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I am using an 8''x10'' medium texture Fredrix canvas pad. I really recommend these, unless you can get the actual canvas. The pads only come in medium texture, I would prefer the fine but I wanted something I can practice on that is also archival. All of Fredrix products are archival. I also used Liquitex Basics and Professional hard body acrylic paints. Those are the only paints I have tried, they are pretty affordable and are also archival.
So, I would say it's a good set up. It's scary to use the better stuff for just practice, but, I think it's worse to create something wonderful with products that won't last, than it is to create something bad with products that are archival. You can always paint completely over anything you don't like.
Also, I almost gave up on acrylics when I was using super cheap products. Good acrylic paint isn't that expensive, and you don't need every color. Matter of fact, you shouldn't have too many to start, it's confusing. There are quality inexpensive products out there. Cheaper paints and canvas don't apply the same. Extremely cheaply made canvas doesn't hold paint very well, and cheap paint is also more translucent and flakes off. The extra couple bucks for better products is worth it as to not to get discouraged from painting.
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Here's my palette for this. It's a home made wet palette. I know a lot of people can work just fine by putting paint on paper plates, tin foil, or store bought palettes. I can't, and don't want to. With this wet palette my paints don't dry out. Whatever paint I put down stays wet for hours without the lid, and even more with the lid on, so I don't have to worry about remixing certain colors, or have to wonder what colors I used. I could make a post about what I used for this because you can buy a wet palette for convenience but they are easy to make!
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Aaaaand the final painting. There was so much I wanted to do to fix things, to make it better. There were a lot of parts of the wave I worked, and covered, worked, and covered, and when I go back and look at some pictures of things I painted over I realized they didn't look too bad! It's hard to really see what works or not sometimes until you see it with fresh eyes.
There's SO many things I want to draw, paint, color, and everything is still a learning experience for me, so hopefully soon I can try for another wave. This is not a wave I have seen in person unfortunately, I used a reference courtesy of Pixabay, which is one of my most favorite royalty free image resources. I find a lot of good references here.
I'm always open for critiques for anything. I can see some issues now but if you have any suggestions feel free to offer them up. Thanks for looking š