Coral Forest - is an Original painting  from a series of Acrylic Highly Textured Palette Knife Paintings.

About the painting:  I began with an idea of a palette of colors I wanted to use.  I actually created swatch boards of colors that I think work well together and started from there.  Secondly, I get a rough idea by means of a very crude doodle on paper of the motion or area on the canvas I want to cover with pallet knife texture.

As I worked on this painting, the feeling of coral reefs and water began to emerge as an idea.   I think that was  probably from some of the underwater scenes I have painted in the past.   It was when I showed the painting to an art - world friend who also had spent time in Hawaii and around underwater paintings that she said the words 'Coral Forest' …… and that is how this  painting got its name.

One reason why I wanted to experiment with acrylic paints more than I have is that compared to most of my work using oil paints –acrylic paint is very fast drying.   Using acrylic paint can require that one work much faster than with oils as once the paint is  taken out of the tube it can dry up  rather quickly.  

For those artists who regularly paint using acrylic paints, acrylic paintings can be painted and delivered to a collector without the lengthy drying time that is optimal for works in oil. With an oil painting, it  could be over a year for the paint to thoroughly dry if the paint was textured as this painting is.

I hope you enjoy Coral Forest.  I think this painting can add an artful, contemporary SPLASH of color to a room!