I love watercolor. I love the freshness of watercolor, the way the colors interact on the paper and the variety of edges that can be achieved just by varying the amount of water. There is so much about watercolor that I want to explore and hopefully master, I think I could paint with it the rest of my life and never be bored.
Still sometimes when I see their work in oils I feel a little yearning to rediscover oils. Although the time I spent with oil paints was short (a little over a year) and very long ago (high school), I still remember the aspects of oils I loved- the thickness of the paint on the canvas, the creamy texture and smell of oil paints just out of the tube. Below are 2 of the only 3 oil paintings I ever completed. I dug them out the other day and decided to capture them digitally for my records.
I cannot remember who the original artist is on this first piece. (If anyone out there knows please let me know so I can give credit.) It was from a calendar my oil painting teacher owned. I learned a lot from copying the piece.
This second one is not really finished. I think I just quit working on it when I couldn't get the hair right. If I remember correctly this one was from a photograph in a magazine.
Over the years I have become sensitive to chemicals and can't be around others who are oil painting for very long without side effects but maybe someday I will try them again plein air.
I find hair difficult to do, too. Maybe we think about the details of it too much and not see the simplicity of it?
ReplyDeleteYou are so right. Most of the time we just need to break things down into the basics- shapes, values etc.
ReplyDeleteJoanne,
ReplyDeletetoo bad you can't stand chemicals involved with oil painting, judging only from these two pieces you surely have potential. But this is something you already know, of course.
Greetings from "spindleling" of ArtAnonymous.