Crimson
12" x 16" oil on gallery canvas
Available for purchase from my website
Its been a long weekend in Canada, and has been horrible weather-wise. Unseasonably cold and wet which makes everyone cranky and housebound. However, the benefit of that is lots of studio time which I put in and was productive.
I'm working my way through old canvases, obliterating previous work and reclaiming it for new images. I'm also working with a palette knife and lots and lots of paint. There is something quite satisfying in applying oil paint like butter to a surface.
Mixing colours in advance is key to me so that I don't lose the flow, or have to go back half way through to try to recreate the same colour. A variety of palette knives is essential to enable me to create angles and small details.
The drawback is that the process, for me, becomes messy. I always seem to end up with paint all over me. The drying time is also an issue, with pieces taking a month at times to dry enough to be able to ship them. And yes, paint consumption is higher, but I'm never one for hoarding tubes of paint to just look at them or eke them out. They're there to be used as tools towards the final image.
Of course the technique makes me work more from instinct and apply paint freely instead of trying to lock down detail. And the speeds up the process a lot with a large canvas being completed in 3 or 4 days as opposed to 3 or 4 weeks.
You may recall a smaller painting in a higher key, similar to this done a few months ago in acrylic, now available from Spurrell Gallery. I enjoy revisiting an image and changing size, colour and medium to see what happens.
6 comments:
This is gorgeous, Jeanette, and I can see the freer, looser, style of it that you described in the post. Right away I thought about the messiness and the drying time, when you said you were applying oils like they were butter. But the effect you achieve with that approach creates a sense of having captured a moment in time, which you literally did! This is a wonderful post and painting!
This jumped out of my sidebar. Lovely strong design and rich color!
this is wondeful Jeanette!!! perfect on so many levels!
love the energy this has :D the palette knife creates such interesting textures
Katherine, there is so much freedom in just applying paint. The technique lets you loosen up considerably even with mess and slow drying. I thoroughly enjoy it.
I love the rich colour too Celeste. Seems red is a popular colour for boats!
Thanks Suz, I like getting messy and getting results :)
Jen, it really is different than painting with a brush on several levels. You do get a different feeling to the painting.
I've missed your boats. This one is lovely!
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