my art

Painting for September 9

| emmapittson
september-09
Face Study no.4 – acrylic on panel, 6″ x 8″

Can you ever use too much matte medium?  Apparently YES.

Back in art school, I only ever mixed my acrylic paints with water.  I’m sure the teachers told us about mediums, but I think most of us were too  broke (or too cheap) to actually go out and buy them.  Because my life can always be more complicated, I thought I’d use this 30 in 30 Challenge to experiment with a few.  So far, I’ve tried slow-dri medium, and extra heavy gel.  On the menu tonight: matte medium.

And it was… not easy to work with.  Maybe I added too much medium to my paint, but I found that the colour practically slid off the panel with every brushstroke.  It could also be that I’m just using cheap-y panels, and their “tooth” would be improved by a few extra coats of gesso and some sanding – but, honestly, who has time for that?  I’m pretty disappointed because I was counting on matte medium becoming my all-purpose, go-to, workhorse medium of choice, and thus far, it has under-performed.  Drat.

What I’m happy with:

  • surprisingly, I like her hair on the right side.  I didn’t have time to do anything detailed, but it works well enough.  I’ve noticed that I keep falling back on dry-brushing (which might be the Universe’s way of telling me to chuck the paints and go back to drawing, but there’s never been a good idea yet that I haven’t found the strength to resist, so …)

What I’m less happy with:

  • her dead, dead, dead skin tone.

What I learned with this painting:

  • some mediums are better than others.  Also, read the damn label.

What I’m starting to suspect:

  • the fat, buttery, wet-in-wet look that I’d love to achieve is only possible with oil paints.

 

Painting for September 8

| emmapittson
30paintings-no-3
Face Study no.3 – acrylic on panel, 6″ x 6″.  For Sale: $150 USD

I felt that yesterday’s painting was a bit of a disaster, so I decided to give it a second shot – and make it just as fussy and smooth as I originally wanted it to be.  I definitely like this one a LOT more, but it took wa-a-ay too much time to complete.  If I’m going to keep up the Challenge, I’ll have to develop a faster working method!

What I’m happy with:

  • You want the honest truth?  I’m happy with almost all of it!   I tried really hard not to  stray too far from the reference image, and I think it came out alright!

What I’m less happy with:

  • lack of unified paint texture.  Sometimes I gooped it on and it looks opaque, sometimes it looks watercolour-y.  It’s the mark of an amateur, so… gotta work on that.

What I learned with this painting:

  • too much Titanium White can tip a painting’s flesh tones over into “zombie” territory pretty quickly.  Proceed with caution!
  • as much as I enjoy working with a painting propped up in my lap, all that sitting allows me to forget to take a step back every now and then, and that is dangerous!

My Interior Monologue While Painting – a play in three acts:

me: Ok!  Enough of this stylistic garbage!  I’m going to paint the way I want to paint and prove to myself that I can DO THIS!  [begins painting]

me (halfway through): Oh God!  This is terrible!  I can’t paint AT ALL! [keeps painting]

me (holding my precious new bundle of painting joy):  Hunh.  That wasn’t so bad.  Ok, maybe I *can* do this after all.  In fact, I’m going to do it all again tomorrow!! [promptly forgets all about painting woes until the next day]

 

 

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Study – Sebastien Chabal – Take2

| emmapittson

Sebastien Chabal2 v2

What can I say?  This guy has a really interesting face, and since my grand plans for a Fine Art career are on hold for the moment, I might as well indulge in some studies.  That being said, this is also a perfect example of a drawing where I didn’t really decide on a plan of action before sitting down to draw.  By that, I mean: is my intention to make a quick values study (like the first one), or do I want to REALLY get into every single line and pore and make this as realistic as I can (and by the way, if you’re going to do that, do yourself a favour and begin with a high-res reference image.  Don’t try to make something out of nothing, like I did here).  Because I changed my mind as the drawing went along, I feel like it’s neither as photo-realistic as I want to be, nor is it as breezy and fresh as the first drawing.  It’s just kinda… “neither here, nor there”.

Back to work!

 

 

“Trish” reborn

| emmapittson
©2016, Emma Pittson. “Trish”, Photoshop.

Well, this gal has had quite the makeover!  You may remember her as the painting that refused to cooperate, but I just didn’t want to let her go.  After all, I’d put so much work into her!  So when I went back to it, I decided to change up a few things, colour-wise.  I think she looks better this way (also, she looks meaner, which is not a bad thing).

Her bio reads thusly: “Young co-ed superhero whose superhero power is the ability to have an unbelievably large circle of friends, admirers, and hangers-on, and this despite the fact that she’s never been particularly nice to anyone.  Like, EVER.  Also, no one is exactly sure where she lives.”

Also available in my Society6 shop!