Our first Tutor art courses begin!

The Cornish Craft Barn’s art course event calendar kicked off with two courses from award winning artist Richard Thorn, a watercolour specialist who it recent years has immersed himself and his unique watercolour techniques and style into the area of acrylic painting too.

The vibrancy and finish of Richard’s work is plain to see for all who view his work, his work is currently on display in the Cornish Craft Barn (CCB) gallery, do come in and see for yourself. We have a selection of his watercolour and acrylics work for you to observe and compare in their approaches. Are you a watercolourist looking for new challenge? A bold and loose acrylics painter interested in expanded your reportoire with the medium? A visit to the gallery will peak your curiousity and interest.

If you pop in to see them, then what I share with you now may resonate and help you ‘see’ how Richard has embraced the properties of acrylics harmoniously with his watercolour technique whilst exploiting the vibrancy and opacity of acrylics.

Approaching Acrylic’s Richard’s Way

For my part and my acrylics painting experiences to date, with tutors in particular, they have been bold, loose, chunky affairs and pieces of work. Large flower shaped palettes filled with a hundred times the amount of watercolour I would normally prepare my palette with. However, Richard has quite naturally approached things as you would a wastercolour master to, he has loosened the medium’s properties, and his style a little in that regard. He adds a reasonable amount of water to his palette and paint to create large wells of bright opaque mixture from which to draw from.

Many acrylic painters use the medium neat and any additives tend to be textural pastes with aggregates offering a gritty opaque structure and texture on the board or canvas. Gels and glazes are used to generate glassy areas and other additives purely to tamper with variable drying times. And whilst looseners are used often to affect drying times Richard simply uses water to help the acrylic paint behave in a more watercolour orientated way.

Richard Thorn Heat Wave Acrylic — Richard Thorn, Acrylics, Cornish Craft Barn

Where a watercolourist may lean or edge towards the idea of gouache, more often for opaque touches (white froth on waves or high contrast elements like flower heads in a forground) rather than acrylics Richard has lent on these for a different finish.

We decided to provide paper for the courses along with paint for the courses to celebrate starting our first tutor courses, however it was quickly clear that good quality watercolour paper was going to perform better than acrylic paper under Richard’s tutition. The paint is loosened to the point of wanting something with a more absorbant base that a smoother acrylic paper.