A Word on Acrylics from Patti Mollica

by Patti Mollica

Acrylics are my go-to paint. I didn’t particularly system it that way. As a college student, the portray lessons I took were being conventional and oils only. Again then, we experienced plenty of time to paint the product, who saved the identical pose more than the program of a few reliable months. That is scholar existence. Lifetime improvements though, and that condition no for a longer period suited mine. I moved to New York City in 1992 and was thrust into the rapidly-paced electrical power of town existence and do the job in marketing layout. Frantic, insane deadlines, by no means enough time—rush rush rush.

I experienced to squeeze in my artwork wherever I could eke out a few minutes—sketching persons when using the subway, capturing the hustle and bustle of commuters at Grand Central Station, developing paintings from a concrete sidewalk “seat” or standing in the center of Fifth Avenue at hurry hour, obstructing the stampede of harried pedestrians. Expressing the city’s dynamic energy turned the aim of my artistic ambition.

For this, acrylic was the excellent medium—to get it down quickly—and go on. I fell in really like with the speedy drying time, which allows for inventive spontaneity, crisp mark-earning, altering path midstream, brief overpainting, countless impatient layering, daring patches of shade and gestural brushwork—in essence, speed-induced painting approaches.

While I left an advertising and marketing profession to generate and instruct art, my preference for acrylics is nonetheless intact. I delight in and experiment in all media—oils, pastels, gouache and watercolor. Every single has it is own exceptional persona, but—for the good reasons already mentioned—acrylics convey out the playful, expressive, impatient baby in me in a way that none of the others do. When I open my box of paints, it’s like a child opening a upper body full of toys. Which colours will beckon me? What aspect of my creativeness will come out to play? Which policies can I crack? What pearls of knowledge will be exposed as a result of experimentation? What new online games can I produce?

Acrylics are infinitely flexible. In 2009 I turned a certified Golden Paints Educator and an expert in the myriad of acrylic gels, pastes, mediums and textured grounds. Any inventive generation one’s creativity can concoct can be carried out in acrylics. Finest issue is—all these acrylic characters play so nicely alongside one another. The playground is correctly forgiving and practically devoid of “rules.” Everything goes. If you can assume it, you can do in acrylics.

Actually, what is not to like?

Patti Mollica (pattimollica.com) delights in portray the environment around her in a daring, assured style, with hues that are lively, energetic and present-day. Her work is recognized for its fearless use of coloration and expressive brushwork, when nevertheless blending a fragile stability amongst impressionism, abstraction and realism. She has been commissioned by and is incorporated in the non-public collections of American Express, Sheraton Lodges, CBS & RCA Records and Penguin Push, among the other people. She’s also a Certified Paints Educator for Golden Artist Colors and conducts workshops during the U.S. Her get the job done is represented in several galleries throughout the nation. Mollica is the writer of four books: How to Paint Quickly, Free & Daring Modern-day Acrylics Color Concept and Acrylics—Getting Started off. She is also showcased in a few instructional painting DVDs: Benefit Approaches Brushwork Methods and Colour Approaches, which are accessible for purchase or no cost to look at with membership at artistsnetwork.com.