Wow! Painting glazes with acrylic glazing medium turned out to be a interesting process. Even with slo dri medium the glaze would dry too quickly making the blending of glazes really difficult. Glazes are built up layer by layer to give a jewel like effect when it goes right but can end up being sticky and uneven if the paint dries too quickly. My studio is also quite hot which doesn’t help matters. Glazing small areas wasn’t a problem but large areas of background just didn’t work so I had to repaint the background with a sky effect similar to the portrait by William Brockendon.

As mentioned above the painting is based on the portrait of Richard Lander by William Brockendon 1787 - 1854 and a mezzotint by C Turner which was also based on the Brockendon painting.

Glazes are easier to apply with oil paint as they dry more slowly often taking 2 days to dry. That is a disadvatage in some respects as one has to wait until a glaze is dry before applying another. That is certainly not the case with acrylics. This style of painting is called the indirect method.