Above: Matisse copy for a friend’s holiday present.
For the first time this past couple of months, I’m creating in a regular way. It helped that I had a vacation during that time. Traveling always puts me in a good mood. Another thing that helped…drumroll please….
I switched completely over to oils.
I know I always said oils wouldn’t work for me. The constant need to clean up to avoid muddiness in color irritated me. Also, I have…um shall we say, patience issues.
Nevertheless, I am now an oil painter. I think perhaps this reversal has to do with my background in art history: obviously oils are tried and true, and so many of the painters I admire used them. I think also, the catalyst was getting out to more galleries lately and seeing oils taken much more seriously than the pastels I’ve been working with. Of course acrylics weren’t even in the same ballpark (or salon). I still think I’ll use both of those materials for particular types of work–studies and sketching will still be pastel, as it’s portable and quick. Acrylics (Golden Liquid) will work well for a thin washy watercolory piece I’m working out in my head.
But oils are what I am calling my medium now.
I’ve tried oils before and didn’t use good materials, hence mucho problems, and also didn’t use oil techniques (i.e. the traditional ones). So. what did I do differently this time? I purchased the best, yes the very best….or at least the most readily available ‘best’, which is Old Holland. Old Holland paints are so expensive that if I were ever faced with a New Orleans-style evacuation situation, I’d have to grab those puppies first. The paint load of OH is amazing, though. I squeezed out a nickel sized nut of venetian red on my palette for a small section of my canvas, and ended up having enough to imprimatura three other canvases with what was left over.
I also changed how I worked with oils. Instead of trying to paint alla prima like I did with pastels and acrylics, I learned how to do a grisaille (actually a verdaccio, since I used greens, not grays). I learned from the amazing forums at Studio Products. I am blown away by the talent and information there. Would love to take a class with the proprietor, Rob Howard, someday. What a wealth of information. I ordered a sampler of their mediums: it came in three days, and the quality was awesome. I plan on trying their paints soon.
O-kay. I know you are asking “where are the pictures” so here are a few…
Top picture is in a first verdaccio stage. I’ve indicated the darks and lights, and the imprimatura (pale sienna base) makes up most of the middle tones. I’ll work on this more later. Bottom picture is in a middle phase. It was a verdaccio and has now been covered with opaque flesh colors in pale tones. I will glaze it this weekend to bring up the color to the correct key. The right side is reserved for an area of text I will stamp/write over it….I love words and pictures together.
Here’s another one that was done over my vaca:
This is the underpainting (grisaille, only this time it’s in ultramarine mixed with Studio Products underpainting medium—dries VERY fast.) I’ve already laid in opaque colors on this one, but the tones went too much toward blue…must do over…
