A rough sketch copy of a painting by Fred Cuming to experiment with blending colours using acrylic paint.

Instead of using glazing mediums for the background, I used only water. By mixing the colours on the palette with a wet brush, the paint was already fairly thin when I applied it. After covering an area with wet paint, I would straight away clean the brush and re-wet it, then go back over the area to further dilute and stretch the glaze.

When it’s that dilute, the acrylic paint behaves more like gouache in that it doesn’t bind fully to the paper (at least if the paper is still a little wet), so it can be lifted and faded by scrubbing with a wet brush.  I was using cheap hog hair brushes which allow for all sorts of rough treatment without having to worry about damaging the bristles.

The colours I’ve mixed are a little too garish. The original painting, which I copied from a scan of a greetings card, has a much more subtle palette.