BLOG about PAINTING

13-08-31 fw

I finally got into my new studio. The weather had turned, and painting outside wasn't an option. Also, I was just itching to get back into painting with oils. I needed some kind of kickstart to my winter...

So I'm doing this thing where you squeeze out your paints, set a timer for 37 minutes, and paint like mad until the buzzer goes. The plan was to do this for a month. I lasted six days before a terrible migraine felled me (more later). The results are interesting.

The first efforts were pretty grim, but I reworked them a day or two later and am not totally displeased with the results. As time went on, I started to find my feet, and the later paintings were better right from the get-go. The big challenge was finding someplace to start, some kind of structure on which to hang the painting. This structure morphed from quite architectural shapes to more free, organic ones. That seemed to help. I also expanded my palette a bit.

I was really loving doing this until the migraine came along. The good news is that it lasted only a few days. The bad news is that I think it was caused by working with the oil paints. Now I know you acrylic fans will suggest I simply switch over to acrylics, but this would be a huge step. Not only do I have several hundreds (thousand?) dollars' worth of oil paint, but I simply don't like painting with acrylics. (Yes, I've tried them. More than once.) One part that I love most about painting is when I get to put a second, third, fourth layer of paint over the tacky underlayer from the day previous and see how the paint interacts. I love the way the layers sometimes blend and how they sometimes push each other up into ridges. That just ain't going to happen with acrylics, even open acrylics. Somebody suggested going to water-based oils. That would mean another big investment, but it might be worth it if it solves the migraine problem.

I'm thinking on this. Who knows where things will go from here?