Acrylics, texture, mystery…

These last weeks I’ve finished 2 landscapes in acrylics. I’m usually not satisfied by what I do but these two gave me some pleasure… A rare pleasure, a pleasure I suppose each artist expects from his/her work… I cannot explain it entirely… It’s kind of a mystery… and that’s not a bad thing…

I’ve discovered acrylics here, in Canada. In my native country, during my art high school years, it was unknown, practically… Artist material were rare, pretty expensive and not very good. No imported colors or paper, no known trademarks… We painted with what was produced locally and acrylics weren’t produced… So, I’ve seen acrylics for the first time about 10 years ago … I use them since and I’m far from knowing everything about them.
No secret I’m a big fan of acrylics. I love their fast drying, the possibility to work layer after layer, almost immediately. The flexibility, the possibilities for varied textures, the transparent use of “glacis” (transparent, diluted layers of color), the vivid and rare nuances of composed colors…

Texture, especially, is a particularity I love in acrylics. |Sure, one can also have some texture in oil or pastel but nothing could give you the rich, subtle and vigorous textures you can obtain with the acrylics heavy gel mediums…

I hope these two landscapes (inspired by photos from my native Transylvania, near Sibiu) will give you some visual pleasure, a small fraction at least  of the pleasure I had (orgasms!) painting them… It confirms what Cexanne said once: “Dont be an art critic, but paint, there lies salvation”… and pleasure, a lot of intelectual and physical pleasure…