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What a quandary.
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Posted
Indeed, what is the going rate? So many variables dependant on venue ( gallery or exhibition or private sale ), actual skill, advertising, sales history etc etc. I remember years ago, at a demo ( I hadn’t been painting for long ) and some eager person, looking at his work, wanting to be able to produce something similar, asked the artist ‘ How long did it take you to do that?’ - ‘About 50 years’ came the dry reply.
Posted
Does anyone switch mediums regularly ? I use to paint in Acrylic and seems it was my first medium then became interested in watercolour as it seems to drift and flow and feels lighter somehow. Then I started drawing again and created a pictorial book that have been able to paint in watercolour, but lately seem to be switching between mediums and maybe it's a phase on the Art journey although do like experimenting too, feel like experimenting with charcoal but just don't know where to start! There seems to be a fear of launching out and maybe I became too comfortable in drawing with pencil? Am enjoying still-life drawings but may start some charcoal sketches this week... I need to return to Acrylic at some point, maybe should start an Abstract and create a Mixed media then it might sort out why I have been switching between mediums? 🤔
Posted
I enjoy switching mediums Angela. I like the different qualities they have to offer. Charcoal is very good for experimenting, you can get some lovely effects and it's very easy to blend. I always have a pack of Winsor & Newton willow charcoal. They don't cost very much. If you find you like charcoal, you could then get some charcoal pencils.
Posted
I've always switched between different media - and keep separate sets of brushes for oil, watercolour, and acrylic (some very small spotter brushes do tend to get used across media, and I shouldn't do that!).
I think working in different media is a good thing on the whole - I like to take a break from, e.g., oil; watercolour, being quite different, presents an allied but distinct challenge. Once you start selling, people do tend to expect your work to be confined within certain material limits.... eg, Wesson was a watercolourist - he did stray into oil, I think, but not often; Seago painted in oil and watercolour - but not acrylic, which would have been available to him but was a new medium into which he chose not to dive. But expectations exist to be confounded, and the greatest artists have on the whole chosen to work in any medium which can make a satisfactory mark and allows them to express themselves.
The one essential for figurative artists is drawing - it doesn't matter what you draw WITH, but Angela, you mention charcoal - that will allow you great freedom, but you will need to apply fixative to your drawings; not so necessary if you use the charcoal with water; if you would like to try a similar but more controllable medium, carbon pencils, which can also be used with water (though not in quite the same way - pencil first, water second or water simultaneously: trying to add carbon pencil to a drawing in which water has been used won't always work well), have great potential. And you can use both with ink, soft pastel, conté crayon. Once you start mixing media, the question of moving from one medium to another is largely academic - oil paint isn't especially receptive to mixed media, or at least not to the extent of the others, because oil repels any attempt at added work with any medium, and won't work at all with many of them.
So - just to encapsulate my attitude to these things! I do use my three main media separately, watercolour today, oil tomorrow, different brushes, obviously different surfaces, and different moods - sometimes, only a bit of splashy watercolour will suffice..... And I think this keeps me interested, and increases the variety in my work. However, I have been rather conservative about mixing media - I'd like to do a lot more of that; my sketchbooks are full of ... well, sketches! ... in which I've used a variety of media, combining ink, hard pastel, soft pastel, watercolour, a little bit of gouache though not enough: but very rarely do I complete or show finished work in these media; and it's time I did!
Don't worry about combining media or chopping and changing between them: I think most of us do that, and that the range of experience is good for us - the danger is always that one gets hidebound if sticking rigidly to only one medium. One can also be afraid of trying something new: a lot of people seem to fear getting into oil painting, and instead go for watercolour - yet watercolour is much harder to get right; their fear has led them to choose a more difficult medium - jump in, with the best materials you can afford (though many an excellent painting has been produced with the most basic and "cheap" of ingredients) and try whatever you feel like using: variety is the spice of life.
Posted
I also switch medium, and generally I’ve got an oil painting, or as is the case now, two on the go - both interior scenes as a break from landscapes!
As we speak, I’m also working on a watercolour for a test report for Hahnemuhle Harmony watercolour paper, which I’ve almost finished this morning, and I’ve been experimenting with a bottle of W&N Granulation fluid, also for a report for TA.
I often end up with what we would call mixed media, because I do on occasion add gouache and pastel to a watercolour, even acrylic ink…
Anything goes for me, I’m not a watercolour purist…why restrict yourself.
Saying that, I’ve nothing against the purists, Wesson and Seago didn’t do too bad a job!
Posted
I, too, like switching media ( mediums?). Watercolour, pencil, charcoal, oil pastels, dry pastels, acrylic, oil - and I’ve just bought some gouache, which I tried years ago and didn’t get away with. And different surfaces and subjects too. Although I’ve got a set of acrylic inks I’ve only used them once! Must correct that. I firmly believe that broadening your experience re materials and subject matter has a benefit. You come back to a medium refreshed and with renewed enthusiasm. Sadly, in our club, where we had an oil demo last week, one new member didn’t come because she ‘didn’t do oils’. Closed mind.
Edited
by Marjorie Firth
Posted
I recently completed an adult education course where one week we were encouraged to use as many mixed media on a painting as possible. The result is here if you want to see it:
https://www.painters-online.co.uk/gallery/andrewr3/2023/468291/
I ended up using watercolour, gouache, black and grey fine-liners, brown ink, white acrylic ink, and coloured pencils. I also used granulation medium, isopropyl alcohol, and masking fluid.
I was pleased with result and I realised it’s not the medium that’s important , it’s the image you re trying to create. Sorry if that sounds pompous.