Tuesday, July 27, 2010

Another bicycle...


A second bicycle painting; this one is 9"x12". The two paintings (see other one here) are very different, in several ways. Of course, they look different. The first one is more detailed and complex. I mentioned that I painted it somewhat like a jigsaw puzzle; trying to figure out what went where as I went. I felt like that painting took a very long time to do. It was work.

This second one was painted very differently, and I find that I prefer to paint this way. I first did a complete under-painting (see below) all in one session. That took about a half-hour. Then I went back a day or so later and started just putting things where they were needed to make the painting work: darks, some details, a few highlights, and some yummy impasto in the flowers, which works on this style of painting, but would be completely out of place on the more detailed piece. This piece was play.


I also painted this entire painting with regular oils, as opposed to the water soluble oils I generally use. I had begun using the water soluble ones, hoping they would keep me from having allergy problems, headaches, etc. But, since I have a headache pretty much all the time anyway, I decided to use the 'real' oils. They really don't behave a great deal differently, except I think the regular oils are drying faster this summer. Our swamp cooling system (a water drip through a big fan - a desert based air conditioning system) seems to slow down the water soluble oils from drying, but not the oil based ones. Weird. I also can get impasto easier with regular oils, and I don't think my headache is any worse.

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