WIP: Fish in a Box (20091014)

Temporary Title: Fish in a Box

Artist(s)/year(s): Myself/2009.10.14~
program/tools: Wooden brace panel (made it myself!), acrylic paints (liquitex)
Time taken: 6 hours
Original Size: 24"x32"

I say 6 hours because that's how long my studio class is, but I don't think I started painting on it until about an hour in... I was still trying to map everything out on the board first.

I'm actually having some trouble matching the colour of the cardboard, and the paper (>A<)! I spent my last hour and half working on that crumpled paper in the corner! I'm a little worried though... It looks like crumpled paper and it looks very nice, but it's done somewhat impressionistly rather than realistic-ly...

Poor fishy... I had painted most of it's body + fins, but then I chopped off all the fins to do the background paper...

And remember how I said I don't like masking in my last post? The corrugated cardboard (;A;) and they aren't even my smallest masking tape width... So I have to continueously wait and wait for it to dry... But lucky, I've found that Liquitex paints are really good if you want fast drying paints.

*coughcoughproductpromotion*

Before this year, I used Tri-art and Golden (usually tubs), and while they were good, they can end up really plastic-y and sometimes glossy, so drying actually took a while... When I started using Liquitex, it didn't take too long for drying (good!), the colours end up nice ([meaning they don't go really dark when they dry] good!), and yeah yeah I know teachers will teach you to mix colours and not by premixed colours, but they offer a nice variety of colours some that I don't think I've seen with the other brands (even better). And, which I really like is that they come in Heavy Body and Soft Body. I'm not too sure if the other companies do, usually I've found that tubs were more "heavy" and tubes were "soft" but still had thickness to it. Heavy body has a thicker consistancy, so they hold better--good for working thickly, with impasto, texture, etc. Soft body is much thinner, it's not liquid, but it is drippy; it's good for mixing with washes, glazes, since they are thin, they dry quickly, and they are very soft to work with.


If I didn't have to do this project perfectly proportional and realistic and completely detailed, I think within the next few days on which I work on this, I'd be happy with the outcome... I have about two more weeks to finish this (;A;)...