The Grape Seller

At and since the art camp I've been doing my ACEOs without drawing them first on a separate piece of paper.  I wanted to practice my drawing.  But I think the ACEOs have sufferred a bit. 

So now I'm going back to doing the drawing separately, thinking that it will give me more accurate drawings.

Here's the start of the first one following that method.  Today I did the drawing, transfered it to the good paper, and did the initial work on the subject.  Tomorrow I'll work on the background then come back and finish the fox, grapes, and barrels.

I'm working with Liquitex soft body acrylics on Strathmore Mixed Media paper.  Although I liked their Acrylic paper, I wanted to also try this one.  The jury's still out, but I may like it better.  The surface is smoother - vellum rather than canvas texture - and more absorbent.  The absorbency allows me to damped an area before I apply paint.  As long as I work quickly, I can then move the paint around a bit, like with watercolor.  On the Acrylic paper I couldn't move it at all.  But, of course, I'm using the acrylics very thinned with water.  I'm sure there would be working time on the Acrylic paper with a thicker application of paint.

 

By the way, despite taking time with the drawing, I see that I have the fox's nose too short and not sufficiently pointed!