What to Do If Your Paintings Take Too Long to Dry with Sandra Duran Wilson
Acrylic is fast drying, but that’s not always fast ENOUGH. And if you're using thicker gels and pastes on a painting, that means you might be feeling impatient to get back into a painting BEFORE it’s ready for it. Artist Sandra Duran Wilson, Ep.20 has a simple fix to this problem.
Work on more than one painting at a time.
Wilson often works on 3-6 paintings at once.
This system keeps her from jumping back into a painting before everything is dry.
Put it to Practice:
Working on more than one painting at a time is a great way to keep working when a painting needs to sit and dry.
This may mean when you start, instead of starting one, you do your first few steps across several surfaces (A, B, and C).
Then you go back to the first painting and work on it until it needs a drying break.
At that point you switch to painting B.
Wilson is an abstract painter working in acrylics, but painters in all media of all subjects have access to this tool.
For example, as a watercolorist you may need to let paint dry between layers.
As an oil painter, if you’re working in the glazing method, you’ll need to wait days or weeks between layers.
Depending on the type of work you create and your medium, this might be a quick jumping between paintings. Or it may it’s a more paced interaction.
But give multiple paintings a try. They are a great way to take advantage of the painting time you have, while also giving paintings what they need.