Practicing Oil Painting...

Since I spent a few weeks on my last colored pencil piece, I decided to do a quick study in oil before diving into my next oil piece. This painting of an old tarnished bowl was done in about hour last night, with light only from my easel lamp. It was interesting to paint something that would be difficult (if not impossible) to see in a photo, but the resulting painting is way too dark!

By the way, you can kind of make out the reflection of my head and easel lamp upside-down in the center of the inside of the bowl!

Self Expression

I recently completed another self-portrait in oil, shown here. I find it very convenient to use myself for a subject not only because I can take unlimited photographs, but also because I can use a mirror to check skin tones and see what the camera missed.

For this piece, I set up a camera using the timer to take several photos of myself set against a mostly white background. I wanted to create a feeling of being overwhelmed or desiring to hide in one's surroundings, and decided to call the final piece "Eclipse".

Learning from Mistakes

Everyone has different learning styles, but I am the type of person who likes to dive in and do it my own way. For my first oil painting, aside from following the "thick over thin" principle I had read about, I pretty much just threw a set of paints haphazardly onto a palette and started painting using a few brushes I had on hand. Yes, I had read about the different types of whites, about pre-mixing colors on the palette before beginning, and how one must have a full array of brushes to complete a successful painting, but I found all of the advice to be overwhelming and often contradictory, and I decided that I would learn the best from actually trying it myself.

Aside from the thick over thin principle, What I learned from this experience is that it actually is quite helpful to premix some colors that you know you will be using, though I don't exactly follow any prescribed methods, and my palette seems to change a little each time I mix the paints. Had I followed someone else's palette and methods exactly from the beginning the process might have been easier, but I think that the lesson would have less meaning to me.

Now, working on a piece smaller in scale on Pastelbord (work in progress shown below), I am learning the value in having more sizes and types of brushes, as I struggle to get thin lines and fine textures.

Occasionally I find that following my own instincts is very helpful in developing my own techniques and style. But other times (and perhaps more often) my mistakes help me to really learn the value of the lessons and advice given by seasoned painters. So I continue on, happily learning and growing from my mistakes.

SP from Mirror Almost Done...

Here's a snapshot of my in-progress self portrait from the mirror, just about complete. Tomorrow make final tweaks and get a better image to post to my blog and website. This was a huge challenge for me, and I learned a lot (including that I have a lot to learn). I struggled at first in part because I had the canvas illuminated from sunlight filtering in through two windows, but my face was completely in the dark, and too difficult to see in the mirror. I remedied this later on with a small artificial daylight lamp. In addition, I believe that I was focusing too much on details too early on, at a time when the proportions were not yet established. Luckily, oil paint is great for making changes!

Alternating Medium

I recently completed and delivered a colored pencil portrait, and I am working on another now. Much of what I learned from working in colored pencil has proven very useful in learning pastel and oil, and now I am finding that the opposite is also true. Working in pastel has been eye-opening in terms of creating subtle gradation of color, something that I am now paying more attention to in my colored pencil work. Oil allows me to work in a way most intuitive to me; starting with large shapes and blocks of color, and working in details, contrast, and highlights as I go along. This is also something that I would like to try to incorporate more into my colored pencil work as well.