Acrylic paint is a type of paint that is fast drying. When working in this medium you need to work kind of fast. Many painters use other artists as inspiration when they are creating a piece of art. Acrylic paint is my favorite painting medium. I have done many differnt painting through out my years in school. I really like painting, I think it’s very relaxing. To me making a great painting is painting something that you love and know you are going to have a fun time doing. Right now in my art class that I am taking I am painting a sunset and my dog Weston. When I am painting something that I love like my dog it makes time seem like it is going by faster.

Now for some tips. If you want to have a more transparent paint use a very wet brush when getting paint. To create texture like bricks I use a brush brush to give them a more natural look. You can use different types of brushes for different things. Fan brushes can be used for things like pine trees and clouds. Small brushes can be used for more detailed work and so on. Down below are some acrylic paintings that I did during high school in my advanced studio class.

To make a stained glass mosaic you are going to need the following things.

1. A peice of clear glass
2. Colored glass ( multiple colors depending on design)
3. Grout (a mortar used to fill crevices such a gaps in tiles)
4. A sponge
5. E6000 glue ( gluing down glass pieces )
6. Paper towel
7. Stencil ( ex. coloring book page )
8. Hammer or a glass cutter
9. News paper

First you are going to need to get a clear piece of glass that you can get from a picture frame or a craft store. You can also get the colored glass you are going to need from a craft store such as Hobby Lobby as well. Next you can either print out a stencil/ coloring page for your design or you draw one yourself and tape to the back of your clear glass so you know where to place the differnt colored glass.

Next you are going to take your stained glass and break it into peices with a hammer in between newspaper or you can use a glass cutter if you want more precise peices. Then you are going to glue the peices down with E6000 glue. Once you have all of your peices of colored glass glued down you are going to rub grout over your peice to fill in the gaps between each peice of glass. After the grout has dried take a wet paper towel and a sponge to remove the extra grout from each piece of glass. Once you are done with that you have completed your stained glass mosiac.

For artists who are slower at painting or want to come back to a certain part of a painting later use oil paints because they are slow drying. Many famous painting were done using oil paint such as stary night, Mona Lisa, and the last supper. Oil paint is a mix of pigments and drying oils. The paint comes out of the tube as a paste and requires a liquid medium such as pure gum turpentine to make the paint thinner and dry faster. When oil painting and painting in general you need to first gesso your canvas. Gesso is a white primer that give the canvas a smoother surface to work on. Oil paints allow you to paint in layers to build up your painting and make it a stronger piece of art. Oil painting dates back to the 7th centurcy CE.

When you start a painting you want to go from thin layers to thicker layers. You do this by adding less medium to your paint. Even when the top layer of paint feels dry the other layers underneath aren’t dry yet. Never put acyrlic paint over oil paint doing so your painting will dry unevenly and will eventually the paint will crack. To help you create texture try using a dry paint brush or a pallette knife. If you are thinking about oil painting you are going to want to spend a little more money to get the good paints if you want your project to look as best as it can. You are aslo going to want to be carful about letting the paint get on your skin because there are chemicals in the paint that are harmful to your skin.

I have tried oil painting once myself in high school. I have since bought myself some of my own oil paints but haven’t had a chance to use them since I have been busy with work and school.

Photography has become one of my favorite forms of art. I started getting really into photography a couple of years ago. I am currently taking photos on my iPhone 8+ while I am saving up to get an actual camera. I like taking pictures of animals, nature, and people.

When taking photos you need good lighting, the right angles, an interesting subject, and good composition. To have good lighting in a photo you are going to want to make sure that the setting isn’t too dark or too bright. You want the lighting to be bright enough to be able to see your subject but not too bright as to where the light reflects too bright so you can’t see the subject. You also need to make sure that you have good angles that are flattering to the subject. When taking photos you want to have an interesting subject. An interesting subject when taking a photo is something that looks beautiful/cute. When making sure your photo has a good composition you want to make sure that your subject isn’t in the center of the photo. You are going to want to follow the rule of 3rds. According to Darren Rowse of the Rule of Thirds “The theory is that if you place points of interest in the intersections or along the lines, after breaking the photo into 3rd both horizontally and vertically, that your photo becomes more balanced and will enable a viewer of the image to interact with it more naturally.” Even though there are rules to follow when taking the perfect photo the rules can be broken. Below are a few photos that I have taken. First photo is of my dog Tiger that was taken last winter. The second photo is a sparkler that I took at night in the summer and I was surprised by how well it actually turned out because I took it with my phone. The last photo is of some trees covered in ice that I took last winter.

Welcome to my blog! On my blog I will be talking about a few different art mediums such a acyrlic painting, photography, pottery, and more. I will also be providing some tips that will help you improve your work in those mediums.