Painting fruit trees in Acrylic

[Richard Robinson]

"Harvest" - 8x10" - Acrylic on Canvasboard
Price: $1 Reserve. View Auction >


Still trying to come to grips with these blasted acrylics, but I really enjoyed painting this this afternoon. Where I take the kids to swimming lessons after school they have an orchard so today I took my paints along and did this as Luke chatted away to me while hanging from trees, exploring the area and making me time him running up and down the sunny rows of mandarin trees.

I still think this would look a lot better in oils, but in the end I did enjoy the power of the colour coming through the initial washes. The biggest artistic decision here was to make the dark shadows under the trees a slightly lighter purplish-gray as it receded in order to add more interest and help define the space better. I'm trialling all sorts of acrylics at the moment and these ones were Atelier Interactive Acrylics from Chroma. I thought the colours seemed a little easier to mix than the Golden Open Acrylics, but that's probably more to do with the colour characteristics I'm used to in my oils rather than any deficiency in the Golden Open Acrylics. Only thing I don't like about the Atelier paints is they seem to have a slight smell of ammonia about them. Checking the safety data sheets I found the ammonia content of these paints listed as <1% whereas the Golden Open ammonia content is listed as <0.2%.

That first auction I put up the other day seems to be going alright so far, so I thought I would offer this painting up for auction to, again at the $1 reserve. At the moment it's hanging over the fireplace so at least I'll get to enjoy it for a few days before I have to send it off. I've never painted a scene like this before and at the moment I'm really chuffed with it. (That will no doubt change, as it usually does, but right now I'm a happy chappy.)

The leaves were a real challenge in this but I just forced myself to keep squinting and painted what I saw when I was squinting - big shapes of colour.

[Richard Robinson]

Thanks Amanda, see you soon then!

[Amanda Jones]

This has a great painterly feel to it. I switched to acrylics a number of years ago and I just  love them. Nothing is ever lost you can glaze or paint over so easily. I am so used to the speed of drying I don't even like the open acrylics. I am driving to Vegas for the convention from Vancouver, Canada, I look forward to seeing you there.

[David Gorski]

Hey Richard,

   I would start the paintings higher than $1.00, maybe $50.00.  I'm following your oil-acrylics conversion with interest. Have you tried the water based oils? I've only used those so I'd be curious as to the pros/cons if you have any.

[debbie piro]

Richard, $1 may have seemed a little cheap but hey it got people attention. Websites are not cheap as i have been thinking of something myself and wondering what to do. On the site it tells you in a demo to put $50 -$100 on a painting but as long as you put enough to cover your cost. I will keep watching with interest tho, there are a couple of painting on there with bids of $1300. -$1200. hope for us all.  Good luck with it. deb

[Richard Robinson]

Thanks Debbie, I found the site through Carol Marine, whose blog I subscribe to. It's very well done and I figured it's easier to use their system than to pay to have my own built and all the cans of worms that that entails. Working ok so far eh. I wasn't sure about putting the $1 reserve on it because it seems a bit tacky, what do you think? Might it be better to start at $100? I was also thinking about running some bigger painting auctions too, although I doubt those will sell as easily. Thing is, I'm producing these little paintings faster than they are selling normally, and if you follow that down the track I will have run out of space to store them, so I feel it's better for them to be hanging on someone else's wall rather than sitting in a box in my studio. Love painting them and that's the main thing.

[debbie piro]

Its been good to watch your painting auctions. how did you find the site, I like it and I'm looking at it too.

[Richard Robinson]

I can paint outdoors with oils no problem (not large paintings though) - the problem is having paintings and oil painting stuff drying in my studio, large oil paintings there continually giving off fumes etc.

[Dirk Rampling]

I really enjoy watching your continual growth, pushing boundaries consistently. Are oil paints that toxic especially outside where you are well ventilated or is the acrylics just an easier medium for handling, drying time ect?