The fruits of my labor so far, in my efforts to re-learn acrylic. These were done off photo reference. At the moment I don't care about composition so much as mixing/matching colors properly, finding the shapes in the darks and lights, and feeling out how acrylic works.
I like the glazes I can get with acrylics; getting them evenly is what I have trouble with. That, and estimating properly how much paint I'll need for any given area. The individual brush strokes matter very much, the marks they leave are immediate and obvious, somewhat unlike watercolor (where the start and end of the stroke is obvious, but the water and pigment evens out in the middle of the stroke on its own). It's not a bad thing that the brushstrokes show up; they can be incorporated into the painting. I did just that with the shadow on the light belly of the great white, to emphasize its sleekness. The great white's forehead was pretty well chewed up by other sharks, it was a mishmash of blue-gray shapes. I mimicked that by blobbing colors of similar values on, so as to achieve the mottled effect.
Long story short, I am, in fact, enjoying this exploration into acrylics. Stay tuned for more.
