30 Paintings in 30 Days

Painting for September 29

| emmapittson
september29
Face Study no. 16 – oil and acrylic on canvas, 6″ x 8″

Here she is, folks: my final (finished) painting for the “30 Paintings in 30 Days” challenge!  I don’t know if I can really call them daily paintings anymore, though, because I’m taking longer and longer to finish them, but I digress…

Some notes about this specific painting:

  • painting albino skin tones is NOT an easy feat.  If you’re up for the challenge, proceed with caution! 😉
  • I finally realized with this painting that it’s in my best interest to add another coat or two of gesso (with some light sanding in between) to my pre-gessoed canvasses.  The basic Omer Deserres canvasses are fine, but these small Apollon ones would pill here and there and leave tiny bits of matter in the paint.

Things I’ve learned about oil painting in general thanks to this painting:

  • I really should use more paint.

Next time: A complete rundown of the pros and cons of doing this daily painting challenge – what I learned, where I stumbled, how often I asked myself “why the frig am I doing this?”, etc!  Stay tuned…

Save

Painting for September 27

| emmapittson
september26
The Star’s Daughter – acrylic on panel, 6″ x 8″

I have… mixed feeling about this one.

First of all, you really should see it live and in person.  Trust me – the colours of her hair have a nice depth, and her skin tones are far more delicate than what you see here.  For some reason, WordPress just makes this one seem garish.

But wonky colours aside, I’m not sure about proceeding this way.  I can look at this painting and know exactly where I stitched stuff together (and I will always see that!), and don’t get me started on how long it took to find all the right elements!  Even when I got the right shoulder and head pose (and the hair!), it didn’t always follow that the shadows matched.  In fact, finding all the reference images ended up taking much longer than the actual painting!

What I like about this painting:

  • the fact that it’s an ORIGINAL work.  I promise: there ain’t nobody nowhere walking around looking like this!

What I like less about the painting:

  • I couldn’t find very hi-res references, so it feels a little “fudged and slurred through the difficult passages”.  But more than that, I started the painting with a sense of “why bother?”, and that’s just not the way to do it…
  • I will always and forever look at this painting and wonder “Do all the elements coalesce?  Can anyone tell it’s a Franken-painting?”

What I learned through this process:

  • coming up with original ideas is HARD.  And SCARY.
  • and ultimately, that is why some artists are strictly representational.  If it’s not directly in front of them, they won’t paint it.
  • I miss the zen factor of painting from internet images.

What I MIGHT change…

  • Her hair.  I liked my initial colour layout and just kept it that way, but now I wonder: does it look too unfinished?

Save

Painting for September 16 (way overdue!)

| emmapittson
september16
©2016, Emma Pittson, “Face Study no.15”. Acrylic on panel, 8″ x 6″

I seriously considered uploading this one to today’s (or yesterday’s) “30 in 30” page, but I thought that would be dishonest of me.  This painting was started way back on September 16, but I’ve worked on it here and there since then, so technically, it can no longer qualify as “a painting a day”.  It’s too bad because I’m actually quite proud of it and would love to show it to a wider audience.

I’m particularly happy with the blue highlight on her nose! 😉

Save

Painting for September 23 WIP

| emmapittson
september23-wip-bettercrop
©2016, Emma Pittson, “Face Study no. 17”. Acrylic and oil on wood panel, 8″ x 6″

I always lose steam by the end of the week, so today’s painting for the 30 in 30 challenge might be a little late…

On the plus side, I might have figured out the best working method for me:

  1. Apply acrylics for the base “flats”, smooth where possible
  2. Paint the eyes and other fine details in acrylics ONLY
  3. Paint over only certain areas in water-soluble oils as needed.

And that way, I’ll get my nice, smooth surfaces, and my fine detail, and not want to tear my hair out! 😉

In case you were wondering, this painting is 90% acrylic.  I only painted over in oils parts of her nose, lips, ear, and the lower part of her cheek.

Painting for September 22

| emmapittson

september22
Face study no.14 – oil on canvas, 6″ x 8″

I must be moving up in the world because I’ve graduated from canvas boards/panels to actual stretched canvases!

This one looks better as a .jpeg than it does as a painting, for some reason.  I can’t say I’m incredibly happy with it, and that’s mostly because I think I started to treat the oil paint like watercolour*.  I was so focused on keeping the skin pale – knowing that if I made it too dark I wouldn’t be able to fix it later, because, y’know, OILS – that I may have made this painting a little linseed-heavy.  Consequently, I had tremendous trouble  painting her eyes, eyelids, and eyelashes.  Her hair is the only part of her which is actual meaty PAINT.

And ok, I may have exaggerated her wall-eyes.

Tomorrow: back to acrylics!

*Speaking of watercolours, I keep wondering if I should give them a go.  I’m at the halfway point in the “30 in 30” challenge, and quite frankly, I’m getting a little bored**, and may need to change things up a bit.

**But honestly, how much novelty was I expecting when I decided to paint women’s faces for 30 days?  Three eyes?  A nose growing out the top of her forehead??

Save