Michelle Wrighton Fine Art and Photography

This is the latest horse portrait on my easel of a beautiful Australian Stock Horse.  Acrylic on gallery wrapped canvas.

Australian Stock Horse painting in progress 1

Australian Stock Horse painting in progress 2

Australian Stock Horse portrait painting in progress 3

Australian Stock Horse acrylic painting in progress 4

Australian Stock Horse portrait acrylic painting in progress 5

Australian Stock Horse portrait acrylic painting in progress 6

Hopefully I will get some time in the studio to finish this one in the next few days.

This is my latest horse painting hot off the easel, an acrylic on canvas of the beautiful grey Arabian Stallion, Rokewood Riyadh. Photo Reference Sam Pearce.

Portrait painting of the stunning Arabian Stallion, Rokewood Riyadh

Tessa’s portrait is nearly finished, just a few more shadows and minor adjustments needed before she is ready to be signed and framed.  I havn’t used acrylics on watercolour paper before, but I have thoroughly enjoyed working on this Blue Lake paper (just as well because its expensive!) and will definitely be using it more in the future!

Tessa’s portrait almost finished!

Its been quite a while since I have painted a horse in acrylics, but I have recently been inspired to paint my beautiful arab mare, Tessa. Actually, she is such an inspiring muse and I have had such fun painting this one that I have several more planned. This painting is 8″x13″ approx on Blue Lake Watercolour paper.

I’ve deliberately tried to work a bit looser with this, trying to find the happy medium between adding in enough detail without making it photorealistic.  That is a much harder task than it might seem!  Its nearly finished, just needing some more highlights, shadows and then a signature.

The basic sketch

Blocking in the shadows

Starting the background and shadows in her blaze

More blocking in colour

Starting to add some detail

Refining the details

A bit more detail

Miniature contemporary landscape painting, acrylic on canvas.

Miniature abstract landscape painting on canvas

A small seascape painting based on a photo  that I took near Bunbury, Western Australia.

Bunbury Seascape painting, acrylic on canvas board, 8″x10″

More experimenting with abstract landscapes, acrylic on board.

Abstract landscape painting, acrylic on board

I hope everyone is enjoying the silly season and getting ready to start bring in the New Year in an enjoyable (and safe!) way.

I thought before 2012 ends that I should post a few more of the fun little paintings I have created over the last couple of months, up until Christmas I have been painting pretty much every day and hope to get back to it in the next few days.  Well that is assuming I can figure out what is wrong with the air conditioner in my studio as we have been melting in 42 degree celcius days!

All of these have been painted with the Atelier Interactive acrylics, and in a couple I have been experimenting with the micaceous gold acrylic for some rather pleasing results.  There is the very definite risk of going overboard with this particular type of paint, so some restraint is needed to make rather than break the painting.  The shimmer of the micaeous paint does not show very well in the photographs so I have included some angled shots to show how the light reflects off the mica particles.

I am currently working on a more traditional acrylic painting and have a few ideas for some new graphite and colour pencil artworks as well.  However, I’m really looking forward to using these small studies as the basis for larger works and delving further into abstract and contemporary landscape paintings, specifically exploring the ideas of horizon lines and open spaces in 2013.  I’ve had so much fun with these and certainly plan to continue with some smaller paintings, so I’d love to know what you think about these ones!

Blue Gold Contemporary Landscape Painting, 5″x7″ Acrylic on mdf

Angled shot showing the reflective quality of the gold micaeous paint in this Landscape Painting

Blue Green and Gold Abstract Landscape, 5″x7″ acrylic painting on mdf

Blue green gold abstract modern contemporary Australian acrylic landscape painting

Green purple and gold modern contemporary abstract landscape painting, 5″x7″ acrylic on mdf

Modern abstract landscape in purple, green, gold, miniature painting in acrylics

Purple Spirit, abstract acrylic painting on canvas paper

A very poor photo from my mobile phone of most of the small daily paintings that I have done in 2012.

Another productive day in the studio working with my Interactives acrylics.  In the spirit of experimentation, I am actually working on a number of small paintings at the moment, pretty much at the same time.  Sounds strange I know, but I am finding it a very valuable technique for removing the intellectual thought process and instead just painting intuitively.  While I am quite used to the beginning stages of my artwork looking unusual…or at the very least nothing like the finished piece, working with multiple pieces is quite exhilerating.  I usually have 2 or 3 on my easel at one time that I swap with another 2 or 3 during the painting session.  Each painting is developed at approximately the same rate as the others, but they complete at different times – sometimes it is simply one glaze of colour that is enough to complete the painting.  In some ways, I think it is similar to automatic writing in that I am laying out the paints, holding a paint brush and seeing what happens!

This little sunset painting is what happened today.  I have forgotten how difficult paintings are to photograph, this photo dosn’t pick up the delicate mauve transition between the orange and the blue.  One of these days I will need to set up my big camera and get some better pics.

Summer Sunset modern abstract landscape painting, 5″x7″ acrylic on textured board

Some women collect shoes, some buy clothes and jewellery…but to an artist there is nothing greater than getting more art supplies!  I have recently tried a couple of tubes of Atelier Interactive Acrylics and was so pleased with them that I had to go out and purchase some more….and then a few more a week later:)

This is my new collection, with lots of lucious bright colours, the cadmiums and one very expensive tube of Series 6 Cobalt Blue!

Atelier Interactive Acrylic Paints

Interactives are lightfast artists quality (I won’t use anything else) acrylic paints with a difference.  Interatives are the only acrylic paints in the world that allow controlled drying techniques!  While they work exactly like other acrylic paints in regards to fast drying time, you can keep them open for as long as you want with a simple mist of water or wet brush so that you can blend them in a way that is very similar to oils.  When you want the paint to dry quickly, you stop using the water spray, or use one the fast drying mediums.  I have found that I can re-open unfixed layers just with water even after a few hours, so havn’t needed to use the Unlocking Formula medium that llows you to re-open touch dry paint.   So far I am only using the Atelier Fast Medium/Fixer and one of the gloss mediums for glazing depending on what result that I am aiming for.

So far I am very impressed, and feel that with the way I paint, this is the closest that any acrylics come to comparing to painting with oils – without the hassle of a long dry time that oils have!

While I havn’t cracked the tube of Cobalt Blue yet, I do have a number of small paintings on the go done completely with the Interactives (not the three red ones on the left, they have been painted in oils).

Atelier Interactive Acrylics Paintings in Porgress