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| "This is Life," acrylic on panel, 8" x 10", by Kim Testone |
When I first decided that I needed to transition from oil painting to acrylic painting, I spent months and months scouring the Internet for tips and techniques, and what I found was pretty limited. It seemed that most information about technique was dedicated to oil painters or watercolorists, while acrylics got glossed over in terms of really learning how to use it. Instead, I had to adapt a lot of what I knew and learned from oil painting, and learn about the technical properties of acrylic through a lot of trial and error, until I got some level of control over the medium and understood its potential.
The truth is that many of the greatest realist painters in the last 40 years have used acrylics to create amazing paintings. Acrylics may be easy to pick up but they are certainly not easy to master. I want this site to be a resource for all aspiring acrylic realists to take their work to the next level, and embrace the acrylic medium for what it is and what it can do. I plan to present not just my own painting techniques but those of other acrylic painters, so we can all learn from each other and ultimately create better work tomorrow than we did yesterday.
Have a tip you'd like to share? Or would you like to contribute a post about your own process? Email me at acrylicrealism@blogspot.com.
Thanks for visiting!
Kim T.
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Kim Testone (www.kimtestone.com) is a former art magazine editor, writer and theme park caricature artist. Her paintings focus on ordinary objects, with a bit of a quirky and sentimental twist. She paints subjects that celebrate imagination and entertainment, from nostalgic toys and games to colorful desserts to trompe l’oeil pieces that aim to fool the viewer’s perceptions.
“My hope is to capture a little bit of unexpected joy in everyday subjects and surprise the viewer. If my work can elicit a smile or help someone recapture a warm memory, that’s a pretty good day.”
Kim holds a Bachelor’s Degree in Drawing from the University of Central Florida, and a Master’s Degree in Arts Administration from Savannah College of Art and Design. She resides in Syracuse, New York, with her husband and their three cats. She enjoys old science fiction television, board games, comic books, conspiracy theories and playing her antique piano.
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