Superb Fairy-wren in Acrylics

Lately I have been wondering about the best way to do things. So have been experimenting quite a lot, mostly just in my sketch book/ journal or whatever you want to call it.

I do love watercolour, but sometimes it just seems so difficult to do what you want to do. Hence my thinking the right tool for the job - in this case painting birds. Which is where the acrylic comes in.

So firstly an apology, for many years I had a snobby attitude to acrylics. I started out with them in the mid 80's. Actually using my mothers to be honest. Then I think for a birthday when I was about 14 or so, I got a set of oils - and never thought of Acrylics again. Pretty much everything but.

So by chance I had been feeling frustrated with oils, and watercolour is great for somethings - and then the other day I found a little starter set of acrylics going cheap. An old box - but $13 for 18 colours of a well known brand, I thought I may as well take the chance. I actually half expected them to be all dried up.

It was a bit of a relevation that I found even this old crappy box very easy to use, just on paper with a spare old brush - and it took about 20min to get an acceptable Superb Fairy-wren. So the next step is to actually get some real acrylic kit. I already have my shopping list worked out. Now just the shopping part.

Incidentally the Superb Fairy-wren is a favourite little bird of mine from south eastern Australia, Malurus cyaneus. They are actually a very interesting little genus of birds which I have been studying on and off over the years. Including a book on them - which is still in progress...

Here is the 20min experiment with cheap paints just on paper: