In The Studio

This is what the studio looks like. Fun Fact, a long time ago it used to have an indoor pool until it was transformed into this.

After watching my grandpa paint for a couple hours (or should I say correcting details that I didn't even notice until he pointed them out), i finally decided to get started on a painting of my own. The hard decision to make was what kind of paint I wanted to use. Obviously I would be using all of them (oil, acrylic, and watercolor) over the course of my internship, but I wanted to make the right choice for my first (practice) painting to ease myself back into doing landscapes, which I actually hadn't done for a while. I ended up choosing acrylic, which is what my grandpa usually works in. I'm still not completely comfortable with acrylic paints, even though I have used them before. I started the painting and made progress with it very quickly until I realized that it wasn't really looking the way I wanted it to. Then I spent the next three days endlessly fixing and redoing parts of the painting, with the advice given by my grandpa (or should I call him "on-site advisor", "Brent", or "The Master"? I don't really know what would be the most appropriate). I ended up with a finished product, "finished" basically meaning "I'm sick of this painting and I don't want to do anything with it anymore." I'm not disappointed with the painting, but I'm not entirely pleased with it either. Luckily, there are such things as learning and improvement.

"Most of my life is watching paint dry." -Brent Laycock

My humble workspace

What I learned while doing this painting (from Grandpa and from experience):

• Acrylic paint dries quickly, sometimes frustratingly quickly, sometimes helpfully quickly.
• White makes paint opaque, medium makes it transparent. Don't use both at the same time. That's defeats the purpose.
• It's okay to redo something you don't like, but don't overwork things.
• Artistic license is a thing. Your painting can look different from the photo.
•  I need to practice my signature more.

Also, if you want to check out some of my grandpa's work, here's his website: http://www.brentlaycock.com/