30paintings30days

Painting for September 12

| emmapittson
Face Study no.7
Face Study no.7 – oil on panel, 6″ x 8″

I must be a sucker for punishment because I opted to try another oil painting tonight.  Overall, the results are much better, and unlike the last one (which I pretty much SOAKED in linseed oil – because what do I know about oil painting, right?), this painting might actually dry sometime this century!

What chuffs me about this painting:

  • it kinda reminds me of a mid-century pin-up

What bums me about this painting:

  • the hair is a little too unfinished, but maybe I should’ve thought of that before I chose to copy a picture of a woman with wild hair, and so much of it!

List some teachable moments:

  • don’t expect oil colour and acrylic colour to behave the same way!  Maybe it’s just the brand I use, but I really hate their cadmium red (to be fair, it is a cadmium red hue).  It’s a fluffy, candy red that I find very difficult to control.
  • still trying to figure out how to make a brilliant white highlight with oils.  If anyone has any tips, please share!!

Anything else to share with the class?

  • I listened to a collection of Stars tracks on CBC Radio 3 while I painted this.  Just FYI.

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Painting for September 11

| emmapittson
september11-sharper-focus
Face Study no.6 – acrylic and water-soluble oil on panel, 6″ x 8″

 

You read that right, folks -“acrylic AND water-soluble oils”.  Now, I wouldn’t normally do this, but according to the information pamphlet that came with our set of Holbein Duo Aqua Oils, mixing these paints with acrylics is perfectly fine.  They blended together on the palette just fine, and adhered to the panel just fine, too.  So far, everything is FINE.

But if this painting eventually ends up flaking and sliding right off the canvas, I promise you: the good people at Holbein can look forward to some scathing hate mail from yours truly.  I shall keep you informed.

Just kidding!  I actually really, really wanted to experiment, especially after my disappointment with using oils for September 10th.  I was really keen to find out if adding some water-soluble oils to acrylic would help with extending the “open” time, and thus allow me to get that coveted “wet-in-wet” look that always seems just beyond my grasp… and not give me an “oil paint smell” headache while I’m doing it.

Unfortunately, given the time and opportunity, I just went right back to my detail-oriented, dry brush, nit-picky ways.  So my results are, uh… inconclusive.

What I like about this painting:

  • all those shifting colours in her fleshtones
  • all the “unfinished” bits – her hair, her fuzzy sweater

What I like less:

  • the “lineart”, which for some reason I just keep adding even though it doesn’t often work

What I learned from this painting:

  • I concentrate SO HARD on the eye that’s in the light, and tend to fudge and slur my way through the eye that’s in shadow.  This is becoming a habit.
  • re: mixing water-soluble oils with acrylics – I thought it best not to use linseed oil, so I used only a little water to help extend the paint.  As it dried (and if it was scraped thinly enough across my palette, it most certainly did), as some reviewers have pointed out, it would also become a little sticky
  • speaking of my palette, I have yet to clean it.  I think this is where the [water-soluble oils/acrylics mix] is going to hit the fan, if you catch my meaning.

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Painting for September 10

| emmapittson
Face Study no.5
Face Study no.5 – oil on panel, 6″ x 8″

Face Study no.5 – oil on panel, 6″ x 8″

We have a set of Holbein Duo Water-Soluble Oils that have been sitting around since, oh, forever.  I decided to give them a go even though I have practically ZERO experience with oil paints.  You can see where this is going…

I should ‘fess up right now that today is my husband’s birthday, and at this moment, I am full of roast beef, wine, sweet potato, wine, chocolate cake, and wine.  Also, wine.  Talk about the WORST time to close yourself up in a small room and fiddle with art supplies that give off headache-inducing fumes.   But, oh… I SO wanted to get that fat, buttery, wet-in-wet oil paint look.

And I kinda, sorta, in some way succeeded… I think.. maybe?  There are parts where there’s clearly too much linseed oil, and I didn’t approach the picture with much confidence and it shows.  Perhaps it’s just a question of more practice… and nose plugs… ok, and maybe less wine.

What I’m happy with:

  • I’m just thankful that the painting is not a big blob of formless goo

What I’m less happy with:

  • believe it or not, the whole wet-in-wet thing got REALLY ANNOYING REALLY FAST.  After the first few confident strokes, it was a real letdown to realize that any little accidental smudge after that meant that you’d have to do the whole area over again.  And how the Hell do you put white highlights on a surface that’s so slippery?

What I learned with this painting:

  • that I really, really, REALLY love having control and painting this way with oils gives you as much control as herding stoned cats.

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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