So, I do art and stuff - general artistic / creative chat

[sheralmyst]

Murphy’s Oil Soap…I would have never guessed. I once lived in a house with custom wood cabinets and I used the stuff to clean them. I knew it was good for wood but never brushes and those were the years I painted on a regular basis…if I had only known. And it’s true, the solvents are rough on the brushes.
And I’m not sure why, but I suddenly feel the urge to start painting again…oh dear…I feel the moment taking hold…once it grabs me, I will get no rest until I act.
Yep. I got the itch. One thing I always wanted to do was dive into impressionism but, my eye and my brain are drawn to detail so I just could not break free from realism. However, my eyesight has declined and I feel like trying again.
I found this vid and love the destroy and rebuild technique and the fracture technique.

Impressionistic Painting Techniques with Ann Feldman

UPDATE…I did it…since I have zero paint supplies, I had to buy a few things and I am going out on a limb. I am going oil sticks…it just feels right for going impressionistic. Bought some tubes just in case. Hoping to get a bit of an impasto feel as well. Threw in some palette knives and largish brushes. Went super cheap in case this sudden ambition fizzles
Now, inspiration…sketch time

[TravelEcho]

@sheralmyst

UPDATE…I did it…

SQUEEEEEE! I’m so excited to hear that! May it bring you as much joy (in spite of the frustration --lol) as it brings to me.

I didn’t use my oils all winter it was sooo cold, that was when I realised my brushes were getting stiff. I have dumped them all into Murphy’s now. So I can clean them up a few at a time. Then I will keep the ones I use regularly (daily) in safflower oil until I’m ready to use them.

I can’t wait to see what you come up with (but no pressure!) I am still so impressed by your master study of Van Gogh’s self portrait.

I watched the vid you posted and I think it might be a good series of exercises to do to loosen up. However, for myself, I wouldn’t want to get stuck into it as a way to paint my personal experience of my subject(s) I also use much larger brushes that they are using in the video. I’m of the “paint what you love; what excites you” school of painting. The energy from that somehow gets into the painting. I am also an advocate of using a variety of edges to draw the viewer’s eye through the painting at different speeds, and giving it a rest now and then. However, as I said earlier, these would be a good “loosening up” exercise to do now and then.

I like their invented tool. I may make one. Looks very good for stripping of passages that are just not working. For stripping/lifting some types of strokes/passages I use either a flexible palette knife, or a rubber tipped clay sculpting/detailing tool.

I also tend to tone my substrates with either burnt sienna or yellow ochre, and wipe that back with a soft cloth to subdue the bright white of the canvas. I have found it much harder to judge the values of the strokes when there is so much while around. I also tend to use the lifting out of the lights to set the stage for the underlying design foundation.

I’m sure you already know a lot of this, but for anyone else interested, I thought I would mention a few things.

Let me know if you find it tedious.

[sheralmyst]

Not tedious at all. Let me know how the Murphy’s works out.
I plan on starting small. Maybe some 8x10s. I have done stipple and crosshatch with pen and ink which is very time consuming so I am interested in trying the techniques in the vids because they are quite similar. Whatever I do, I want to avoid too much realism…I must break free!
I did a couple of studies on my tablet and I must say, I am quite excited. Strong contrast between light and dark and the almost crosshatch method with paint…if I can just find a subject matter that grabs me. I have one in mind in my yard and I am grabbing some pics at various times of day while I wait for my supplies to arrive.
I am a bit nervous. It has been a long time… and I have never used paint sticks but, that also means I have no preconceived ideas about them so I hope that works to my advantage.

[TravelEcho]

My practice/study sizes are even smaller–5x7" and 6x8".

I’m always nervous around starting a new painting, but also pretty excited. Photography just with my phone camera is an essential tool, but from so may years of observing and painting nature (in oils, watercolour, and acrylics) I find I can work well using a series of photos (and even looped videos! --videos show more true colour/light/shadow than stills taken with a phone).

I try to tell myself that fear of failure may be there, but if I learn something (which always happens even is it is only an unconscious increase in muscle memory) then it isn’t truly a “fail”.

When I first decided to go back to oils, I too started with paint sticks. Sellenier brand. The paints were luscious, though I didn’t like their Ultramarine blue. It was closer to violet than I like. The only other problem I had with the sticks was that they were incredibly messy to use, peeling the paper off was difficult, too. Wonderful to use with a painting knife, though and made creamy mixes, and good thick single strokes.

What brand did you get?

I’m thinking of purchasing a student grade set of paints with which to lay in my underpainting. Cheaper and they tend to dry faster. Then finish off with my Rublevs. I will also be using the student grade paints for colour studies, though at the moment I’m using watercolour for those. I just have to decide on a brand that doesn’t use anything other than linseed oil for their medium. My go-to paint brand used to be Stevenson’s but the owners got too old to continue the business and no one in the family wanted to take over, so they simply closed it all down. A sad day that I didn’t find out about until a few years ago when I looked them up in order to make some purchases.

I have found for myself that staying loose is helped by using a brush twice the size I was used to (even on small paintings (8x10") a two inch brush can work wonders), and putting down a single stroke at a time then loading up the brush and putting down another stroke, leaving them alone --not correcting or fussing with the stroke.

Pretty exciting stuff @sheralmyst ! I love that you have no qualms about using a device to help with the work. I think of them as a modern, more sophisticated, “camera obscura”. If the technology of the day worked for Vermeer, then the technology of today can work for us.

I edit my photos on my phone to a certain extent, cropping, adjusting lights/darks/brilliance, etc. and I upload to my computer and play with the composition and even the colours before I commit to a studio painting. In the wild or plein aire, I take reference photos, do sketches in charcoal or inks, maybe a quick watercolour colour study if there is time before the sun moves too far.

And here I go blathering on again. Enjoy your renaissance!

[sheralmyst]

Can’t remember the oil stick brand but they were cheap. I looked at Sellenier and decided I will go that route if this works out

[TravelEcho]

here is the lift out tool I use. (I’m not affiliated with Amazon)

Amazon.com: Kemper Wipe Out Tool

Now I’m off for a rest.

[sheralmyst]

Ughhh…I am not so happy. I guess the oils were too cheap. They are drying for too quickly. They feel like acrylics and even washed off my hands like acrylics…not sure where to go from here. I may pull my pastels out and see if they are still good…I don’t think they go bad. Bummer day.
Update: day was not a total waste. I dug thru old supplies and things not meant for this purpose and did this in like 10 minutes

Hint: they are mushrooms
I could not stop. Copied from YT but no way near as good

I only had acrylics from my dollhouse days. Had to do a whole lotta shakin’ to make them useable.
Here are the leftovers on the board I used.
I call it What Was Left Behind

No bids? oh well, it was my first time. And I really enjoyed it. Would not mind working with someone who works in impasto. I may have to check around and see if there are any classes near me. I did this knockdown treatment in my bathroom and really enjoyed it.

I may have found a new love…time will tell…if I improve.

[TravelEcho]

Wow! I like them all! I need to get back to my impasto roots. I love that we are inspiring each other like this! A good start, eh?

Did you use a painting knife (aka palette knife)? What size are your substrate?

[sheralmyst]

Yes palette knives on my tiny 8x10 boards. It is drywall compound. so they will likely crack. But, I have never done impasto and I figured this was a cheap way to kinda get a feel for it and I love it! I watered it down to try to reach that buttery feel but did not really get there but still, close enough to say I really want to jump in. If I do this, I am really thinking I want to go the Heavy Acrylic route mostly because acrylics are less expensive. And I will need some stretch canvases. I have palette knives of various shapes and sizes.
One thing I do not have is a good area for the type of work I want to do like spraying the acrylic and spattering. I am going to need a good drop cloth. I suppose I could set up outside…my craft room, which I never work in, just for storage, has a door to the back yard so it would be simple to set up under one of my huge oak trees. Now I just need a list of supplies.
I have seen numerous impasto techniques. What was yours? I am really wanting to border on sculptural painting, in fact, if I get comfortable enough with this, I may cross over to sculptural…

[Polyphemus]

Remember, canvas wasn’t used at all by artists until the 16th century. And when it was adopted, the reasons had nothing to do with it being an ideal medium for painting. Artists preferred to work on wooden boards, plaster or even stone surfaces - but for large works those supports were too heavy and expensive. Also large, flat wooden boards that would not crack or warp were almost impossible to produce.

Canvas was always a compromise - sacrificing durability and stability for lightness, portability, and low cost.

Nowadays, we have no problem obtaining large, light, stable boards. I can buy an 8’ x 4’ sheet of hardboard (Masonite) for around £10.00 ($12.00 US ). Thin plywood and MDF are pretty good, too. I suspect Leonardo would have sold his mother for that stuff.

[sheralmyst]

@Polyphemus

I suspect Leonardo would have sold his mother for that stuff.

No doubt
My ultimate goal is to sell. That may take a while as I ease myself into a new process. Stretch canvas looks better and does not require framing.
However, while I work on technique and see if this is really something that will work for me, I will continue with the canvas boards. Much cheaper and I can get rough with them.

[TravelEcho]

@Polyphemus

Nowadays, we have no problem obtaining large, light, stable boards

I was about to respond to the not so great idea of using stretched canvas as a substrate for oils since oils dry by oxidation rather than evaporation like acrylics do. This makes them become increasingly brittle over time while the stretched canvas remains not only flexible, but also prone to expanding and contracting with the relative humidity. You get the picture, I’m sure.

Canvas boards should work fine for studies. That said I would worry a little about the weight of a heavy impasto on those boards.

Drywall plaster is typically made from Gypsum which I believe is calcium sulfate dihydrate. Personally I don’t know how that will react with oils, or any pigments, But it should provide a strong surface on which to practice and experiment. With of course the precaution of priming before gessoing/painting. And that goes for all wooden and plaster substrates.

Here in the States you can also purchase an inexpensive, thin (either a quarter- or an eighth-inch thickness; mostly a quarter-inch) wood product also in 4x8 sheets called Luan. It can easily be cut with a utility knife, and again as long as it is primed on the face and the edges should hold up well to impasto.

@sheralmyst

I have seen numerous impasto techniques. What was yours?

My first impasto pieces were (out of ignorance) on stretched canvas. My method was to cover the entire substrate with thich heavy Lead White oil paint right from the tube (yeah, I know. Lead. >.>) Then using a soft brush I pushed the oil colours into the white. It was a quite striking result. Two paintings of red and orange rosehips in the sunlit snow painted from life from inside in the warm through the bay window of my main floor apartment. I was 20 at the time. Not much later both pieces were lost in a move. I moved a lot. So after college I switched to this cool new medium called acrylics.

I still have one that I created from acrylics on canvas board. (not sure but I think it is 18x20 inches) I found that my pail of gesso was drying out, getting way to thick to use, but I liked that, so I used it as a sculpting medium on the substrate to create evocative shapes, then when it was thoroughly dry, I painted over it with transparent heavy body acrylics. I have a photo of it in poor light on my phone. If I can get the uploader to work I will post it.

Now with acrylics we can use their sculpting gels mediums, and even mix them into the acrylic colours with out loss of colour intensity (I use Golden brand).

One more caveat about using canvasboards: You may want to strengthen the backs. As the impasto dries it shrinks a little and tends to warp the boards.

One more “one more thing”: Acrylics seem to be fine on stretched canvas since they are polymers that remain flexible and can move when the canvas moves. I personally would still use a canvasboard or luan myself for heavy impasto, or even my old technique of using old thick gesso, or thick heavy gels.

I’m very excited by your plunge into this. I do love your flower piece! So nicely done.

(I hope most of that was coherent)

[sheralmyst]

I see that Liquitex says you can use their super heavy gesso as sculpting medium. Any pros or cons using it vs the sculpting gels?
For right now, I will stick to my small boards. IF I improve enough, I have everything for making my own frames and access to lots of old barnwood. I could easily brace the boards across the back of my frames. I am sure I will work on various surfaces as I practice. By the time I feel confident enough to ‘get serious’ , hopefully I will know which way to go. But first, I have to gather supplies and figure how all these fun new things work together. All I really know is I am going to really enjoy this! I had so much fun making such a mess with what I did and I have watched tons of YT videos. I like watching others work to see what they use and how they apply it.
Starting small and keeping my expectations low

[TravelEcho]

@sheralmyst

I see that Liquitex says you can use their super heavy gesso as sculpting medium. Any pros or cons using it vs the sculpting gels?

I tend to only use the “Clear Gesso” from the Liquitex brand. I tried some of their paint and mediums but I prefer Golden brand, especially their mediums and gels, as well as their slow drying heavy body paint line. I also use their isolation coat and spray varnish. Been using Golden since the seventies, before they even put their paints into tubes and you could only buy them in jars.

I also like that Golden gives a lot of information on their website and in their newsletter. They seem pretty transparent, and they are always researching stuff that painters need to know.

Yeah, I find that I am always learning and refining when it comes to paintings. Following your bliss they call it. If you get excited about something creative, just go for it. And let the archivists of the future find a way to keep it from falling apart. I do my best to use archival materials, but even then I have been thinking of using student paints for my initial toning, and blocking in to lower the costs. Problem is I can’t seem to find any that don’t use safflower oil in their tube paints.

I do like your approach and I’m jealous of your big ol’ Oak trees!

[sheralmyst]

Well, I am impatient waiting for a thickening medium to arrive. So I did what I could with my dollhouse paints. This is a general idea of one direction I would like to pursue. Just a simple painting (except I want more impasto) I want to move on to more complex compositions but I don’t want to overwhelm myself and feel like a failure…

[TravelEcho]

That is lovely! Painting knife again, or brush this time? Looks more “brushy” in the photo. But the flowers themselves look almost painting knife.

I think you are wise to take it slowly, though I know how excitement can make us want to rush beyond our limits.

I managed to get my iphone to finally upload the shots I took of the two remaining paintings in which I used the thick gesso as a sculpting medium, then painted over it with acrylics.

This one shows my celtic/druidic roots. It hangs on the wall over Mal’s studio computer:

This next one is from 1986. I never could think of a name for it. But I found it intriguing so I didn’t sell it.
Sprayed acrylics, let dry, then India ink and further painting on the skull which is the sculptured part of the piece. Difficult to capture the sculptural quality with the camera.

I just recently gave this an isolation coat so it is a little more glarey. I must remember to photograph these before I iso-coat, or varnish in the future!

I finally had the energy to get back to working on my oil painting that has sat abandoned on my easel all winter. Nothing out there feels as luscious as working with oils right out of the tube.

[sheralmyst]

Those are so awesome! I love the idea of just sculpting part of the canvas. And yes, I used a palette knife but there was no medium to plump up the paint so it just melted into small pools.
I am a bit concerned about background washes. Since oil painting rural scenes is all I ever painted and that was years ago. Decided to buy some canvas paper for practice though it is not quite the same. I remember having actual canvas sheets way back when. Anyway, it is a cheap practice surface. Could I gesso the paper first for a more canvas feel?
Of course, I am now ready to proceed and a NMS update is due any minute and it is time to start mowing and trimming the yard…why didn’t the urge hit me two years ago when covid set in? But then my work would likely have been dark and dreary.
My noob studio.

Definitely need to cover that window for protection
Yes Liquitex. If I continue on this path I will likely move to Golden
Dug thru my old stuff and found this caddy a friend gave me a lifetime ago. Inside was a newspaper article about a woman who crocheted with her toes.

[sheralmyst]

So this guy has just what I was looking for. His style has no detail at all. Here he talks about how to loosen up and overcome fear. I may practice a bit with him.

Is this why You Cannot LOOSEN UP Your Painting? (Plus Demo)

How to Simplify a Landscape Painting (full demonstration)

[sheralmyst]

Finally…a little exercise

I had no reference. Like @TravelEcho said, phone camera is not a good source. Mine compensates for low light so the colors are not true to life…I have an old digital camera that I will test out…but we are slated for an entire day of rain.

[TravelEcho]

@sheralmyst

So this guy has just what I was looking for.

Malcolm Dewey is very good.Nice find! I also found his podcast recently.

@sheralmyst

a woman who crocheted with her toes.

I am always moved by the human need to create. I’ve heard of people who paint with their toes, and/or with a brush in their mouth, but crocheting is taking it to a whole other level!

Also, I love your noob studio! If you don’t cover the window you may end up with a blind that is a true work of art! (If that is a blind on the window I’m seeing.

@sheralmyst

I am a bit concerned about background washes.

In what way? If the concern is about using solvents, you can always thing the tube paint with your linseed oil. Doesn’t take much, and since you tend to work alla prima everything will dry at the same time anyway. So no worries about “fat over lean”.

@sheralmyst

Could I gesso the paper first for a more canvas feel?

Yes. In fact it is one of the “best practice” items: Always gesso paper, and prime & gesso wood subtrates, due to discolouration seeping into the paint from the substrate.

What is fun is getting some cheap cold pressed watercolour paper, taping it down, gessoing it, and when the gesso is dried you have a very cool rough texture to paint on. makes some nice broken colour strokes.

Jerry’s Artarama sells pre-primed pads of actual canvas. Some brands have oil primed pads as well as acrylic primed.
The problem I have with those is that they are precut to standard frame sizes so if you want to frame them they are the same size as the frame opening but really need to have that 1/8 of an inch extra for proper framing.

@sheralmyst

Finally…a little exercise

So now i order larger pads and tape them off a bit so my image making area is smaller.

The best way, though is to purchase a roll or partial roll of pre-primed canvas (or linen) and cut it to size yourself. Cheaper, and you can cut oversize in case you want to enlarge your painting on the go (like if you realise the composition isn’t working).

@sheralmyst

Finally…a little exercise

Ah, lovely! Looks like you are getting the hang of putting down a stroke and leaving it alone. That’s a good skill we can all practice more of.

Cameras can’t do what the human eyes can. Best to work from life outside or inside still life (if you can) to get the true colours.

Oh, and one more thing about acrylics, beside the fact that they dry at least 20% darker. Acrylic mediums and colours also shrink, or level, a certain amount. So we put down a nice thick textured stroke and come back later and find it isn’t as thick and textured as we thought.

I hope I didn’t miss commenting on anything important in your posts…

Oh, yeah! NMS update. I think I may pass on this one. Not my cup’o’tea.