Leveling About My Medium of Choice

    If you've taken the time to look through my portfolio--first and foremost thank you for doing so, it's greatly appreciated 😊-- then you've probably noticed a pattern among the majority of my pieces pertaining to the medium. As you may have guessed, Acrylics are my favorite paint to use on my pieces. I suppose the reason for this is because it was the first serious paint I had been introduced to. Where we lived at the time --when I had decidedly chosen art as a passion to pursue-- I would often find my mother at the table in the kitchen nook corner, with a fine paintbrush and some acrylic paint in hand, working on a piece she'd been at for weeks. She only painted in the morning hours, when the house was silent, the coffee had been brewed, and the birds could be heard calling to each other with their songs as they sat perched amongst the huge oak tree just outside our window. Only then did she feel she had the time. 

    She was a very emotive painter, but her work could best be described as abstract. She'd use colors that resonated with what she felt at the time and create creatures or objects from the shapes she would see as she went. Us kids always felt she could be famous by those paintings someday. She believed otherwise. They were too dark for the world, she often assumed, but I still admire them to this day. I suppose you could call mom a skeptic of her own work. Not to get too sidetracked here, but I recently watched the 2020 film Underwater, and the main character Norah had an awesome quote about skepticism although she went by its other name, cynicism, in the first few minutes of the film, "There's a comfort in cynicism. There is a lot less to lose." I suppose being afraid of failure is hereditary. Nonetheless, my mother was another reason I  decided and continued to pursue art. She was a woman I looked up to, and she was always working hard, and kind-hearted, and loving. She still is today.

    Needless to say, she was the grounds for which I painted with acrylic. It has its pros and cons, pros being; a variety of colors to choose from, water-soluble, and easily painted over and cons being; less intense in color than oils and for some, the quick-drying time. I suppose I paint with it because it's become almost like a safety blanket for my work. A comfort, so to speak.

    Although it is my favorite, I am not against using other mediums, I actually quite enjoy playing around with watercolors, oil pastels, colored pencils, and oil paints, among others. I hope to use them further to create future pieces, and I'd love to try mixed media as well, as I hope to include fabric, string, and other details in my works. Thinking about such things really riles up the artist inside me. Perhaps Bob Marley sums it best: