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modjadje

Which style of painting do you recommend for me?

Modjadje
20 years ago

Hallo to all,

I've been a GW member quite a while but seldom strayed over the fence from the growing side ... Well, I've "painted" on batik before and enjoyed it a lot and for quite a while now have had the urge to paint African-style geometric designs. My plan was to paint on Masonite but got lucky and found these cheap boards at the crafts store, so that problem is solved. Already got acrylic paints, and brushes.

The stuff that I want to paint will resemble Native American art to quite a large extent ... very geometric, in earthy tones mostly, and sometimes in primary colours. There will be a lot of straight lines in there. My question is this: which style of painting will lend itself best to my chosen subject? I was thinking that tole painting techniques would translate well but, not knowing what else is out there, I am not certain.

I can design my own; the part that someone has to teach me is the brush strokes ... and I want to pick my teacher wisely so that I don't get imprinted with techniques that don't marry well with the native art that I like.

I appreciate your input. Delina

Comments (2)

  • calirose
    20 years ago

    Delina, I paint in oils, acrylics and watercolor. I paint portraits, land and seascapes. And, as you will see if you click the link, cypress knees. Also if you look to the left of the painted cypress knee you will see a portion of one of my portraits.

    Now I tell you all this because I have found that while one can learn various techniques such as tole painting, rosemaling, or double loading the brush, each person develops his/her own style.

    So I can only offer you the following. Acrylic paints dry more quickly unless an additive is usedto extend the drying time. I would think that unless you have a very large piece of one color that would not be necessary. A large brush would quickly cover without leaving overlapping brush strokes.

    Geometric forms, squares, rectangles, trianges, circles, etc really do not require any specific stroke. Once you have created your design and transferred it to your board, it is quite like color book painting or fill in the lines. To avoid colors bleeding, let one color dry before adding the second.

    For your straight lines, you might want to use paint markers and a ruler, or blue painting tape that won't stick and remove paint. You can find that tape in the hardware/paint section of your local stores. It is important to only use the tape on dry paint, paint your stripe and then remove the tape before the stripe is dry.

    I hope I have been helpful to you. You sound very creative!
    cali

    Here is a link that might be useful:

  • User
    20 years ago

    Hi: I don't think you need help with the style of painting. You will probably develop your own style. What I found helped me the most was a teacher that taught how to use the various products. For acrilics, I'm thinking of the retarders and extenders. Each product has it's own special products to thin, slow drying, etc. Why don't you try a couple of lessions from a few different teachers. I found I could not achieve the end result I wanted until I had a couple of teachers show me the special products I didn't even know existed. Good luck and have fun.