Oh wow, swapping from watercolors to acrylics was a wild ride. I'm fairly new to acrylics when it comes to blending and painting with more than just one flat homogeneous color.

I used cardboard previously primed with gesso. I reused a canvas with an unfinished project and cut it into 4 smaller pieces. One of them was used for this project.

My Buddha looks veeery different from the class right?. I decided to paint a giant Buddha statue (daibutsu) I saw in Japan, some years ago. We visited a temple quite late at night and, as we were exploring the inner gardens of the temple, I was told to turn around and there it was!. A huge Buddha statue standing above the tree canopies. It looked so wonderful, as if it was looking after the city.

I don't have pictures because, well, it was completely dark, so I wanted to recreate that feeling here.

 

This was my first try. Not used to paint drying in less than 10 seconds but I felt it was quit good. Then I realized how little contrast it had. I had no clue how to "fix" acrylics, so I used an acrylic medium to glaze over the statue and lighten it's value while darkening the sky.

 

 

Value-wise it improved. t doesn't look as strikey in real life. That was something I found frustrating, how light affects a lot the look of the painting. Specially since my acrylics were so shiny (but then became more opaque with the medium). I scanned both versions and, not surprised, they still looked different  from how I see it, so I made a composite image, just for fun.

 

Thank you Kateryna for a wonderful class and the chance to practice with acrylics! :D