Rick J. Delanty, “Yosemite Snowfield,” acrylic, 12 x 9 in. Rick will demonstrate how this painting was created during “Acrylic Live,” the upcoming inaugural online event happening March 26-28, 2025. Check it out here.
The first thing you notice about Rick J. Delanty’s landscapes is the brightness of the color and the clarity of seeing they display. But the very next thing you see is the first thing he himself mentions about them: the delight he takes in the delicious possibilities of the medium as he coaxes life and natural beauty from thick, vigorously applied paint – usually acrylic.
“The luscious quality of paint, the attraction of invention and intuition, and the appreciation of Life, are what I hope the viewer experiences through each of my designs,” says Delanty.
Rick J. Delanty is one of the most recognized and accomplished oil/acrylic painters working in southern California. Though he uses both acrylic and oil, his distinctively loose and energetic hand is evident in the lush and rigorous surfaces of his work in both mediums. To create a dynamic, painterly surface using notoriously thin water-based acrylic, he uses Golden Open Acrylics with little or no medium. He uses Satin Glazing Medium in the initial wash/block-in and sometimes to soften edges or push distant objects into background.
“Acrylic works well in hotter and colder temperatures,” he says, “but it performs best in higher humidity, such as next to waterfalls or at the coast.” Rick makes the most of that ideal environment with an array of unconventional tools to “sculpt” the paint surface. In the case of “Yosemite Snowfield” (top of page), he used a palette knife, a razor blade, and a credit card represent the rock textures. “Some of the pigment is quite thick, just by applying a lot of paint and using a stiff instrument to apply, rather than a brush,” he says.
Rick Delanty, Beach Trail, San Clemente, acrylic, 48 x 48 in.
Delanty’s “Beach Trail, San Clemente” won “Best Acrylic” for the year 2022-23 in the Plein Air Salon competition. Despite the name and PleinAir™ Magazine’s sponsorship, the PleinAir Salon accepts studio paintings as well as work painted outside. But Rick did indeed create this painting (above) en plein air, despite the canvas’s colossal 16 square-foot bulk and the acrylic medium’s natural tendency to dry too quickly for extensive adjustment.
“It is possible to do large paintings outdoors in acrylic,” he affirms. “Drying of the paints usually occurs on the palette, when wind or breeze dry the pigments more rapidly. I use Golden Open paints, which stay wet on the palette longer, a wet paper towel under my colors as I mix, and paint from back to front. I try not to re-do any areas, as time is of the essence in plein air painting with acrylics. (and I have gotten faster over time!).”
In Delanty’s tactile work, paint glows, scrapes, rushes, pools, ricochets, arcs, flakes, splinters, scatters and cascades according to the mood. Because of the striking ways he handles color and the sheer physicality of his approach, Delanty’s paintings are very much beautiful objects, to be appreciated as such. They’re jubilees of energetic brushwork and dispersions of colors.
“When I look at the work of other artists, I am always intrigued not only by what they paint, but how they paint it,” he says. “It appears that Richard Diebenkorn was curious in that way, too, when he said, “One wants to see the artifice of the thing as well as the subject.” Contemporary artist John Burton echoes the counsel of J.S. Sargent when he advises the artist to “Draw everything, so you’ll be afraid of nothing.”
Rick Delanty, Sunflowers, Sunlight for Ukraine, Acrylic, 12 x 9 in., 2022. Winner, “Best Acrylic,” 12th Annual Plein Air Salon.
Delanty painted “Sunflowers, Sunlight of Ukraine,” Delanty says, after war broke out in the region. “Not long after Russia invaded Ukraine, I painted this still life from photo reference, featuring Ukraine’s national flower,” says Delanty. “Acrylics have the capacity to be applied thickly, as with oils, or thinly, as with watercolors. One can see both viscosities in this piece, thick in the florals and thin in the shadows on the table. When I paint intuitively like this, I am better able to achieve flowing strokes, and more unusual mark-making. This piece was awarded “Best Acrylic” in the 12th Annual Plein Air Salon competition<www.pleinairsalon.com>.
Mostly, it’s just “wonder and awe of God’s Creation” that inspires him to paint, he says. He aims “to reveal the splendor of quiet corners of the Earth, offering the viewer the opportunity to experience the wonder and peace of Nature.” His desire in his work is not only to bring the scenes of California to life, but to make paintings that “inspires the viewer with his concentration on creating mood and movement in every artwork. His landscapes intermingle boldness, subtlety, and sensitivity to “speak of peace, hope and life.”
It’s “artistry,” not just the technical ability to represent a particular place or scene, that deepens the experience. “If I’m going to spend my life painting, then I’d like my paintings to mean something,” he says. “And in each of those paintings I would like there to be more going on than just a rendition of an object, or several objects. How about mood, or emotion, the particular way light plays on a surface, or simply the creation of a striking design?”
He quotes the great French oil painter and colorist, Pierre Bonnard’s insistence that, in any painting: The principal subject is the surface, which has its color and laws over and above those of object. “In setting my own course in choosing exactly what to paint,” Delanty says, “I am beginning to believe that, as Theresa Bayer puts it, “The subject is a means to an end, the end being excellence in artistry.”
Rick Delanty, Effulgence, acrylic, 12 x 9 in.
Rick Delanty will be one of the celebrated professional artists on the faculty of the very first Acrylic Live virtual art conference coming up in March! Join up and learn from some of the top acrylic artists and faculty from around the world. Acrylic Live is March 26-28, 2025, with an optional Essential Techniques Day on March 25. Check it out at AcrylicLive.com!
