The art and mystery of painting is one of my greatest loves. However, I produced no paintings for a very long time due to focusing on my animation career and family matters. In 2010 I regained my motivation to pick up the brushes, but wanted to try a different method. Most of my earlier works were painted in acrylics, but I was disenchanted with the "plastic" look, and particularly their difficulty in blending as they dried almost as soon as the paint contacted the canvas. Conversely I found oil paints tended to get get over-blended, and the fumes and toxic solvents were a turn off. I really liked the look and ease of use of pastels, but found them to be a fragile, easily damaged medium. Fortunately, a new line of paints was introduced in 2008, Golden OPEN Acrylics, which bridge the gap between oil and acrylic. Intrigued by these slow-drying acrylics, I decided to try them out for my new artworks. Having completed several new paintings now, I present this demonstration of the creation of my latest painting RING OF FIRE, followed by a review and analysis of the Open Acrylics.READ AND SEE MORE...

As a general rule, I don’t include painting in the artistic services I offer for clients. Painting is my fine art, intentionally kept free, pure, and uncorrupted from commercial use. One exception was a tiny piece I made as a prop in 1987 for the film adaptation of FROG AND TOAD TOGETHER. It was created for a scene in which Frog reads a story to Toad about a knight fighting a dragon (which I also animated).

Director John Clark Matthews requested a painting for the wall of Frog’s house that reflected Frog’s storytelling. Specifically, a re-imagining of the famous 1470 masterpiece Saint George and the Dragon by Paolo Uccello, only with frogs as the knight and maiden. It took me a full day to paint it, on Bristol board with acrylic paints, surrounded with a balsa wood picture frame. In the movie, the painting is featured up close, then widens out to reveal Frog and Toad in the living room. Most children probably didn’t “get it”, but hopefully adult viewers recognized and appreciated the parody of Uccello’s masterpiece!



Joel Fletcher ©2011