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Multiple Works
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Message
Posted
Yes - It saves time and paint. You probably have some colours that you use a lot. You can apply them to several paintings when you have mixed them. However I have too many unfinished paintings, but they are not on commission.
Alternatively you could consider giving up you job or taking on an apprentice. I believe Damien Hirst has a few apprentices as he concentrates on the concept and design aspects as well as the PR.
Posted
Well, I've done it - I've had a watercolour on the go, and an acrylic or oil on the easel at the same time: waiting for the washes to dry on the watercolour, I've gone over to the easel. It was quite fun to do at the time - but I think that was because I was just enjoying myself rather than worrying about producing work to a schedule: if it had become a routine that I had to do every day, its charms would have palled quite quickly - I suppose that a generous rate of payment would have reconciled me to it.
I wonder if focus would really be so compromised if one were working on pieces in different media at the same time - you'd think so, but I don't remember that being the case when I tried it. If I don't do it now, it's because I have no need to; the space available to me doesn't make it easy to do; and it savours too much of effort, which I'm disinclined to make - still; it can be done. As to whether I'd recommend it - I think I wouldn't, on the whole, because if you have customers waiting for your work, as it seems you have, you don't want to give them the impression that you're a workhorse who can be led whinnying from the stable at their beck and call - if your work is good, people will understand you're not an industrial process and will wait for it. If they think you can churn stuff out like a photocopier they'll take you for granted.
A month for a large painting, especially portrait work (which I think is your speciality?) is not much to expect; many would take far longer.
Posted
I don't terribly like the idea, but I do it all the time, as working on large canvases calls for drying time in between sessions (unless I work alla prima). but if you can handle the switching and changing around then why not, but it perhaps does have the feel of producing conveyor belt art, heaven forbid.
Posted
Time depends on the work.
Heavy washes take ages to dry - hair dryers can speed it up... but who really wants to faff about holding a dryer for 30 minutes?
And the choice of medium matetrs - watercolours are generally slow drying, as are oil paints (even slower)... but my ink stuff dries very fast.
I can do an 11 x 14 inch picture in about 2-3 hours, sometimes split over two days... or sometimes left to dry for a while and I'll start picture #2.
I really prefer to have one at a time - I tend to get into a "mind set" for the artwork... If I'm inking a fantasy warrior then I;m thinking of who, where, why... the back story for the picture. It helps to draw the picture.
Two pictures at a time tends to confuse the mind set unless they are similar themes.
Posted
Wow - I take my hat off to you lot for your patience. With my watercolours I rarely if ever take longer than about 3 hours from clean paper to completed work. Just about to post one of my local which I did yesterday in about this time. (Of course this doesn't include the time taken going out and about with the camera looking for suitable subjects.) My abstracts take about the same amount of time but this is usually spread over a few days waiting for the board to dry out between stains.
Perhaps I don't paint 'quality work'.
Posted
Monet worked on many paintings at the same time, but he also worked on the same paintings for a number of years. I'm sure that many oil painters work on many paintings at the same time, because they will be waiting for layers to dry, before applying the next layer.
I find that moving onto another painting helps me look at it more objectively when I return to it.