Wet on Wet Painting in Oil or Acrylic
About Painting In Oil and Acrylic
It does not mean just wet over wet under coat but wet over any layer of wet paint.
You might paint a sky; then while it is still wet, paint a tree over that sky.
Blending colors is easy with this wet on wet technique, you place one color onto your canvas, then add other colors which will be mixed or ‘blended’ with the brush or knife to the desired tone, this is a very handy method of blending the sky from dark above to pale in the distance or the water from light to dark.(short video) What is wet on wet painting?
Wet-on-wet means you simply paint over wet paint.
Typical example of wet on wet in acrylic color.
I call my style of painting ‘Speed Painting’ but it is simply a wet on wet, loose method of painting which I learned to use while demonstrating in shopping centers and festivals around Australia. I needed to paint fast to hold the attention of the audience.
If I dropped my brush or stopped to squeeze paint from a tube, half my audience would go back to their shopping but if I was skillful and could hold the crowd for a complete painting, then often I could sell or auction that painting before it dried. (One day I must show you how to package a wet painting).
I believe many old masters used the wet on wet techniques, see Claud Monet.
As opposed to wet on wet.
The ‘traditional’ method of painting is still taught by some art teachers and institutions. This usually involves sketching the subject then painting in the different items in accordance with their tone, that being the darkest tones first. (How boring) Often the sky would be added last and each color, and tone of that color, would be mixed on the palette. (So you build your painting from darks to lights).
This also involved waiting for each color to dry before adding the next. A very slow process when using oils.
By the way I am on the east coast of the USA
Check out Wilson Bickford wet on wet..thinner is the answer with wet on wet technique. I follow Wilson and have been painting about a year. I found Len and plan to follow him also,
Hi Geoff
I am not quite sure why you are having this problem.
You might find something about it in my ‘tips’ page at www.paintwithlen.com.
You should always use acrylic under coat.
If your paint is all different thicknesses you will have problems – a thick paint on your brush will pick up a thin paint rather than lay over it.
Hope this helps
Len
G’day Len
Absolutely impressed with the way you go about creating a painting and I only came across your site by chance. Unfortunately I live on the other side of the continent, as i would dearly love to get some lessons from you.
I am a novice painter and have tried a few paintings that have turned out just okay. What lets them down is getting the paint to stick to the foreground paint. I find this the hardest thing to get around and the proper preparation of your board (at moment I used primed mdf ) so that the paint flows and then adding paint to the foreground so it stays on and not smudged. Hard to find where someone actually explains it properly. Do any of your lessons address this?
regards
Geoff