Acrylic Painting... somes suggestions?

[GriNGo]

Hi everyone,
I just started real life painting this week at college. It's my first time painting EVER (but I have decent time drawing with graphite pencils and charcoal).

The material I chose to work with were acrylics. The thing I have most trouble with is making smooth transitions to shadows. Mainly making transitions from color to color. I am attempting to make my work as realistic as possible (that's how I draw), but I'll need some tips on it. Do you have any suggestions on working with acrylics and/or tips you could share? Much help is appreciated.

Thanks in advance,
GriNGoLoCo

[mtw]

Read this article (http://www.studioproducts.com/cgi-bin/forum/ikonboard.cgi?;act=ST;f=4;t=2). He says that it doesn't work with acrylic, but I'd suggest trying it anyways. It might at least give you a starting point on how to do it.

[GriNGo]

thanks for the tip mtw :) really helpful.

later,
GriNGoLoCo

[Wacom Knight]

The way I always did it was to layout blocks of solid medium and shadow and then paint wider to smaller strips of color, blending wet when necessary. An ideal book for you would be the Hildebrandt painting book.

Amazon Listing of Tim's Painting book (http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/tg/detail/-/1850281610/002-6445179-9569612?v=glance)

Edit: One thing I wanted to mention thats excellent was that Tim would get a large square tupware container and line the bottom with aluminum foil, this would be his pallette, and he would use a spray bottle to keep them fresh. When not in use he mearly sealed the lid and the precious mixtures of tones wouldn't need to be remade.

[Big-Dave]

I know wat you mean, the paints always dry too fast to smooth out in time. I tried using them as my first (serious) attempts at painting. The biggest thing I'd advise getting if you want oil-like smoothness is to invest in a tube of acrylic retarder. This'll slow down the drying of the paints and allows you to use the techniques of oils much more easily.

[GriNGo]

thx for the tips fellas, about making gradients, one good tip my teacher told me was to keep 2 brushes while your painting: 1 for the painting, and the othre just dipped in water. After you make some strokes with the acrylic brush, you just take out the water brush and start making smaller strokes around the pars where the original painting was.. works pretty well :)

later,
GriNGoLoCo

[egerie]

There is also a medium that slows down the drying of acrylics (which, to me, defeats the purpose of using acrylics). You can also work in "glacis" and layer your colours in semi-transparent layers. Or you can get a lot of paint on your brush and work fast.
Hope you find a way :)