Making improvements

Painting by Vicky Christensen, acrylic on 18 X 24 inch canvas 

Painting by Vicky Christensen, acrylic on 18 X 24 inch canvas 

These two paintings were originally painted a couple years ago, early in my acrylic painting 'career'. They have been propped up in my living room ever since, waiting for me to hang them. I was pretty happy with them when I painted them, but the longer I had them, the more convinced I became that I could improve them. So today I pull out the glazing liquid and some fluid acrylics and went to work adding some more highlights and enhancing the color with transparent glazes.

Here are the originals:

http://vlchristensenpainting.blogspot.com/2014/09/autumn-is-in-air.html
http://vlchristensenpainting.blogspot.com/2014/08/up-in-trees.html

Easter egg hunt

Painting by Vicky Christensen, acrylic on 14 x 18 inch canvas 

Today's painting started out with scribbles of high flow acrylics on a damp canvas. On subsequent layers I glazed fluid acrylics into the ovals, making my color choices based on the colors in the underpainting. I ended up liking the unpainted areas but it didn't seem right to leave it that way so I went with a translucent glaze of white with a slight hint of manganese blue that I painted around and between the colorful ovals.

Broken glass

Abstract painting by Vicky Christensen, acrylic on 14 X 18 inch canvas

I liked using the Fineline applicators so much I ordered some more and put them to work in this painting. I spritzed the canvas with water before starting to draw with phthalo blue, turquoise phthalo and yellow high flow paints. The damp canvas caused the high flow paints to flow and bleed. I followed up with transparent glazes of phthalo blue and quinacridone nickel azo gold, then lightened up some of the painting with a translucent white glaze.