Experimental Nature in Acrylics

A creative and exciting approach to acrylics from landscape artist Paul Bailey, whose unique approach to palette selection and composition demonstrates new and experimental ways to capture landscape in paint. Enthusiastically followed by a legion of social media fans, the artist now reveals his techniques for the first time—making it simple for the reader to produce their own work that is abstract, evocative, and full of vivid color. Paul Bailey’s fascination with the natural world, from the underlying geology to the overlying weather, is sensationally conveyed in his eye-catching paintings, and he expertly demonstrates how to distil craggy cliffs, rolling farmland hills, tidal rivers, or flat, open-skied wilderness in striking and unusual color palettes.

His semi-abstract style will liberate painters of all levels, from beginners to seasoned artists, to experiment with the wonderfully versatile medium of acrylics. The author’s easy-to-follow explanations and step-by-step demonstrations describe how to manipulate the medium in surprising—yet often simple—ways, bringing forth organic shapes, using abstract elements in the natural landscape as the basis for your painting, and creating a compositional sense of rhythm. Nothing dictates mood and emotion more than color, and he shows how to incorporate some very unusual, but effective, color palettes.

His beautiful and contemporary work, which appears throughout the book, is a master class in scraping, pulling, weathering, and splattering the paint, how to build layer upon layer, the process of construction, and how to tease a sense of movement from a static image. This essential guide is a must for anyone wishing to augment your understanding of the acrylic medium, your appreciation of composition and color, and liberate your own beautiful paintings.