The Puerto Vallarta Photographer

I thought it was in interesting photo.

A guy on the Malacon was shooting a photo of his woman between two authentically dressed indigenous dressed characters by the arches. The man did not take time to put is beer with a couple of limes in it down before he took the photo.

I decided to paint this photo on a canvas prepared with the new "watercolor" grounds offered for purchase from Daniel Smith in Seattle. What this new medium allowed me to do it to take an acrylic canvas and paint watercolors on it. Without a proper treatment the acrylic canvas will shed watercolor like a duck.It is primed with the paint on grounds in a liquid medium and then allowed to dry.

There is a company that makes canvas treated for watercolors, Fredrick's but the canvas sizes are often limited. This painting called for a change in aspect(height to width ratio) so that the painting would be more horizontal than standard painting canvases. The local Michael's ran a special on canvases, half off their gallery supported acrylic canvases. I bought two and treated them with two coats of the watercolor grounds. I had to make sure that they dried between coats.

This is the first painting that I have made with these new grounds. The texture while painting them is great. The feel is similar to paper.Dry paint to dry canvas results a pleasant crusty feel and sound. It is also possible to scruble the texture right down the base if needed. I needed to do that to extend the line of horizon through the feathers for this painting. I also needed to do this to lift the charcoal shadows on the tile surface. My art teacher suggested that I do that since the shadows were reading too darkly and connecting them with the objects that they were to represent was difficult at times in this painting.

The figures were left to be loose as the setting and the photographer are supposed to be the important part of this painting.

Check to see how this painting progressed as shown in the flickr link connected on the the left side of this blog.

Have a great day! Pat