Friday is College Day

I’m writing this on Saturday, I am a day behind, but yesterday was college day, and last night I was exhausted and I had an evening of self indulgent TV watching, catching up on S16 of Greys Anatomy. Yes I know I’m a long way behind, but I kind of gave up TV me time for the duration of lockdown and am only just getting back into the swing of it.

Anyway what you really want to know about is “what Donna did at college”.

So here we go, I had a morning of learning acrylic paints and techniques. Here is the final piece that is being used as the sketchbook piece and is being written up.

Acrylic Paint Techniques

The finished styles here are :

  • Blending : Using a single colour mixed with differening levels of white to blend and create gradient
  • Glazing – overlay a wash of acrylic ontop of other layers
  • Impasto – thick paint applied with pallete brush
  • Broken Colour – using the brush to dab colour on, impressionistic Monet style
  • Sgfritto – Italian for “scratching” into wet paint to reveal the colour below
  • Mark Making – using a variety of tools to make marks with a different colour to the base.

After this we studied Eileen Agar‘s The Bird Nest.

Giclee Print: The Bird's Nest, 1969 by Eileen Agar : 24x18in in 2021 | Bird  artwork, Bird art, Funky art
Eileen Agar, The Bird Nest

Our task for the afternoon was to study this painting and then create our own painting from it, using the techniques we have been learning.

Using an A3 sheet of acrylic paper, I decided to create a base colour of yellow, before then drawing the image outline, and beginning to block out colour.

From here, further colour was added

And then continuing to add colour and mark making.

Then it was time to go home!

The drive home was a bit chaotic, not least because of the amount of traffic trying to get out city, but then near petrol stations queuing was starting to form, due to the chaos of our media reporting fuel shortages, but also a little bump with 2 cars at a roundabout, causing additional stresses!

Anyway once I was home, it was kids activity night so they were off here there and everywhere as well as excessive yawning from me, and me as already mentioned in front of the TV.


Disclaimer: 

All opinions expressed here are my own.
I paid for any products discussed.
I received no payment and I am not affiliated in any way with any brand mentioned herein.

5 Comments

  1. Your bird’s nest is great! It is a bit like Chagall. What is the course you are doing again? I heard about the fuel shortage reports, how much trouble they cause when it’s really not necessary at all, very annoying. Happy Blogging! Elle/EOTC xx

    1. Donna says:

      I am taking a “diploma in Art & Design”, its a 1 year course

  2. love it! very chagall-esque!

    1. Donna says:

      Oh I shall have to investigate the artist (I have so much to learn!☺️)

  3. I love your version of The Bird Nest. Well done!!
    Hopefully people aren’t doing what they did here and filling plastic bags with gas to horde it.
    It was so crazy and stupid. They actually had to go on TV and post warnings not to do that.

Thanks for taking the time to read and comment