Traditional Painting Portfolio

Acrylic paints on medium texture acrylic primed 22.9 x 30.5 (9” x 12”) cm canvas.
Painting 1: Creative - Emerald Girl
For this creative piece, I decided to paint a young woman depicted in a candid lighting, roughly following a rule of thirds composition. I wanted the colour of her skin to have subtle purple tints (most predominantly the highlights and her lips - although the lips ended up more red in the final product), as to mix with the brown hues of her skin. With the background I wanted to complement the purple tones in her skin however, the saturated purple of the background struggled to work with her emerald hair, and the two colours ended up clashing quite a bit. This is unfortunate as I wanted to have her emerald hair to be one of the main focus. Perhaps painting the background with a warmer colour, like a pale orange or yellow beige could have helped this. I am most proud of the skin tone that I painted, as I wanted a very loose and blocky feel, which I felt I captured quite well. I also wanted to keep the hair quite simple as a stylistic choice, but made sure to show dimension and tone with the darker areas in her hair, and the highlights along the top and sides. Additionally, her eyes and lashes could be tidier and more clear. Other than that, I am happy with the overall piece, although some better colour choices could have been made.
Painting 2: Still Life Colour - Mauao
Captured in the early morning sunrise off the coast of Matakana Island, I struggled quite often with the colours as this piece involved a lot of re-painting of sections. With the placements, I had the horizon line placed at the first line (from the bottom) of the rule of thirds composition, and had the mountain ‘Mauao’ placed to the right. The contrast of the sky’s colours - the sun’s extremely bright orange and white peeking through, and the cool dark blue of the morning sky - could had been more interesting had I added some pinker hues to transition these two contrasting colours. I struggled most with painting the waves in motion, and having the reflections show well too. The waves in the end feel extremely muddy and unclear as they lack any real form. Overall, I am content with the final piece but the lack of detailing of the waves does weaken this piece, and perhaps more interesting hues in some areas could have been added too.
Painting 3: Still Life Greyscale - Beach Bike
With this piece, I had the bike positioned on the canvas at the bottom right, and the sun at the middle point to the left - following the rule of thirds composition. I feel the grass and waves of this piece was captured quite adequately, with the values and tones of the grassy dunes painted quite clearly. However, with the objects in the foreground, I failed to give much detail to the subject matters - mainly the fence posts and bicycle - due to my lack of skill and brush tools. Much of the detailing is lost and became untidy in the end, losing much of the clarity of this piece. Had more detail and skill gone into the bicycle, the foreground would feel more interesting, as at the moment it blends into the background, and does not capture one’s attention as well as I originally intended to. In the end, the piece lacks clarity and detail where it’s needed the most, but the tones captures the overall moment well enough.
As it is perhaps only my second or third time finishing traditionally painted pieces, overall I feel very proud of this body of work and now have a better understanding of how traditional acrylic paints actually work. In the future, I hope to take on board the mistakes I have made and use them to improve the next pieces I create when using this medium again.