It's All About the Style! Whether it's colored pencil, acrylic or watercolor.....it's your style that will make the artwork.

It's All About the Style! Whether it's colored pencil, acrylic or watercolor.....it's your style that will make the artwork.

As an illustrator, I am a “Jill of all mediums, mistress of none” to para-phrase an old saying...Jack of all trades, master of none. In other words, I try to learn about as many different media as I can, so's I can use the best parts for my illustrations.

This has made me a avid art technique collector. Much like a cook collects food recipes, I collect art techniques.....try them out.....and then use various parts of different techniques to “get the job done”

Church Gallery with Sparrows  8x10  colored pencil

This colored pencil building “portrait” is a prime example of what makes colored pencils SO popular. Colored pencils deliver bright, intense controlled color, yet can be blended with just a bit-o-pressure of the pencil strokes, and most importantly.....you can use a ruler to get all those straight lines....well....straight!

Washington House Doorway  8x10 watercolor

Then there is watercolor. It delivers glowing washes of color....with graduations of colour that are quick and easy to attain, if you let the water do it's natural “thing”. And even better, there is a whole line of watercolor PENCILS.....so you can get those straight lines needed for structures. Yet those very watercolor pencil lines can themselves be moistened and blended!

Kentucky Provencal  18x24 Acrylic

And finally, one of my favorites,... acrylic paints. Acrylic paints have finally “matured”, in that they have been improved to the point that they can mimic watercolours or oil paints, yet remain one of the best mediums, IMHO,for rendering just about anything. This building portrait was painted in a realistic style, with plenty of sunlight, using both impasso (opaque layers of paint) and glazing (multiple layer of transparent paint) techniques. And those straight lines......were a fine brush laid alongside a ruler!

I firmly believe that any artist's body of work reflects their own artistic vision, no matter which medium (or how many or how mixed) you use to make your artwork. And tho' I usually aim to sell my artwork, the journey of learning and discovery in that painting, is a whole “end” in and of itself!