Meet the Artist :

From an early age, Greg has worked to hone his craft, learning from past masters and inventing his own techniques and styles. In the process, he has built a body of work and list of awards that any painter would be proud to call his own.

With 30 solo and many juried group exhibitions to his credit, Greg Biolchini’s list of shows is testament to his solid local and growing national reputation. After winning his third national award at the National Arts Club in New York City, Greg was awarded Master Pastelist status by the Pastel Society of America. This, combined with his growing list of national honors and awards has helped further his reputation.

Greg enjoys tremendous popularity as a teacher. His workshops and demonstrations are well attended and consistently rated by attendees as superb.

Greg lives and works in Southwest Florida, with studio and teaching space on the Caloosahatchee River in North Fort Myers. He holds ongoing workshops in pastel, oil, and portraiture in his teaching studio and for art groups throughout Florida and the US (see workshop schedule).

Visit Greg’s Site:

http://www.biolchini.com/

A Direct Approach to Acrylic Painting by Greg Biolchini

Originally published by Daniel Smith Art Supply Co.

“For years I stayed away from acrylics, thinking they were certainly not a medium for a representational realist painter such as myself. They dried too fast, making it impossible for serious paint manipulation. I am very glad my curiosity finally got the best of me and I began to experiment with this wonderful, timesaving, uncomplicated medium.”

To begin, I like to prepare my own canvas. I start with a medium-textured canvas that I stretch myself on heavy-duty professional stretcher bars. I give the canvas three or four good coats of acrylic gesso, sanding between coats.

Working from my own photographs, I started my Great Blue Heron painting by drawing a center of interest with soft willow vine charcoal. Using a big stick of soft charcoal, I drew the lily pads and grass, quickly blocking in the darks and lights. The soft charcoal was well-suited for this spontaneous process—all I had to do to make changes was wipe away the charcoal with a paper towel.

Figure 1: Center of interest is sketched in for placement in the picture plane.

Figure 2: Rough preliminary charcoal drawing.

At this stage, I am composing the preliminary drawing directly from my photographic references onto the canvas. Now, using hog bristle brushes, I removed some of the charcoal to produce the grasses in the background. For removing very dark areas of charcoal, I used erasers such as a kneaded eraser and magic rub. I did not use my fingers to remove or spread the charcoal. Fingers leave oils from your skin on the canvas, making it difficult to further manipulate the charcoal. Once I was satisfied with my charcoal drawing, I sprayed it with clear acrylic fixative. Figure 1 shows my painting at this point of completion.

Next, I began blocking in warm and cool acrylic washes over my charcoal drawing. I thinned the acrylics with water, making them transparent and allowing the charcoal drawing to show through. I used cobalt and phthalo blue for the cool, blue washes, and hansa yellow medium and deep for the warm washes. The yellows mixed with a little permanent red became orange.

Figure 3: Transparent acrylic wash over charcoal drawing.

I applied the acrylic glazes quickly with a large flat brush made especially for acrylics. I did my color mixing and thinning in a Stay-wet palette. The Stay-wet Palette was indispensable because, as the name implies, it keeps my acrylic mixes wet and workable for a very long time. For this transparent wash stage, I was able to determine where the cool and warm, darks and lights should be in my painting, based on my reference photography and a little imagination. Figure 2 shows the painting at this stage.

This acrylic wash over a rough charcoal drawing is an easy process compared to doing several separate preliminary drawings. At this early stage of my painting, I had already gotten a pretty good idea of what my finished painting would look like.

At this point, I thickened my paint, using less water than in the previous stage, and allowed it to become more opaque. I added only three additional colors to my palette: titanium white, quinacridone magenta, and violet. I used the magenta mostly in the lily pads. I began to use softer smaller brushes, the type called flats—numbers 6, 4, and 2—on the more detailed areas throughout my painting, see Figure 4.

Figure 4: Near-completion with opaque acrylic paint.

Figure 5: More details are added to the bird and highlights and shadows are more developed. Light is given a more luminous, natural feel.

A note about brushes: I always do better using a brush that is a bit bigger than would seem necessary to do the job. I have found the slightly larger brushes do a better job and are a bit faster. I use the very smallest brushes only after trying and failing with a slightly larger brush. I used the tapered edge of high quality responsive synthetic flats for the smaller, more detailed areas in this painting. I want to stress that I used the softer synthetic flats only for the finest details, and only after first blocking everything in with the larger slightly stiffer nylon brushes.

Figure 6: Lighter-colored plants and flowers are added to improve the overall composition and move the viewers eye through the painting.

Standing back and looking at the painting, I decided the background was a bit too busy and needed some additional elements to lead the viewer’s eye from place to place. I decided to add white lily flowers. The lily flowers were in some of my reference photographs but I hadn’t been sure I needed them until now. Working in the same fashion I had done for the rest of the painting, I blocked in the big, bold strokes using a slightly stiffer, larger, and more responsive brush. I then painted back over these big strokes with my slightly softer smaller brushes, for the detail. Notice that I also worked over the entire painting, adding touches of almost pure white accents to areas such as the bird and the flowers, and almost pure mars black, especially to the bird. I saved most of my darkest darks and my lightest lights for near the end of the painting. Almost like the final seasoning on food, these strong contrasting accents directed the viewer’s eye to areas of interest throughout my painting.

With these final accents, I brought this painting to completion, see Figure 4. The last step was to varnish it immediately with several coats of gloss acrylic medium.

Figure 7: Finished Great Blue Heron acrylic painting, 38″ x 53″.

I am very happy to say this preliminary drawing method done directly onto my canvas was much faster and more satisfying than having to first do a series of rough drawings to develop my composition. I have found that using transparent acrylic washes over a fixed charcoal drawing enabled me to establish my warm and cool values quickly and early on in my painting process, allowing the finishing stages of my painting to progress smoothly and quickly.

All acrylic brands and brushes are compatible with each other.

“After Monet” is my copy of one of Claude Monet’s famous paintings “ Garden at Sainte Adresse “. It has never been my practice to copy another painter. But , in my progression as a student, in the fine art of painting , I felt that undertaking this course of study, of a master painter, would be beneficial.

This painting has a style that I am after in my own work ; a blend of realism and impressionism. The original painting is 38”x 50” . My version of it is aprox one third of that size, at 14” x18”. It is an acrylic painting done on a canvas covered panel. You can see an image of Monet’s original by clicking onto the link:  Monet original…

The sky is done with color combinations using paynes grey , ultramarine blue, parchment white, and glazes of crimson and blue. The water base color is done with paynes grey, pthalo green, parchment white and yellow ochre.

The patio base color is a combination of parchment white , raw umber and burnt umber . The grasses on the right are done with a light yellow , yellow ochre and ultramarine blue.

The fence is a combination of raw sienna, cad red med, cad yellow deep . The shadows in the fence have a raw umber and raw sienna mixture. At this point I added all those little ships in the background using paynes grey and umber colors. I put the waves in with pthalo green and ultramarine blue. The black on the left was my first attempt at the dark shadows, I used red, blue and yellow to get black, the way Monet would have done. In his later years he abandoned black from his impressionist palette.

Below is a close up of the mid ground sail boat before the final touch ups in the finished painting. At first I wondered why Monet used these dark colored sails . But ,then I guessed that the sails were made from raw canvas and they would tend to darken over time.

One area that I struggled with was the shadow color. The darkest shadow was not a problem . It was the midtone shadows that cast from left to right across the picture plane that I found to be the biggest challenge. In Monets painting the shadows looked almost black . I wanted to get a color that was a little warmer. You will notice that I went from a burnt umber color to a purple at first . I finally got a color I wanted by mixing a little cad red with paynes grey ,raw umber and parchment white.

In the photo above I hadn’t painted in the yellow umbrella. Notice below how that yellow changed the whole look of the young lady. I was also painting the white umbrella at that point. There is more detail in that umbrella then any other object in the painting. I was left wondering why Monet wanted that much focus on the umbrella. Can you guess?

The finished painting.

Click here to learn more about Brian and his work.

About Brian Rice:

Brian was born on May 25,1958 and his roots are in the small outport of Pilleys Island, Newfoundland, Canada. At the age of nineteen he moved to central Canada in the Sarnia, Ontario area, where he now works in the Petrochemical industry.

His interest in art began in high school, when an art teacher encouraged him. In 1979 he began to paint realistic images of Newfoundland and northern wildlife, using an acrylic medium. He has many admirers of his work and most of the paintings have been sold; many were commissions. In 1998 he did a painting of an old united church (circa 1945) for his hometown heritage society. Prints were made and sold as a fund raiser.

In 1997 he entered an art contest in Sarnia. This contest was held to select a winner to commemorate the new blue water bridge. The painting got an honourable mention and it was reproduced as a limited edition print.

Brian has no formal training in art. He is self taught and learns most from a careful observation of the order and design of the natural world . He believes that “nature is the artwork of a creator/master artist who displays a wisdom and a genius that we have only begun to understand”. His focus is to create art that will cause the soul to search for a deeper meaning in an increasingly chaotic world.

He started striving for a photo realism style in the 1990’s and achieved it to some degree, but, he found the style did not evoke much emotion and set out on a journey to find a style that was realistic but, with a much looser impressionistic approach.

Eighteen of his paintings were on display at his hometown Petrolia Library during the Summer of 2004.

The Painting “The Newfoundland Cabin” appeared in “Guest Gallery “which is a page in the downhomer magazine; www.Downhome.com is the biggest magazine on the Canadian eastcoast with 26,000 subscribers. This magazine also has a gallery and gift shop in St. John’s, Newfoundland which now carries prints of the painting “seasons of life”

Acrylic Painting Demonstration: “At The Dock”

I got the idea for this painting while on vacation in Newfoundland. The quiet and serenity of this area was what I wanted to capture in the painting. I liked this reference image below as a photo. But, I wanted to do something else in a painting . I thought I would push the islands apart so that the boat would point out the bay towards the opening in the distance. It just seemed right for a better composition.

On my 24″ x 36″ panel I drew out the plan:

I lined the head of the boat up so that it would point directly at that dot in the background. I guessed that this would become the secondary focus in the painting, after the boat, if I had enough elements pushing the eye outward towards to that area.

The hint of the dock would provide a link from the boat to land and serve as a directional line toward the boat.

I blocked in the main colors:

I wanted to keep the overcast sky. It seemed to suit the painting.

I wanted to show the ocean bottom near the dock . Calm, shallow water would serve as a great enterance to the painting and add to the over all appeal of the view . I had never attempted this transparent water look before. I started by putting in the main colors of the bottom .Then I painted rough forms that looked like rocks .

I used Thalo blue , Ultramarine blue, Paynes grey, a tad of Napthol red, and White mostly in the water and sky in the distance. I have a glaze or two of burnt sienna and yellow ochre in there too. In the foreground there are those colors plus burnt sienna, raw sienna, yellow ochre . There may be a little burnt umber in the mix too.

My next move was to paint in the distant hills and island. . It took a lot of glazes and a few attempts to get the water and sky the way I wanted it. I wanted that opening in the distance to be in the direction that the head of the boat would be pointing towards. The pushing apart of the islands and moving the distant opening to line up with the boat seemed to also open up the view for the eye to go out the bay to the farthest inlet. This helped give the painting a feeling of space. The feel of wide open space is a wonderful sense you get in Newfoundland. It is a land that is 98 % unpopulated.

I worked on the glazing some more and defined the rocks better. I used glazes of thalo blue , then glazes of burnt sienna, then a glaze of yellow ochre. I repeated this several times with very little paint pigment in the glazes. I kept the area where the boat would be, open, mostly to keep in mind its placement area.

Excuse the blurred photo but the next photo just shows where I sketched a fairly accurate outline of the boat. You have to be very careful at this point. If the drawing is not right on, you could ruin many hours of work . If a line is off by an eighth of an inch it will be noticeable .

When I was sure the outline was right I blocked in the boat base colors. I wasn’t overly concerned where the green and red was inside the outline as long as I didn’t mess up the outer lines. The green is a mixture of Chromium oxide green and thalo blue. The red is Cad med toned down a bit with thalo blue.

I now worked on the rocks at the bottom more . I added a lot more little rocks and added a few more glazes over that.

At this point I knew the boat didn’t look like it was sitting right in the water . It could have been an optical illusion because the red and green inside the boat were not where they should be yet. I re-measured my outline and realized it was the bottom line at the back of the boat that was throwing it off. It may sound like I was being too particular. But, to someone who is accustomed to boats and how they sit in the water these things are very noticeable. It was something that was fixable . I also did some more redefining of the rocks at the bottom.

I worked on that boat again. The colors look a little raw at this stage and the boat interior needed more work. I re-worked that shadow; its more of a shadow then a reflection .The sky is overcast so I have to get that fine balance in the details , definition without strong shadows. Easier said then done . Most of the time its easier to have strong light and shadows. I thought I was finished with the water under the boat. The only areas that needed work outside the boat was the island on the left and the indication of a dock on the right side.

Next, I put a little more detail into the boat. I changed the rear look of the boat three times . I decided in the end that I was going to make this a simple row boat and not include that 4.5 hp gasoline driven outboard motor. The painting would appeal to me more without that noise making machine. It just don’t fit into my ideal world. The other advantage in not including a gas engine was the fact that one could think of its time period as being anywhere from 1940’s to today. If I didn’t use the bright red and green it could have been dated from 1900 – today. These little wooden boats had the same basic style for a century.

These photos aren’t the best quality because they were taken with just the light in the room without a flash. When the painting was done I got a better photo using daylight.

I then worked on the island on the left. Its showing low tide and the kelp is visible at the low water level. This kelp in Newfoundland is a distinct orange /ochre/ greenish color depending on the lighting of the day.

There as been a shift in my painting technique over the past year or so. I discovered the power of glazing and the excellent properties of Goldens acrylic glazing liquid.

I do paint the odd painting with the more opaque method.

But,this one will have been done with more layers of glaze then I have ever used before. I have about 20-25 layers in the water. At first I use to try and put glazes on with just glazing liquid and had some difficulty with application . But now I dip my brush in water more and dilute the glaze liquid . This seems to work much better and I don’t get a thick sticky layer that is hard to apply.

The secret to successful glazing seems to be in the application of very thin coats,with very little paint pigment in it , and then letting each coat dry before applying another. It is amazing how layer after layer of thin color can produce what opaque paint could never do.

I am starting to use glazes more and more as I continue learning about painting.

The finished painting

Detail of finished painting.

I hope you enjoyed the demo. You can contact me at brrice2003@yahoo.ca . Your comments would be greatly appreciated because feedback lets me know if these demos actually help others in their painting.