Having fun painting with acrylics

My acrylic experience began a long time ago. People were telling me that acrylic paints are such a forgiving medium, so I wanted to try them and bought several tubes of paint made by various companies. But somehow I never had that feeling of creative joy working with them. So I put the tubes in a plastic container and more or less forgot them. Later on I used acrylic inks, feeling more comfortable with that medium. 

In April 2025 however I rediscovered my acrylic paint tubes, and yes, I felt comfortable with them and enjoyed the process of applying paint to to the watercolor paper. This does not mean that I am not having those moments of doubt. But I manage to overcome them and finish the painting. So I will continue painting with them.

The importance of not giving up in the middle of a painting

In the past I had my diSfficulties with painting with acrylic tube paints. I had difficulties with putting the right amount of water on my brush, the right amount of paint, and painting straight lines. In general, I felt like a failure. I had bought lots of acrylic tube paints from different brands, and put them nicely away in a plastic container.

Now, more than ten years later I suddenly felt the urge to try them again. So I grabbed a bigger brush, some Schmincke AcrapZkademie acrylics and a Rico Design Fir Green. It did not go as I intended to. It looked like crap. I was considering calling the whole thing a failure and giving up. But I somehow did not want to. So I stopped painting and did something else. The next day I looked at the painting again and got the idea that I might turn the landscape format into a portrait format. I kept on painting. In the end it irned out - well, let's call it acceptable. 
 

I just discovered Cogniwerk AI

 

There is a new AI Image creator online almost every day. I usually get myself a free account, experiment with the settings and then decide to either use it on a regular basis or only now and then.

Cogniwerk AI is one of my "newer" AI Image creators. To create one image costs one credit; every account has been given a certain number of credits, and when you have used up your credits, you can request more. 

Many AI Image Creators have difficulties with horses - they tend to create animals with five legs. I wanted to know what Cogniwerk does with a prompt like this:

A black mustang galloping over a yellow green meadow, vector style

Well, it actually added an additional leg where it does not belong. However they offer Inpainting, and so I managed to create the anatomically correct mustang in the image above. So up to now I am very pleased with Cogniwerk AI and will use it regularly.

Color mixing is fun!

With acrylic inks color mixing is a challenge. These inks are highly pigmented, and adding one drop of one hue to another hue can change the color significantly. In addition to that you have to be very careful just to have one drop getting out of the bottle - it happens often to me that I get more than one drop dripping out of the bottle.

But I enjoy creating all those color variations. Look how many shades of blue are in that painting on the left - dark blue, light blue, purplish blue! 

Switching over to Acrylic Inks

I must admit that I am someone who likes to change mediums after some time. In the past I painted quite a lot of pieces with acrylic inks, and now I felt like grabbing those tiny bottles of acrylic ink again. 

However I changed my working process a bit: I first applied the grey lines with alcoholbased markers and then began to fill in the colors. In the past I had often just let the colors flow and the shapes form themselves, but this time I spent some time thinking about which color to put where. 

I had fun mixing the colors and learning while doing so. I basically used three colors: Green, yellow and hazelnut. 
 

Abstract Inktense painting

I only used Inktense pencils with this abstract art piece. I tried to mix colors in two ways:

• I first applied one pencil and then the second one on top of it, both dry. Then I used a waterbrush to dissolve the pigments. It was a bit of an adventure to see how the mixture came out - depending on the strenght of application, and/or on the sequence of pigment applied. 
• I first put down one color dry on the paper, and then I touched the top of the second pencils with a damp brush and applied the dissolved pigment. 

I must say it was quite an experiment and an adventure!

 

How I connect AI Art and Traditional Art

The painting on the left was done with alcoholbased markers and inktense pencils. In order to get there, I combined AI Art and traditional art. In detail:

1. The first step was to create the image of a wooden mask as a reference image. I later on wished I had spent more time looking for an image which would serve as a good reference image (clear lines, good contrast, no shadowy parts and such). 
2. In a second step I downloaded the AI image and pasted it into my Open Office Writer.  What I did not think about was the size of the watercolor paper I wanted to use. I have A4 paper and I have A5 paper which is smaller. Open Office Writer is not very good in handling images (text processing software!), so I had to limit myself to A4 paper. The next time I will use Scribus, the free alternative to InDesign, in order to put the image to the proper size. 
3. I then had the file printed out as pdf and tried to trace the photo onto my watercolor paper. Not a very good idea. So I grabbed my tracing paper and used it for tracing the basic shapes with a fine liner. 
4. Now I could trace the result onto my watercolor paper and then continue with markers and inktense pencils. 

All in all it was a very educational and even joyful process. 

First Art piece in March 25

I'm experimenting with a new painting schedule: I am now painting in the morning at least one hour, after having sipped two mugs of tea and before eating my Müsli. I am also experimenting with time blocking, doing this one day before the actual day. This allows me to be flexible.

In the afternoon I do all kinds of digital work - scanning and processing my paintings, creatingpieces  with Artificial Art Generators, watching helpful, inspiring and motivating youtube Videos. 

Of course there are days when I cannot keep this rather rough schedule - days with doctor appointments, days when I am invited for coffee by my neighbor, days when I allow myself to spend some hours at an art shop. However in general I want to keep the aforementioned time blocks because they help me to maintain a balance between doing art traditionally and doing art the AI way.
 

The last days of February

 Today is the second last day of February. So it's time to look back at this month regarding my art activities. I actually managed to paint six pieces done with alcoholbased markers and colored pencils, and with the last piece which I scanned in today I switched to the combination of markers and inktense pencils.

I also managed to sell a digital file of one of my art pieces. The lady I sold it to had it printed on a canvas. She sent me a photo of it hanging on her wall, and I must say I am quite pleased of the way it looks. I might as well have one of my files printed on canvas for my own flat!

In February I also did a lot of AI Art pieces, focussing mainly on three AI Art Generators: Nightcafe Studio, Bing and Starry AI. 

What are my plans for March 2025?

• I plan to explore possible color combination of markers and Inktense pencils. 
  Up to now I have been selecting the pencils rather spontaneously, without doing color charts in the beginning. I will try to work on this a bit. I also plan to paint at least five pieces with markers and pencils.
• As the month of March is a month with some birthdays I want to create new cards with new images. I also want to refill my stack of stickers and address labels, using my AI art pieces. So in March 2025 I will continue to create images with AI art.

Starry AI

Sometime last year - or even the year before - I discovered Starry AI. I wrote down the webadress, but other than that I didn't do anything with it. A few days ago I found the note with the address on it, and tried it out. I must say that I am very pleased with the results I am getting. 

First of all, I have the free version. The free version has got its limits regarding the format: you can only create images in portrait format. But: you are able to get five lumens (or credits or tokens) by logging in each day. You are also able to earn lumens every three days by posting your images on instagram or X (twitter). And, as I mentioned above, the results are very, very nice!

I wanted to create an image showing a cute rat carrying a bowl with coffee beans. I first tried Nightcafe Studio, but didn't quite get what I was going for. So I used the magic prompt Nightcafe had created and applied it on Starry AI.

The image on the left more or less shows what I had in my mind. This is one of four images and the one I liked best. 

So Starry AI has become one of my favorite AI Image Generators, together with Nightcafe Studio, Bing and Mage Space.

Sold!

Yesterday I sold the digital file of this painting. Actually it was my first sale. I gave two paintings away as a gift, one to one of my cousins and one to a friend of mine here in Berlin. One of the paintings was done with colored pencils, and the other one with soft pastels.

Of course I felt very honored when the woman who I have been meeting regularly in my neighborhood cafe asked whether she could buy the original. However I told her that it was done with markers mostly which are not lightfast. I had done a bit of research on Etsy and found out that many people there are selling the digital files of their artwork. So I asked her whether she would be interested in getting the digital file which she then could upload to a printer. She said yes and we agreed on a price.

Yesterday she handed me the money, and I felt great and I am still feeling great! It motivates me to keep on creating paintings in that kind of style. Some time ago I mentioned "The complete book of Color Harmony". It gives you hundreds of possible color combinations. I just have to go through this book, select a color combo and then go for my markers. 

Trying out a new color combination

This piece is the last artwork I did in January. I went for a new color combination - blue and brown/yellow hues. I got loads of markers in various shades of blue, from light blue to darker colors. 

I have been quite productive in the first month of 2025: Eight paintings on watercolor paper and one doodle in my little sketchbook. I also ordered two photo prints of my paintings - which I haven't done for a long time. 

I am still enjoying the combination of alcoholbased markers and colored pencils, and I intend to continue creating art in February!
 

Using one of my tiny sketchbooks

A long time ago I got a tiny little sketchbook as a gift. I have been using it now and then, but not very often. I did the colored doodle on the left using markers and colored pencils, mainly to try out color combinations of alcoholbased markers and colored pencils. 

I have organized my colored pencils quite well and know which pencils I have; unfortunately I didn't know how many markers I have until the moment when I decided to get them organized. Now I am in the process of doing that. Knowing which colors I have definitely helps to keep me from buying the same colors a second time (something which happened in the past!).

Some kind of strange fish

This time I tried something different - creating a shape out of shapes put together. When I showed the illustration to other people and asked them whether they could identifiy a certain object most of them went for "fish". So "fish" it is. 

Medium: Alcoholbased markers and colored pencils 
Surface: Watercolor paper

Markers and colored pencils again

This is the second piece done with alcoholbased markers and colored pencils, the latter blended with baby oil. After having finished it I noticed that actually quite a lot of thinking went into it: Which markers to choose for a pleasing underpainting? Which pencils go well with which markers? Which colors go where? And not to forget: Which shapes please the eye? 

I also realized that the process of creating such a piece is a slow one and it has to be a slow one. Trying to rush things can lead to an absolute failure. 

I also notice that I am still focussing on doing this kind of art. I still create art using AI Art Generators, but I am spending way less time doing it. 

Alcoholbased markers, colored pencils and a bit of baby oil

I like to try out new things. There are tons of videos on YouTube concerning drawing with colored pencils and / or alcoholbased markers. However, I didn't find any video about painting abstract art with markers and pencils, and I didn't find any video about blending the pencils on top of the markers with baby oil. 

That is what I did. I first applied the markers and then, in order to create some shading, applied colored pencils and blended them with baby oil using a q-tip. 

The painting on the left side was an experimental one from the beginning to the end. This also means that I did not do any line drawing first; I just added one shape to the other. I was happy that I could finally use my very light markers. They are ideal for underpainting. 
 

Traditional art and AI Art

 I do not see traditional art and AI Art as matters which exclude each other. I think there are several ways to combine them. 

Create AI versions out of traditional art pieces
As you might know if you follow my blogposts I have been focussing lately on creating art with colored pencils. Or, to say it more precisely, I have been creating abstract art with colored pencils (which, by the way, seems to be quite unusual). My latest painting done with this medium however ia the illustration of a mask.

A long time ago, I had done a line drawing of a mask and colored it markers, Now I decided to color it with colored pencils, changing the drawing a bit in the process.

I used drawing cardboard as a surface. It is not as smooth as Bristol paper, but much smoother than watercolor paper. 

I then used the colored pencil piece as a so called starter image with an AI Art Generator. 

And this is what Mage Space made out of it. There are a few changes, but the color combination is more or less the same. I feel that it is still "my painting".