8×10″, Golden High Flow acrylics on Stillman & Birn Beta paper, mounted to acid free foamboard.

This fun piece started out as an acrylic sketch in a wirebound sketchbook. My goal was to do a quick sketch to explore some of the properties of the new Golden High Flow paints, and then move on to a 16×20″ version on board. I’m enjoying working with these new paints, and hope to post a review of them soon.

It’s a good thing I was working on archival, 180 lb. sketchbook paper by Stillman & Birn, because I ended up taking this way farther than I originally intended. I went from a transparent, drippy and spattery concept, to a more opaque rendering as the painting evolved. The paint coming out of the bottle and flowing all over the surface was an afterthought, but I like it enough to want to do more of these!

Here’s an image you can click on for a larger, clearer view of the painting:

Once I’d taken the painting as far as I wanted to go, I cut it out of the wirebound sketchbook with an exacto knife, sealed the back of the page (which probably wasn’t necessary), and mounted it to archival foamboard using acrylic gel medium. This will be varnished and framed like an oil painting.

I have to say, the Stillman and Birn Beta paper worked great for this! I was very impressed. I clipped the page to each side of the sketchbook while I painted using a metal office binder clip, and the paper did fine without taping in spite of the fact that I worked fairly wet at the start of this piece with a loaded brush, drips, and spatters. It was so easy to mount because the paper dried perfectly flat. I can already tell that it’s going to varnish up beautifully.

Posted by Jamie on Monday, July 22nd, 2013 at 5:34 pm.