In Focus: Bagley Class Explores The Versatility Of Acrylics

You’ve seen watercolor and probably oil on canvas, but did you know you could get all those same effects just by investing in some acrylic paint?

“Whatever you can create with any other medium, you can get the same look with acrylic, but it’s much easier, I think,” says Pamela Edevold, an artist and the instructor of the acrylics class in Bagley.

Edevold has been painting since she was a little girl. She started doing portraits in high school and never looked back.

“I love anything with eyes – animals, people. That’s the first thing I paint because I like them to look at me or at least be alive while I’m painting,” says Edevold.

Edevold decided to teach a class on acrylics to let people know how versatile and forgiving the medium can be.

She says, “Acrylic was created in the 50s, so it’s not very old and it’s making a lot of progress; especially in the last few years, it’s come a long way, so it’s really becoming an accepted medium now and you can do so much with it.”

It doesn’t take much to create a masterpiece. Edevold says you should start with a running faucet of water. Then, add the three primary paint colors plus white. You can even get cheap brushes.

“You don’t want to use your most expensive brushes with acrylics because they get beat up pretty fast,” says Edevold. She adds, “You don’t need to buy a whole lot of mediums or anything to start with. You only need water.”

Once you have your materials, you can get creative.

“Some of them have beads in them; some have glass. There’s metallics. There’s all kinds of different looks you can get by using the different mediums. You can use them in collages and to create three-dimensional works. So, there’s a lot of things beyond just the tubes of paint that you can do with them. It’s really your imagination that really the one thing that’s holding you back,” says Edevold.

Today, the participants in Edevold’s class were taught techniques in making clouds. Next week will be a barn, then they’ll eventually move on to people and fur.

It’s too late to sign up for this acrylics session, but other classes in Bagley can be found on the Bagley Area Arts Collaborative Facebook page here.

“There’s a jewelry class coming up. There’s a watercolor class,” says Edevold, “and there will be more this fall that aren’t listed yet, but there’s more coming.”