water and paint do a lot of the shading and modeling of the object. You can have lots of control or little control depending on your mood. I love realistic painting especially Botanical, as the challenge of accuracy is demanding and takes so much more skill , and I always like the challenge, but there are many times I just want to be free. So different styles of art will be apparent in my work. Acrylic is also a favourite, I love the way you can just keep adding paint unlike watercolour where less is more. My acrylics tend to be more whimsical. Recently, I have enjoyed using digital art forms. Just being able to paint wherever I am is a real plus as all I need is my pen and iPad. What is great about digital art is you can work in layers and you can erase what you don’t want this enables you to be even more free to create because you know you can change it up if you don’t like it. I would still say though there is nothing like having a paintbrush in your hand.
Bye for now,
Mary-Jane
