Last spring I was honored with being chosen to represent the Savoir-Faire family of products by being an Artist Ambassador. I was delighted to do it because I love their products and have had many happy results. I use Senelier Artist Oils in my studio work, and use acrylics to travel and teach, so I started using their Artist Acrylics and mediums in my classes with exciting results. It was like Christmas the day the box of paints, paper, brushes and mediums arrived for me try out!
Sennelier Artist acrylics paints and papers
Artist Acrylic Paints and Mediums
I used the paints in several of my classes and got great feedback from the students. Some were new, but most had used acrylic before and thought these were especially creamy, and easy to blend. I also think they work great with the mediums that Sennelier has created for these products.
I love the Acrylic Matte Fluid Medium. I’ve used it in collage for gluing and for sealing. The Acrylic Fluid Retarder is easy to use with the squeeze tube, and does a good job slowing down the drying time when I’m painting in Santa Fe where its so dry. To build up thick layers quickly I’ve had great success with the Acrylic Matte Thick Gel Medium.
Student using Sennelier Artist Acrylics
Metallics
I always love playing around with the Metallics and Sennelier has the best range of metallics I’ve found. Iridescent Pearl, Bright Bronze, Antique Gold, Bright Silver and Bright Coper. I like blending the metallics with other colors – it has the effect of making the acrylics look like oils, with a warm glow in the color, and softly muted.
Sennelier Artist Acrylics – Metallics Chart From left: Bronze, Gold, Silver, Copper mixed with a basic palette of colors
Sennelier Artist Oils – some of my favorite colors come from Sennelier. Chinese Orange being my very most beloved favorite! From the perfect color for adobe to the perfect color for Sazi’s fur, (my golden retriever) Chinese Orange is a must have color for me. Other colors that are fantastic to blend with in oil are the three Naples Yellow colors: Naples Yellow, Naples Yellow Warm, and Naples Yellow Light. They blend beautifully with reds and greens, and the blues. They make a lovely neutral with the purples and cool reds. I like to use them instead of white to lighten and soften. I used many blends of Naples Yellow in this painting, “Good Morning Old Truck” in foliage and sky.
Good Morning Old Truck by Cathy Carey
Chinese Orange and Turquoise are wonderful companions in these two paintings, one of Santa Fe – “Twilight”and one of “Sazi” from a larger painting called “Morning Walk”. I love the way the spicy warm Chinese Orange vibrates against the pulsating Turquoise and Ultramarine in the sky of Twilight. I was in Santa Fe for Christmas, and this was Christmas Eve night. We were heading over to the faralito walk along Canyon Road and saw this beautiful scene, with the snow on the branches and light of the adobe door casting a glow that echoed the winking mis-shapen moon.
For “Sazi” – I under painted in Turquoise and let a lot of it show through to give her beautiful spicy Chinese Orange fur a vibrant pulse.
Twilight by Cathy Carey
Sazi by Cathy Carey with Chinese Orange, Naples Yellow and Turquoise
Sennelier Colored Gesso
I used Acrylic Red Ochre Gesso as the ground in a series on Old Trucks. I used the gesso ground as a color coming through and it made a terrific rust color. I also liked the way the specs of rust color looked in contrast with the blue sky color. Using a colored gesso makes a nice under current pattern of color that vibrates all over the painting. The Acrylic Yellow Ochre Gesso is nice too and is close to a gold tone as it peaks out as an under color layer.
Red Ochre Gesso
Resting Rust by Cathy Carey showing Red Ochre Gesso as under color
Visit the Savoir-Faire site to see the other artists in the ambassador program:
To see more of my work visit:
To see my handpainted jewelry go to:
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