study

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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Painting for September 7

| emmapittson
30paintings-no-2
Face Study no.2 – acrylic on panel

Here is my painting for September 7th – Day 7 (well, for me, it’s Day 2) of the 30 Paintings in 30 Days Challenge.

What I’m happy with:

  • pretty much everything on the right side.  Those pale colours with that thin outline really make me hum with satisfaction.
  • the white highlights.  SO much easier to do on any surface that is NOT paper.

What I’m less happy with:

  • pretty much everything on the left side.  The reference image is very calm, and I somehow made her look like she walked away from a bad fistfight (“you should see the OTHER guy!”).

What I’ve learned so far:

  • because I have practically zero training in painting (and this despite the fact that I have a Fine Arts Degree – chew upon that, alma mater!), I’m a lot less comfortable making paintings that are, I dunno… paint forward?  I forced myself to use the biggest brushes possible for as long as possible on this tiny panel, but I was happiest when I could take out the detail brush, or when I could apply the paint as if I was drawing.
  • Slow-Dri Blending Gel really works.  Bless you, Liquitex.

What was going through my mind practically all the way through:

  • I suck at painting
  • y’know, if I did this with Photoshop, it would come out AMAZING

See you tomorrow!

 

The “30 paintings in 30 days” challenge

| emmapittson
30paintings-no-1
Face Study no.1 – acrylic on paper.

I swear to you that I am not crazy – I’m just at a serious stand-still when it comes to my art!  I need a decisive kick in the pants, so against my better judgement, I’ve decided to participate in Leslie Saeta’s “30 Paintings in 30 Days” challenge!

I’m just kidding – cranking out a painting a day is actually a really good idea.  I did that for a week last winter and I ended up learning so much (and bonus! I had 5 beautiful landscape paintings by the end of it).  I talk a big talk about how I want to be a serious artist, but that’s never going to happen if I can’t even decide on what I want to paint, or if I lack the skills to get those paintings onto canvas.  Thirty days of face studies should not only bring my skill level up to something acceptable, but also help me to determine if painting the figure is what I want to focus on at all.

Here we go….!