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Grasshopper Artist
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Message
Posted
I have not long finished a watercolour which i duly put on the gallery. It may not look it but i put a lot of effort into the painting and I felt like going back to acrylics to recuperate in the forgiving advantages of that medium......However, in the pages of the November LP magazine ,page43 there was the painting titled " Sunset after Innes "by that brilliant oil painter Martin Kinnear. That stunning painting
made me change direction in the way of getting out my Water mixable Artisan Oil paints and doing an oil painting. Not copying any thing but using the paintings Martin has done in this series as inspiration . It is a while snce I did an oil painting and I will get round to it as soon as i have mashalled my forces to the task. Are their any other artists out there who dodge to and fro from medium to medium.
And what makes them do so .?... grasshopper Syd
Posted
I enjoy using lots of different media usually it depends on that moments circumstance . If I am outside I take pens and Watercolour sometimes a small cheapo box of solid inks. . If I am life drawing I like conte crayon or charcoal , admittedly for a " proper painting " I use either Artisan oils or Acrylic . So like you Syd I am a bit of a grasshopper . Maybe we should start a new school of art... The Grasshoppers .
An after thought , if you stick to always using the same format or media how do you grow ? For me it would be stultifying to always be the same .
Posted
Well I'm a dodger Syd as you will be aware. I dodge between acrylics, watercolours, cartoons and little rustic sculptures and the outcomes in each of these are completely different - in fact four differeny disciplines. I'm afraid I couldn't just work in one area - I would get so bored and quickly lose interest - my boredom threshold is so low - I fall asleep at the cinema and can never watch a film on the tele without getting fed up and wandering off. I even get bored with the weather - just sum it up in a couple of sentences - I don't want all the waffle !!
Posted
Generally, I paint in acrylic and oil - about half and half in terms of output - and watercolour. I also use pen and ink, carbon pencil, charcoal in most of its many forms - on its own, with ink, with water, with watercolour or acrylic - and I've even been guilty of the occasional pastel; oh, and plain pencil; and I have used silverpoint, and want to have another go with it asap. I've used water-soluble oils, but prefer "real" oil paint (apologies in advance to all those whom I know that phrase annoys - but I'm still sticking with it!), and the better it is the more I like it. And I've used coloured pencils. Oh, and oil pastel. And conté crayon. And probably a few more media I've now forgotten. I used Karat Liqua wax-based watercolour by Staedtler, until they withdrew it for some probably spurious reason .... they make pencils which are wax-based, but they're hopeless because they expand in the wood and split it.
I've never used tempera; rarely used gouache; haven't used alkyds; have never made a collage; have only played at digital media using the most primitive possible software. Haven't used encaustic paint, either, or casein. Is that hoppy enough? On the whole, if it makes a mark, I'll try it - if I can get it/afford it/have time for it. I think hopping about between media is a good thing on balance, because it helps to stop you getting stale, and expands your horizons. I know that others think it's best to specialize - and maybe that is the way to gain a reputation and make progress; but it's not the way I took. For better of for worse!
Posted
Oh, I'm a dreadful grasshopper, me. In the course of one two hour life class I used carbon (don't like charcoal), soft pastel sticks, Conté, two sorts of ink (one with a brush, with water to dilute as required and one in a pen), and Derwent Drawing pencils.
I usually use oils or acylics, frequently venture into line and wash, and have dallied with many other media, including digital (vector as well as the more popular raster or bitmap). I have even been known to draw in makeup.
Posted
I also like to use different mediums but usually prefer to have a couple of months with each. Just recently this has been watercolour and I've really enjoyed using it. In the past I've had problems with landscape painting using watercolour but this last couple of months bash with them does seem to have solved some of the problems I've had in the past. I love oils, acrylics and for some twenty years used nothing other than soft pastel to satisfy galleries. Inevitably this became a little boring and I stopped using them completely in 2006. I am shortly grasshopping back to oils or acrylics and may even be tempted to get the old messy pastels back out. Hopping from one medium to another is very enjoyable and I have always found that a time spent with one improves my technique with one of the others. (At least I like to think so!)