Exploring new things.. acrylics

One of my 2017 resolutions was to experiment more. Trying out new stuff is not something I throw in a client project: when it comes to illustrating I’m very set on my ink and watercolor. So I had to schedule time for experimenting.

I signed up for a workshop to paint once a week with acrylics. The first two sessions I just struggled my way through . At the end I wasn’t sure whether I was in despair because of the teacher or the teacher was in despair because of me. Every time I put down my brush on the paper, it did something else than I wanted or expected it to do. I felt out of control.

This painting of a stranded whale is the first out of 3 that I dare to show. Not because I think it’s great, but because I think showing a learning process can be interesting. Maybe even more interesting than finished products.

I felt inspired picturing a whale after having watched a documentary on the first ecological activists in the 1970s that became Greenpeace. (if you have Netflix, I can highly recommend this documentary, watch it here)
As we all know whales are highly sentient beings but they are being extinguised as a species by humans.

In this picture I explore the contrast of something beautiful – sunset on the beach – with something tragic and dark: a stranded whale.