I recently finished these two paintings of Dolly Parton and Willie Nelson. The most frequently asked question I get on Instagram is “Why do you paint the canvas with all different colors just to paint over it and cover it up?” The answer is: I never like starting with a blank canvas. I use leftover paint from my daily painting to start covering canvases for future projects. There’s not much planning involved with what colors end up on each canvas.

Here is the time lapse of my Willie Nelson painting:
 

 

 

 

 

 

 

View this post on Instagram

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

A post shared by Ashley Hackshaw (@lilblueboo)

 
Here is the finished version:

For portraits I like to use willow charcoal to draw out a grid to keep the proportions right. It saves a ton of time and acrylic paint goes right over the charcoal. Here is the time lapse of Dolly Parton:

 

 

 

 

 

 

View this post on Instagram

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

A post shared by Ashley Hackshaw (@lilblueboo)

And here is the finished Dolly Parton:

 

 The time lapses look really fast but they are usually on average about 2-3 hours of painting. One of my favorite tools that I use almost every day with portrait painting (and landscape painting) is this book of color recipes: 1500 Color Mixing Recipes for Oil, Acrylic & Watercolor: 

It saves me so much time when mixing skin tones and figuring out which colors I’ve used in the past. It gives the exact recipe for mixing acrylic or watercolors to create the color you want:

It’s also helpful when determining which color palettes will work best for landscapes and other types of paintings. I don’t waste as much paint as I used to trying to get the right color! 

I even make cheat sheets when I find color palettes I like to repeat:

As always I’m so behind in blogging. Lots of projects always going on. Check out Instagram to see what’s going on in real time and I’m always adding recent work to my Etsy shop as well. Thanks for reading!

Ashley