Saturday 18 February 2012

New Work


Ok, I'm a day behind, I got distracted. By pizza-related shenanigans. And forgot to take the picture. But it's here now. I get there in the end. This one is not a step by step post, I didn't take pictures of the process as I went along. Is that something I should do? If you have an opinion either way, please let me know in the comments. This is a bit of a beach at sunset, at a village called Collieston, which is near to the city in which I now live, Aberdeen. It's a rocky motherlover (geogeeks, UNITE!) and all the rocks are slanted at the familiar angle. I'm not sure what rock the beach is based on - given it's location in Scotland it's a fair bet to say either granite or gneiss. Next time I'm there, I'll take way better pictures of the rocks so I can furnish you, dear readers, with my best guess. More discussion after the jump



Anyway, I was going for atmosphere in this painting, so I simplified the shapes a bit and some of the shades. It's supposed to look dusky, with less contrast than you would have in bright light. Needless to say, heavily weathered rock forms some pretty extreme fractures, which would look freaking awesome under a really strong mono-directional light. (Maybe that should be the subject of a study or two? It would get pretty abstract). 

I could probably spend longer on this painting (something about the sea bothers me), but I'm just learning about leaving works before they're overdone, and I don't want to cock it up. As with many things, it's good to add extra in only small quantities, as you can always add more but you can't take it away. There is no way that I know of to erase oil paint, other than to wipe the whole canvas down and start again once the mess has dried. That may yet be necessary. 

Learning Points - 

1) Your undercoat will show through (giggety), so you'd better prepare yourself for the result of that.

2) Oil paints continue to be fun, but a little hard to wrangle with, especially where corrections are needed. 

3) Yes you can do it alla prima in two days (because you're too impatient to wait for a week for the first lot to dry). Oh Bob Ross, y u no sad?

4) You can do a lot more with a very few brushes than you would think, so it's probably wise to a) learn how to clean and otherwise maintain brushes properly then b) get a small selection of high quality brushes, that you now know how to not ruin.

5) Take better pictures so your painting doesn't look bent.

6) Do studies of rocks and cloudy skies, because you will be painting a shedload of them, my son.

Anyway, if you have thoughts or comments you want to leave, please feel free. 
Have a nice day.

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