Category: oil painting

Practice

Over the next several weeks I am enrolled in a couple of oil painting classes. Acrylic paints really do frustrate me in a lot of ways, and please me in others, but it is time to work with oil paints on a more serious level. Let’s see where it goes.

To get ready for these classes, I pulled out some of my supplies. Of course, the oil paints come out – I have a smaller selection of colors than any other medium! I also have canvases in panel and mounted format. However, I did need to stock up on linseed oil, solvent, and other such stuff. And then paint.

Canvas mounted on panels is actually, I think, the easiest way to go. Canvas pads flop around and easily bend. Mounted canvas on stretcher bars takes up a lot of space but can provide a gratifying surface to paint on if properly and tightly mounted and prepared. For now I am using canvas panels which, while not super high quality, are relatively inexpensive and easy enough to prepare, if at all, prior to painting. 

I love pears! Painting them is far less tasty than eating them, but they are by far one of my favorite winter fruits. Here, some d’Anjous, all cuddled together. My focus here was brushwork and getting a sense of the unctuous quality of oil paints. Some people use the paints straight out of the tube, but I like mine to slide around a bit. It really makes for fun blending. The colors, too, were rather limited here for the purpose of seeing how they can interact. 

Here, more lavender fields. Why so many? It is because lavender and purple are honestly rather nasty colors to create from the standard mixes. I find that I like to have “convenience colors” on hand – namely, a good violet such as carbazole or dioxazine. Mixed with other colors and / or white, I get lavenders and such that appeal to me. I initially tried to just use variants of red, blue, and white for the lavenders, but gave up with frustration. Not worth the sweat! Maybe later I will master a good orchid lavender, but for now . . .

As with the pears, playing with the things you can add to the oil paints to thin them out. I used Gamsol and Soy-Thin, both low odor solvents. I didn’t use any linseed oil in either painting – that will come later – as will other things, such as drying agents like alkyds. 

The pears and the lavender field were painting on pre-gessoed 10×10 cotton canvas panels measuring 10×10 inches square.

Oasis

Today I decided to just paint and take it from there. No prelim sketch, some reference to this or that, but the point was to just paint and see what happens. It is really practice, and here I used oils. I just need to get comfortable with them and how they handle. That was the whole point of today’s painting. I think I will do more of these, just for practice. The masterpieces can wait.

Oil, 12×12, cotton canvas panel.

WIP: Trees in a Drought #3

I am not sure whether this is done, overdone, or not yet done! Certainly it is more finished than before – and I am not sure I even like it – so it is in the garage to dry and to be ignored for awhile.

Oil paints are proving to be a pleasure to use. Their malleability makes them easy in comparison to acrylic paint. Add to that, they don’t end up looking plasticky.

Compositionally this painting has little to offer. It’s just a study of trees and color and playing with paints. A learning experience by doing. For instance, I finally “got it” when using brushes – and why painters use multiple brushes in oils. You know how you always see the artist holding 2 or 3 or more brushes in one hand, painting with the other? It is – for me at least – a way to keep colors more pure without creating mud. That was an eye-opener. In water based paints it is really quick and easy to clean a brush, but not with oils. Okay, new thing learned.

Below is the photograph I used as the basis for this painting along with all stages of the painting itself so far.

WIP: Trees in a Drought #2

Another view of the WIP. I worked on it a bit in home and then in yesterday’s class. More work to be done, but I am letting it sit in the backyard to dry a bit and give me a break from it as well. It seems that when you work in oils you can always find more and more to fix! Well, yes, it is still “getting there” – so more to come.

Reference photo and first round below.

WIP: 3 Trees in a California Drought

I have been taking an oil painting / acrylic painting class through the local adult school, and the current teacher is pretty good. I am only doing oils this go around – I did acrylics last class – and I am finding them far more to my liking than acrylics. Much more to offer in terms of – what? – pleasure in using. With acrylics I feel like I am in a mad dash to paint and that really is not a fun experience. With oils, you can play and take your time, and that for this impatient person is actually a pleasure after the pressures I felt with acrylics!

This is what my backyard looks like – hell. There is no grass and there are too many big trees. Once we get rid of 10 more 35 foot tall trees and have the back yard plowed up to be rid of tree roots, then I might be able to make it far more habitable. Nonetheless, looking for something to paint, I decided to take a photo of some of the trees against the back wall and push it in color to an extreme. By pushing the colors in LR I thought I might find new colors to use in the painting. And, it worked – I found purples and turquoises and rather icky orangish yellows.

So, I am trying to do this alla prima, but it’s not going to happen. It is happening so far in two alla prima sessions, and probably will need three or more. I am not trying to create a masterpiece. I am trying to learn how to use oils. So, this is play, and here it is, after my second alla prima session.

Next class is in a couple of days, so let’s see where it goes from here . . .