Working on a little birthday gift for my husband’s aunt. She is turning 80 in May. Hard to think about what kind of subject matter would be best…settled on Lily of the Valley as this is the official flower of May. Difficult little buggers to get right! Fun to work on though.
Also messing around with oil bar paint on found beach wood. Thinking of moving on to shells, or back to the birds. Vacation week is coming to a close.
Somehow I got focused on the water birds this week. Feels like the right subject matter while at the beach. Someone pointed out to me that I keep cutting the poor birds beaks off! It happens a lot! For the next one I will try to keep the beak within the frame. I am really enjoying the paint transfer technique with the oil paint…and I have discovered how to make this work on canvas as well. The line is more difficult to control on the canvas, but still offers up a quality that I appreciate.
This new expressive line technique seems so perfect for reinterpreting some of my past sketches. It’s difficult for me to draw the same thing again…even though I feel like that is probably a good approach for refining work. But, I tend not to want to do it. I stumbled onto this idea while looking for a way to “try” out the line technique and have discovered a way to explore the previous sketch in a new way.
I liked the way this turned out, I might try a few more in different color combinations and on different paper stocks. This linen type paper seems to work very well, gives some nice “bleeding” effects.
Here we are day 9. I am going to throw caution to the wind and use a painting that I just finished to stand in for day 9. I started it weeks ago, but finished today. This was done in oil paint bar with a palette knife on paper–sunset over Maui pastures. I did another piece that I am happier with, but by the time I completed it the daylight was gone…so no way to take a good photo (and my scanner is in a different location. I will post that one tomorrow. I had a great day painting! #30paintingsin30days!
The goal for this painting was just to try out the oil bar paint on paper, but with a gesso ground. When I use just the paper, of course some oil seeps through over time. While the feel is different on the gesso ground I think it is a better choice for longevity of the work. For the drawing and subject I just wanted to do something simple…so I chose the pelican in a very graphic depiction. And, I had a lot of fun doing it!
It’s a total style departure. Fun to do something totally different.
Oil Paint Sticks on Paper
Maybe I am on to a subject/theme with the oil paint sticks. I have never really been drawn to using clouds as a subject matter for painting…I think because I see a lot of them by other painters. However, it might be a good learning subject for me. They are difficult! But, they are also fun, open to interpretation and I have lots of photo resources in my personal library!
Not only will I learn a lot with the medium, I will have a bunch of pieces that look like they work together! I still don’t know how important that is, but the subject matter will make it happen anyway. I wonder how many of these I will actually do before I get distracted.
Great tip from my friend Susan Renee Lammers for adding color into the clouds…I am not sure I didn’t overdue it, but I feel good about the direction it took me!
Art Projects 