Although I drew the shapes out in pencil it isn’t imperative to use graphite for acrylic painting. Sometimes if the shapes are easy, I simply start blocking in freehand with colour. Sometimes I might draw a few lines with paint using a small flat brush, especially if I want to be able to see the structure throughout the painting process. However, whichever method I use, I always endeavour to create a guideline, not an outline. The purpose of the drawing is to set the proportions and scale of the individual shapes that make up the overall design. When the drawing was complete for this painting, I loosely blocked in the shapes and values of the picture using a number of brushes to avoid constantly washing and rinsing one single brush. I used thick mixes of neat paint for the heavy values and thinner colour mixed up with flow improver for the lighter values. This is quite a quick and rough process. You can even see where the paint has run. Next, I used slightly thicker paint of a semi-transparent quality, which I achieved by mixing colour with matt medium and a couple of drops of water.
The consistency was of double cream to soft butter, and I worked the colour using flat brushes held horizontal to the paper. This helped to deliver varying amounts of paint depending on the level of pressure I used. I worked in the mid-values of the shadows and remodelled some of the lighter areas.
My aim in the second part of each of my paintings is to achieve a pleasing balance of shapes and values, so once I had reached this point I left the painting to dry.