Acrylic Letter
On 2025 artistic resolutions, on acrylic paint.
I
Art Adjacent: On my 2025 Artistic Resolutions
I hope everyone had a lovely time over the holidays, or at least restful to some extent, and I wish everyone a happy new year.
I thought I’d begin this new year of art substacking by laying out where I am regarding my 2025 artistic resolutions. As regards, the rest of my life - those resolutions are a work in progress!
But it is clear to me that first and foremost I intend to continue on this path I am on and follow where it leads, and so my first resolution is to:
Continue to explore acrylic painting. And I explore and outline my most current thoughts on this process so far below. All I need to say here is that this new medium is challenging enough to deserve more time and energy in 2025 and that I am hoping it does ultimately offer me the opportunity of producing a steady body of work on canvas in the future.
Alongside this and slightly in the background I would like to continue producing works on paper. One reason I don’t anticipate this being a huge problem is that by now I am habituated to doing this. It has become my way of testing ideas, my way of sketching if you will. And I like it. In fact, as a sign of the progress I’ve made in this regard I will say that I now prefer it to working in a sketchbook. I had a lovely sketchbook on the go in December and although I enjoyed it I found I preferred to work directly onto sheets of paper. To me, at least, that is progress as I feel the works on paper are more accessible and are works in themselves, not just trial pieces.
I don’t necessarily want to expand my subject matter just for the sake of it but I do want to deepen and further explore the territory I already consider in my work. I suppose what I mean by this is that I want the work to be about something and to present a world that I have carefully curated and that is unique to me (as far as that is possible.) So alongside whatever I do I want to continue the thinking work that has already shaped what I’ve produced so far. I already anticipate that this latest shift into acrylic will in itself effect change in how I generally proceed. We shall see.
This next one is possibly an aspect of my very particular mind - I want to use up the materials I like least (or which are least light fast) in my remaining sketchbooks and continue to hone my supplies of materials. I could go on quite comfortably with half of what I own. I think you learn through your daily practise what materials are most useful or attractive to you. I know already what I will and won’t rebuy when it is used up. But I hate waste and also like to challenge my view of a material if I don’t initially take to it so I shall continue to try to make use of everything until I have reduced things down to just the essentials. I am slightly incurious about all the endless supplies out there - in fact the thought of them is slightly exhausting! I can get excited about new materials (especially coloured pencils for some reason) but what I really want is to have defined my essential supplies and to work as light as possible going forward. Too many choices just ends up addling me somehow!
II
Art Process: On Acrylic Paint
So I have transitioned into using acrylic paint (on a range of harder and/or canvas-like surfaces) in recent months. I am still allowing myself to work a little on paper with watercolour and gouache as I found I couldn’t quite leave that behind!
But otherwise I have been persevering down a path that by now represents the hardest transition I have attempted so far (and 2024 was a year of transitions large and small).
The difficulty of this transition is a result of several factors. One is that acrylic painting on canvas falls into the category of “serious painting” and all that connotes, and carries the extra pressure of “serious” endeavour with every piece.
Two is the paint itself and managing it. Watercolour is quite generous and long lasting. Even in dilute form it has expressive power (at least to me it does). But acrylic needs to be used with some consideration as it is easily used up. And that alone has made me very conscious of how I make use of my paint.
Another aspect of this is how this type of paint works and mixes on a palette. I find mixing watercolour very immediate and instinctive. But acrylic paint, coming in tubes of paint that once placed on a palette will only stay usable for a relatively small amount of time (before it dries up), is much less immediate as the paint needs to be selected by tube and then decanted each time. In every session you assemble your palette whereas with watercolour it is there, pre-curated, waiting for you, ready to go.
I tended to use disposable palettes with watercolour and could even theoretically use the same one endlessly whereas with acrylic paint one palette sheet becomes unusable after one session as the paint has made its definitive mark and dried all over the palette paper to a textural, ‘geographic’ extent! Gone are the days of my infinite, watercolour mixing palette. Now, with acrylic paint I am slower and more ponderous (which doesn’t always suit how I prefer to work!) and find myself decanting careful amounts of paint onto a palette. And each time I use what feels like too much as the paint appears to evaporate into the mixing process which, again, is slower and more involved, and in many cases, less than satisfactory.
Already while writing this I can perceive the nature of the adjustment I have been making. Despite the decreased drying time there is something slower about the acrylic paint medium, something more considered and deliberate and measured which I am still adapting to and this will take time. And every step makes undeniable full use of the materials to hand.
This part troubles me slightly as I could paint from one good watercolour box for a couple of years at least. So the thrift-loving aspect of me resists this transition quite a lot as I am involved in a process that uses more paint and more surface materials which are themselves more substantial and trickier to handle and store. And so keeping up with my inspiration via acrylic on canvas seems indulgent in a way it never did when I worked on paper with watercolour.
All of this is as much an adjustment of values as much as it is an adjustment to new materials and so it is still very much a work in progress!
III
Originals
I will be periodically showcasing small amounts of originals (five maximum) on Big Cartel, accessible via my bio in instagram (as part of my linktree) & here: Shop.
And if you are interested in pictures not currently listed I can add them to the store.
IV
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