Practice with Paint

My latest effort is based on a painting of Josephine, Crown Princess of Sweden, by Joseph Stieler done sometime between 1781 and 1858. My work took a few days from start to finish.

The project is a painting (instead of coloring shapes in with Sharpie markers) using my latest technique while testing a new substrate and new paint. So it took more time. The substrate was Bienfang Bristol Drawing paper coated with one layer of Matte Medium. The paint was FolkArt Matte Acrylic Paint. Some embellishments were done with a gold Sakura Pen Touch marker and black Pentel PointLiners (0.3mm and 0.5mm).

Overall, I like the piece though it has less color intensity than the other pieces I've done recently with the markers. It also looks much less busy (maybe due to the single-color border on the top and sides).

About the test, I'm not a fan of Bienfang Bristol Drawing paper (see Note below). The black Sharpie used to draw the initial image and curvy lines on the coated version of the paper--skipped and its marks were inconsistent.

As for the paints, the FolkArt acrylics do dry matte, but they went on more translucent. So, a minimum of two coats were needed for most colors to get opaque coverage. That increased the time the piece took to complete in addition to the drying time needed between layers and color mixing, etc. In a few areas, I used Golden fluid acrylics in combination with the matte paints for color mainly. But it caused the paint to be a bit glossy, and I prefer a matte appearance.

I continue exploring substrates and color media to find the mix that I like best to use regularly. I've started a spreadsheet to track the various combinations and my observations.

Note: I also tried Bienfang Bristol Drawing paper without a coating as a substrate while working with Sharpie markers, and there was visible bleed-through on the back. The paper will probably work very well for other purposes. So, if you're interested in it--make sure you test it for yourself to determine if it works for your purposes. This paper product just doesn't work in the way I want it to.

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Cay Denise

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