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The pros and cons of finishing a painting in one go.
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Posted
Nope - not really. There are some oil techniques that can't be hurried, and some that demand to be finished in short order. So long as you're enjoying yourself and the results are - more or less - what you hoped for or intended, I don't think it matters at all. Whenever I've made a real mess of an oil, it's because I lingered over it and laboured on it, but that's probably inevitably going to be the case - there's one, which I keep meaning to remove from my gallery, which I now think quite awful (April showers, or something like that): I kept on fiddling with it, and it just wasn't good enough from the outset (conception, composition, all wrong) - I wouldn't leave it alone, and it's .... well, it's ghastly. Got to go .... it might have worked a bit better if I'd just steamed into it and finished it off in an hour or so.
A lesson learned, though - and they're invaluable.
Posted
A small painting in acrylics I find easier to finish in one session. I've just posted one in the gallery, 20x16, this was done this evening. I agree that impatience can be as bad as a fiddling nature. At the moment I am trying to loosen the style in which I paint, but not nessesaraly to quicken up. I am now painting quicker but not nessesaraly painting better. Hopefully a mixture of looseness and quality will improve with time.
Posted
It's a matter of personal choice and style. I paint indirect, glazed oils in my studio because that is what I like and I enjoy developing a painting over a period of days or weeks, despite my inborn impatience and habit of spoiling things by rushing. Perhaps indirect painting is good therapy for me, but I'm sure it doesn't suit everyone.
When painting plein aire of course it is direct painting and I enjoy the immediacy and 'buzz' of painting with the subject in front of one.
Each technique informs the other and generates cross-overs that can be good experimentation or another mistake...but we learn more from our mistakes than from our successes. I should be very wise by now having made several catalogues full of mistakes!
Posted
gudrunståhlsharpley (11/12/2015)No, it doesn't matter at all. I paint a lot outside in summer, and I aim to finish a painting in less than two hours to avoid the changing shadows altering the composition. This means I paint fairly small, about 10 x 12 inches (240mm x 300 mm), so I don't have a big area to cover. But some competent painters can complete big paintings rapidly. I don't alter the paintings when I get home, because often it makes them worse. I've been doing self portrait paintings recenctly because the weather's too bad to paint outside. By painting small, I finish a painting in a sitting, and then leave it alone. I'm learning more than if I struggled over a painting for a few sessions.
I like to work fast because I am impatient. However, I find that with oils I tinker with my larger paintings, 60x80cm. Just as an experiment I started to do my small quick studies, 18x24cm which satisfies my need for a quick fix. Does it matter?