Posts by Angel Ayala

Setting up your supplies shouldn’t use up your painting time. When your paints and tools are organized and within reach, you can start painting quickly, even if you don’t have a dedicated space. This post covers how I keep my art table organized, plus the full list of what’s on it. ______________________________________     How…

Working on a big, heavy panel can make it tempting to stick with one static setup out of sheer practicality. A simple shift, thumbtacking raw canvas to a panel and laying it flat on the ground, opens up an entirely different way of seeing and working, one that’s harder to access once a piece is…

Acrylic paint dries fast, which can leave old and new layers feeling disconnected, like two different paintings stacked on top of each other. A simple studio process, rewetting the surface before painting thick, solves this by slowing the drying time down and letting new work truly integrate with what came before. ______________________________________     How…

As a former oil painter, acrylic paint has two frustrating qualities to me, it’s thin and it’s slippery, making it hard to build texture or draw into. A simple studio fix, mixing in fine marble dust, solves both problems at once and opens up the same rich, textured surfaces once reserved for oil and cold…

Color becomes beautiful when every hue shares a little of itself with every other hue on the palette. That same principle applies to a creative life. Becoming full spectrum, by adding in everything you love, is what makes both your art and your life feel truly alive. ______________________________________     What Makes a Color Feel…

A pre-dawn climb up Mount Whitney with my daughter Hannah became an unexpected lesson in color and in why sharing an art journey isn’t a task separate from life. It’s simply life, framed. ______________________________________     We Climbed in the Dark to See Dawn’s Colors One a.m. The alarm went off. Headlamps on. My daughter…