Thursday, November 17, 2011

Working on crossing mediums
You might have seen this scene not long ago. I liked it so much that I figured I would try it in oil. It is hard getting a good photo when a painting is still wet and in bad light but this one turned out the best. I've been working with a very limited palate in hopes that the brush work will get all of my attention. While it is not anywhere near exact, I think my brush strokes in oil are starting to mirror my pastel strokes. The limited palate is making it a lot easier to focus on an area that I think is lacking. After brush work my next area is value and composition in oil. Oil is easy enough to change once you have it laid down but it is still different than pastel so time spent on that wouldn't hurt. It has been a good day of painting. Tomorrow will be even better.

Tuesday, November 15, 2011

Paint while you can
This is a little 4x6 painting I did off of my back porch. It was a little over a week ago. Now all the leaves are gone and it looks completely different. Painting whenever you have the chance is the only way to get something down unless you want to wait a full year for it again. Sure you have a month or so, but if you are doing your best to get out and paint all over the place its hard to get back to a certain spot at the right time of day to paint something you could have before. My new practice is to stop myself and do these little small paintings if nothing else just to capture what I'm seeing. This only took 20 minutes and every time I look at that tree I think I know it better than ever before. Paint often, paint quickly.

Sunday, November 13, 2011

Crossing mediums
 A few weeks ago I had cut a piece of wallis paper into some standard dimensions. When I was done there was a strip 2"x12" left. I cut that piece into 6 small squares. At the time I was working in oils and was toning canvas panels. When I was done with the panels I laid the little squares out next to them. I've heard of people painting with oil paints on the paper, so I figured toning it wouldn't hurt it. Today I got these little squares out and did a bunch of little drawings and then did the value studies that I've mentioned before. It is hard to see here because I took the photos while the paint thinner was still wet, but there is a lot of color shining through the pastel value study laid down over it. While I haven't finished these little paintings yet I think it looks very neat so far and would keep me from having to cover almost every inch of the painting with soft pastel. I'm going to experiment with this further when I get my new wallis paper.