2025-04-28

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.

2025-04-18

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. 
 

2025-04-04

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.