Tag Archive for: oil painting

Taking the Plunge

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The female figure was stiffer than I had wanted. The overall image held together but compared to the initial sketch the woman in the painting had very little flow or movement. I felt some resistance to changing something that was working, but I knew I wanted to express something different. I had no choice but to take the plunge.

A number of unsatisfactory manifestations of the female dancer took shape, each one less appealing than the last. I became frustrated and a bit anxious; my saving grace was that I stayed loose throughout the process and was willing to continue to wipe away and repaint until I arrived at what I was envisioning. I continued to work with Photoshop to deepen my feeling for the changes I was about to make on the canvas. There is still a lot of work to do, but am happy that the figures are finally close to the way I want them. This strengthens my confidence in this way of working.

Risk Management

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Art is about taking risks, right? Of course it is, but there’s no need to be macho about it. There are times when you feel confident and want to dive right in, to take your painting forward or make drastic changes, and that’s exactly what you need to do. Other times you might be less sure of where you want to go. It is easy to just stop there, do nothing, and loose momentum. Or you could develop a “risk management strategy”. This could be a way of working on the painting without actually working on the painting (if you know what I mean). In previous posts I discussed pausing work on the large canvas, and creating smaller versions in different mediums (the watercolor and the monochrome acrylic). Here is the techie version of that process.

I photographed the painting, opened it in Photoshop and proceeded to sketch in changes on my Bamboo drawing tablet. I added layers on top of the original layer so that I could draw and erase without affecting the painting itself. The “Clone Stamp Tool” was handy to cover over the old arms so that I could paint them from scratch.

Tom Hopkins, an accomplished, Canadian painter who recently passed away, demonstrates similar ways of working. In a video, he cuts out one of his figures, evlarges it and moves it around the painting to see how it would look in different places. It was just to get ideas for how he wanted to continue the painting. “It’s kind of like cheating in a way,” he said, “and whenever you feel but if you think you’re cheating as an artist, you’re probably on the right track.”

Painting Big

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I worked steadily on this painting for the last two days. It is the first large painting that I have started in almost five years. (I had to think to come up with that time frame and it blows my mind; I can’t believe that It has been so long.) The painting is 3 X 4 feet while my previous two oil paintings were 12 X 12 inches. There is a huge difference in how I work with materials, but what I hadn’t expected is that there is a huge psychological difference as well.

The Psychology of Painting Big

Working on a large canvas is freeing. Your motions can be grander. The spaces that you paint are on a similar scale to your own body so you don’t have to shrink yourself into a tiny space. In order for this freedom to come through, however, you have to engender a grandness of spirit, an openness that can accept all of the expense, the uncertainty, and the mess of working large.

Expense

A pre-stretched, 3 X 4 foot canvas is around $50, not so much really, but enough to make you feel a bit precious about it if you let yourself. By precious, I mean giving rise to thinking along the lines of, “this is a big investment and I have to make it count – this painting needs to turn out right,” rather than, “this is exciting, let’s see what happens.”

With a 12 inch canvas you can squeeze out a tiny spot of paint and enjoy hours of creative entertainment; with a 4 foot canvas you squeeze half the tube onto your pallet and before you know it you are reaching for the same tube again. In order to paint with a sense of freedom it is necessary to overcome any stinginess regarding use of paint. I don’t condone wasteful practice, but you cannot frugally eke out the minimum amount of paint fretting all the while about how much it costs and that you soon have to buy more. Spreading paint as thinly as possible to cover the maxim area feels terrible, whereas the smooth glide of working with a fully loaded brush is like eating a good meal.

Uncertainty

If you are not used to working large you may experience a certain amount of uncertainty or anxiety. You also may not. I really don’t want to put that idea in your head; it’s not like its something that you’re supposed to feel. I just thought that I would share my recent experience in case it has relevance to anyone else.

I started working on my large canvas a week ago with washes. It was very free and fun. Then I began to work with a smooth but substantial layer of opaque paint and for the next two days I experienced a sense of uncertainty not just about my painting but about my career choices, the seeming fragility of my life circumstances, an uncertain future, bad past decisions, etc. I can’t say that this stemmed entirely from my painting but last night after I brought the painting to its current stage I started to feel much better about everything.

Mess

Mess is mess. Oil paint is messy. When you work big you get a big mess. Again, this is a matter of not being stingy with your process. You have to be willing to accept the mess and work with it. Some painters feel happier letting things get extreme, but I find it important to clean up often, to reorganize my pallet, throw away rags that are too messy to be fun, clean my brushes wash my hands, and get back to making some more of a mess.

Working Strategies

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Here is the monochromatic version again with a few changes, and below is the watercolor. I now have enough information to go back to the 3 X 4 ft. oil painting. I have tried the more traditional technique of painting over a monochromatic under painting, but it just didn’t work well for me. Instead, I use the monochrome to deepen my feeling and understanding of the picture’s values. Watercolor works well to inform me of its colors.