09 Feb NB Gurung Art: Why Acrylic?
In last month’s blog post, we explored why Nepalese artist NB Gurung favours watercolour as his preferred medium. It transpires that NB finds his skills are best put to use whilst painting in watercolour but he also LOVES to paint using acrylic. Many of the paintings he sent over to us recently, all the way from Kathmandu, Nepal, to be framed and sold, are in fact executed using acrylic paints – and as always we are blown away by the natural talent that this man has.
As we did with watercolour, we thought it might be interesting to explore the pros and cons of using a fast drying medium such as acrylic, so here goes…
One of NB’s most recent acrylic works of art: Acrylic on Canvas – The Himalayas of Nepal
Acrylic Pros: You can paint on anything.
This is one of the key things that make acrylics a great medium to start with when beginning to learn to paint. To be able to set up quickly, start painting on anything is brilliant. Paper, card, canvas board, whatever you have to hand. Acrylic also offers a texture that other paints, such as watercolours, don’t. The texture takes the painting to a whole new dimension.
Acrylic Pros: A Crisp edge
The crisp edges that can be achieved with acrylics can be hugely beneficial if you paint with a more graphic composition. You can mask out areas, work over them quickly, and easily cover a hard shape with thicker paint. You can mix clean, bright colours very easily.
Acrylic Cons: They dry very quickly.
You want to do some painting, so you book in a little me time. You’ve got a canvas ready, you’ve prepared your ground and now you’re ready to paint. All is quiet and at peace with the world. You carefully squeeze out your paints, being careful not to use too much, and then what happens.. The phone rings, or the doorbell goes and you put down your brushes, come back ten minutes later and everything has dried! Not quite the tranquil painting experience you had imagined.
Acrylics Cons: Achieving a smooth blend
Blending with acrylics can be frustrating due to the speed of the drying time. Especially if you are working on a large-scale it can be practically impossible to work the canvas as a whole to bring it all to the same finish together.
So there you go, some tips on whether or acrylic paint, or not to acrylic paint!
Watch the video to find out more about NB Gurung here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7up9Ke4u5Ek
