Experimenting in Oil

Wednesdays have become my "art night." I went to one life drawing session, but then the next week I was too fired up about working on my new painting series to go, and I spent the evening working on Woman Alone No. 1. Yesterday, I was completely planning to go back for another life drawing session (I even got a bunch of quarters at the store to plug the parking meter), but the minute I stepped across the threshold of my apartment a deep fatigue fell over me. That happens a lot: I walk in, drop my bag and laptop, hang up my coat, and then all I want to do is to sink into the couch with a DVD and my cats napping by my side. Sometimes, it's really difficult to drag myself back out of the house once I get home. When I have no particular obligation to anyone other than myself (as is the case with going to life drawing in Towson), it's even more difficult.

So the short of it is I didn't go (to my only slight regret). But I figured that if I was going to stay home, I would be at least somewhat productive. I was too tired to give the focus demanded by my Woman project, so I decided I'd just do some experiments with paint.

I recently purchased Oil Painting for the Serious Beginner by Steve Allrich, and have read about half of it. The book is pretty good, but it's restricting, because Allrich only really expounds upon the way HE paints, and really does little to explore other techniques (like glazing, which I was curious about) or other palettes (he doesn't put green on his palette, so there is a chapter about mixing green, but hardly anything about using green paint). Regardless, I did find out a lot of information I was looking for. It definitely wasn't a waste of money.

One of the most interesting things Allrich had to say was to use black paint. I've been taught by both serious painting teachers I've had not to use black, because the black that comes out of a tube rarely, if ever, occurs in life. Instead, I'd always been taught to make a mix of umber and blue to make a deep gray that can be warmed or cooled accordingly. Allrich does not agree with this school of thought, and encourages the use of black, but says to think of it as a color in and of itself, not something you add to other colors to make them darker. I thought that was interesting.

Since my tube of Lamp Black was unused from date of purchase (probably 6 years ago now) I decided that I was going to open it up and use the hell out of it.

I also took this opportunity to explore some other things I wanted to try out - different brushes, using the palette knife, mixing on the canvas, adding subtle color to black, creating texture with impasto medium, etc. One of my main objectives, as well, was to see if I could complete (or "complete") a painting in one session (known as alla prima), since I know how my attention span can wander. I don't want to end up with another half dozen unfinished paintings that I lose the source material for and end up gessoing over (as was the case with the canvases I'm working on right now: they were once other paintings).

It was a fun session. Great to play with the paint without worrying about the results. I learned that I need to figure out the best way to thin my paint (it was either too thick or too runny; rarely did I get a perfect medium). I learned that I bought horrible paint brushes that shed like crazy. I learned that if I'm going to be serious about painting I have to come to terms with the fact that I'm going to go through a LOT of paint and I have to be willing to put in the money to buy supplies (which can be tax deductible in certain cases if I remember to keep receipts). Mostly I learned that I have a lot to learn, and, as Allrich indicates in his book (and much like advice related to writing), the best way to learn how to paint is to paint a lot and look at a lot of paintings.

Here was what I ended up with at the end of the night. I think I may go back and redo her face in finer/better detail when it dries. I might also add some spot colors. Who knows. It's an experiment: I can do whatever I want.