Rethinking Acrylics Book by Golden Girl Patti Brady

Kudos to Patti Brady for standing strong and writing a book on acrylic that is appropriate for more hardcore acrylic painters. Rethinking Acrylic: Radical Solutions For Exploiting The World’s Most Versatile Medium.

Yes, if you are a beginner you can learn a lot from this book. But the meat of the information deals with all that white or clear gunk that you see on the shelf intended to be used with acrylic paint.

This gunk is confusing, intimidated, and a little overwhelming. If you are brand new to painting, I would suggest getting a few paintings under your belt before you add all these additional features and get totally confused. 

SIDEBAR: When I first began painting, (teaching myself from books) I would choose a book based on my personal like or dislike of the pictures of the paintings contained within the pages.

Here’s the deal: I really don’t want my paintings to look like the paintings in this book. Neither should you. I respect and appreciate them as art, but I don’t want to “paint just like this”.

Thank goodness I have maturely artistically past this stage in my art journey. I can now purchase and use a book based on content instead of pictures.

Beginner Tip: You will never paint, “just like someone else, so quit trying. When buying a how-to-paint book, look for new techniques, inspiration, demos and exercises. Read the book and then take this information and make if your own.

I think the demos in this book encourage this type of learning instead of simply imitating what the another artist paints.

So now to the nitty-gritty about what I think is important in Rethinking Acrylic: Radical Solutions For Exploiting The World’s Most Versatile Medium.

Modern vs Mineral Pigments:

A very important concept that took me 5 years to learn on my own. No one explained this to me in a book before. Ms. Brady does. This book is worth the price for these 2 pages alone.

Grounds:

A detailed look at how to change the surface of your painting to achieve different looks. Great sample photos and great reference material.

Gels:

More mysterious white stuff here. Ms. Brady takes the mystery out of Acrylic Gel Mediums for you. Plenty of demos to try.

Subtractive Techniques:

Nice to know the name for what I have been doing in my own paintings for a while.

Collage & Skins:

I have seen this information in other acrylic books, so not brand new information, but good info to have on hand. More details than I have seen before.

Acrylic Transfers:

This book discusses the new method with Golden’s new Digital Grounds and old low-tech method too. Acrylic Transfer is complex enough to call for it’s own book. I would classify this section as an overview.

If you are interested in transfers specifically, I would suggest a more focused book. It seems most of the books I looked at discuss the the low-tech method. If you are into transfers and can recommend some good books on this topics, please leave a comment on this blog about it. I don’t use transfers so I can’t really speak to the subject.

Pours, Encuastic, Metallics, Drawing, Resists:

Like the energizer bunny, this book just keeps going. If you take the time to work through these demos for yourself, I PROMISE, you will improve your acrylic painting techniques. Regardless of your style of painting, this is good stuff people.

Tradition Techniques:

My favorite thing about the book is that Ms. Brady had the old fashioned gumption to put this section in the BACK of the book. Gasp. I would guess she met with some opposition from the publisher and/or editor.

Can you really sell a book about acrylic without rehashing the same old crap in the first three chapters?

I say YES YOU CAN. Open any of the 20 or so books on my bookshelf about acrylic painting and you will find the same thing: glazing, blending, scumbling, traditional color wheel…. I am glad this book includes this information, but thank goodness to gracious I didn’t have to look at it, AGAIN, right off the bat in the front of the book.

Varnishing:

This book actually dares to delve into the specifics on how to correctly varnish an acrylic painting! I varnish all my work, I like it shiny, shiny, shiny. Up to now, I thought I was doing it the right way. I even spent a couple days reading all that fine print on the Golden website to learn how. What a different this chapter has made to little ole me.

Thank you, Ms. Patti Brady for have some courage and writing an original acrylic book with accurate technical information.

This book has information that an acrylic painter actually can use. Yes, the author works for Golden. I think this is a asset rather than a liability. I trust the information contained in the book. I trust that the techniques I learn from this book with prove to be archival, keeping my paintings alive with vibrant color long after I am gone.

Ms. Brady puts her artist ego aside, and writes a book about technique instead of how fabulously creative she it. By the way, she is fabulously creative, it’s just that she is secure enough in her artistic self-worth that she doesn’t have to continually write about it.

This book is a wonderful departure from the typical acrylic books published by North Light Books. Sorry to offend you North Light, but that’s how I feel. North Light Books are a little fluffy most of the time. Colorful yes, but fluffy nevertheless.

This book is meat and potatoes for acrylic painters. Go buy it, then go buy the materials, then take the book AND the paint put them on the same table and start painting. You will like it, I promise.

Disclaimer: The links to the book on Amazon are part of my affiliate program. If you happen to click through and purchase this book, I will receive a whopping 5 cents or something. I didn’t write this book review to sell books. I prefer to sell my paintings. But I wanted to make it available to you so that you can go ahead, stop procrastinating, and

buy the book if you are interested in doing so. — Cindy

Article re-published here from CindyDavisArt.com. Original date, July 21st, 2009.