Identifying Tools & Materials

For this exercise I decided to choose the medium acrylic paint and that is one of my favourites and I have been working digitally a lot so wanted to use something traditional.

These are the illustrators I chose the focus on:

Illustrators:
Marisa - Creative Thursday
Tascha Parkinson
Leigh Ellexson
Micki Wilde
Katie Daisy
Lucy Grossmith
Natasha Newton

I created a Pinterest board for the illustrators who use acrylic paint https://www.pinterest.co.uk/nikijacksonart/acrylic-illustrators/ and divided them into the following categories:

Botanical & Insect
Childlike Style
Angular Shapes
Simple Abstract
Fine Detail

I had a hard time deciding how to categorize them but those were the ones I chose.

First Illustration
For my first illustration I am using the illustration by Micki Wilde 'The Woodland Wanderer'.

I love Micki's use of abstract background techniques mixed with more detailed animals and details that almost look like doodles on the canvas. This artist mainly uses acrylics but has the added elements of pens and other mediums to create the effects she wants.
Her 'doodles' always feature in her paintings and represent very personal things to her, they are designs she has crafted to symbolize important people and memories, which she honors in each of her works.
I particularly love the way Micki blends her paints for her backgrounds, the softness against the detailed focus of the painting works so well.
There are many layers built up in her paintings and her methods are of experimentation and wonder as she layers the colours in the way that feels right.
I believe this painting tells a story about soul and spirit, the eyes of the deer stare out at you like it wants to tell you something deep and profound. The symbolism invites you deeper to ask questions about what they could mean and what story they tell. I find the painting quite moving and interesting.

The visual I chose to revisit was my Koala illustration from the exercise 'Getting the Gist'. I chose this one because I thought it would work well with the acrylics in a soft style.

I tried using similar techniques as the artist but didn't want to copy her style so tried to keep to my own style but incorperate elements that the artist had used such as using pen to make her doodles. I used the black pen to outline the thought bubble and elements. I also used black pencil to outline the koala and details which I like the look of. Overall I like the illustration but think it needs more fine tuning to work better. I think I got caught up in the struggle of trying not to copy the artists style whilst still using her techniques, I found this very difficult.

Second Artist
The second artist I have chosen is Natasha Newton
Her work is always very delicate and precise. She uses a lot of earthy, moody tones in her paintings. She uses some texture to add more details to areas such s hills or mountains and very small brushes to add fine details. I believe she uses some kind of dry brush technique to add depth to her scenes which are always based on nature.

The visual I decided to re-visit for this one is the detective illustration for the exercise 'Choosing Content'.

I chose this one because I worked digitally last time and back then I have very little knowledge of Photoshop and so kept it very simple. I still feel the illustration is effective but I thought it would be interesting to see how I could create it in acrylic paint using techniques like Natasha Newton. I also thought the moody colour scheme would also work really well with this artist.

Finished illustration:

I found this very difficult to apply in acrylic paint, I couldn't get the sharpness I wanted or the effects I wanted for the textures. I don't think I have a steady enough hand to get the fine detail that Natasha achieves with her techniques. It was interesting to see how this illustration would work in this medium but I think the digital version is stronger.