With 10 sets of 12” square canvases to complete this month, I have many paintings in various stages. For these 2, the second set of my acrylic canvas challenge, I wanted to add more lights and darks within the green of the wave. (See before below).

I’m learning that with acrylics, it is better to work on a whole area of a painting to better blend the paints and create highlights and shadows. To do this, you need all those colors mixed and ready. I realized this yesterday when I tried to just add some highlights. Without the dark paint to blend into, my quick tweak didn’t go well.

Today I sat and mixed the paints and worked on finishing these. I was beginning to regret fussing with the paintings at all – you fix one area, and sometimes ruin another. At a certain point you have to call a painting done, and take what you learned to the next painting. Overall I’m happy with my progress so far this month.

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