Rockpooling, acrylic and oil on canvas

I can’t take too much credit for the composition of this one which was originally photographed on the Cornish coast, one of my favourite places! I like the dribble of seawater coming off the net on the left. Its a good dribble. This was another painting that I began in acrylics and finished in oil paint, and its a method I am going to return to. My dilemma is that there is nothing more pleasurable than pushing oil paint around a painting surface and acrylics lack this quality as they dry so quickly. I learned how to paint using oil paints and still feel acrylics are not the most natural method for me. They are dry before you know it and I have always found this difficult to manage. But then building them up slowly in layers has other advantages. When I was younger I wanted to draw like Giacometti and used biros and gouache paint to build up meshes of lines and daubs, and that is echoed in how I have been glazing acrylic paint when I use it. Because I don’t want to commit too much as the paint won’t let me manipulate it before it dries, I use thin layers of acrylic to slowly render the form.

I have mentioned I find this similar to carving. Inverted carving, as it is adding and not taking away. But each line or glaze of paint serves to refine and tighten the drawing, but unlike carving the mistakes add to the whole effect and in the end strengthen the drawing. When I carve stone every ‘mark’ with the chisel has to count. Every cut moves the sculpture closer to completion.