“Giraffe” is an original, signed acrylic painting on gallery-wrapped canvas by artist Michael Arnold. This painting is done in a similar pop art style to “Sunflower,” “Blue Girl” and “She’s Got Legs.” I like simplifying the painting to interesting shapes and shadows. The basic color palette helps induce the feel of the Serengeti plains in Africa. The tall canvas displays the giraffe in all it's glory. Be sure to look at the additional views to truly capture the vibrant color tones of the painting. The painting makes a bold statement on any wall where it is displayed. "Giraffe" is also available as the front of note cards and the prints can be purchased here. This artwork was created using acrylic paint on a high quality wrapped canvas. Acrylic paint works very well on stretched canvas. When purchasing artwork many people aren't sure what the difference is between acrylic and oil paintings. The main difference between acrylics and oil paints is the inherent drying time. Oils allow for more time to blend colors and apply even glazes over underpaintings. This slow drying aspect of oil can be seen as an advantage for certain techniques, but in other regards it impedes the artist trying to work quickly. The fast evaporation of water from the acrylic paint film can be slowed with the use of acrylic retarders. Retarders are generally glycol or glycerin-based additives. Oil paints tend to require the addition of a toxic solvent, such as mineral spirits or turpentine to thin the paints and clean up tools, though relatively recently water soluble oil paints have been developed for artist use. Secondly, oil paint films become increasing yellow and brittle, and will lose their flexibility in a few decades. Acrylics can be used on many surfaces without a medium- layer. They allow sharp brush-strokes but also a more delicate shading, although it is more difficult to create a smooth change between different shades. They are usually very bright. Although the permanency of acrylics is sometimes debated by conservators, they appear more stable than oil paints.