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Posted
This is my latest (5th) attempt at an oil. I am using Arches paper, and the underpainting is in acrylic. I'm using a photo by Susan Roghair.
I'm finding I keep smudging work (one day I'll get used to long handled brushes), so I'm starting in the centre and working out. I'm also using a board that I can rotate easily, some of the angles are difficult to achieve I find. I suspect I will need to let this dry a fair bit before adding bristles. As I'm new here, I hope I'm doing this right, both in terms of posting and painting. If not just let me know.
Posted
A piggy-snout! That makes a change from the run-of-the-mill!
Smudging is hard to avoid with oil paint, but it's quite easy to correct and in time, you smudge less. When you say Arches paper, you do mean their oil painting paper? If it were watercolour paper, that would still work, but require a priming of acrylic "gesso", which is the word most manufacturers use for priming, even though it really isn't gesso at all.....
You've used acrylic as the underpainting - many people do, but it isn't ideal: however, I'm guessing this isn't a painting you're intending to sell or on which you're seeking to launch a career: it's a skill-stretching exercise, and a bit of enjoyment. If so, then there's nothing wrong with using an acrylic underpainting, and there may be nothing wrong with it anyway: but particularly on a flexible surface, it's better to start with thin oil paint, then build it up with further and thicker layers. I'm just saying this for the sake of completeness, because I really don't think it's likely to be a problem: and if it should be, it'll take a long while to show itself.
Looking forward to seeing the finished picture - you could add the bristles before the paint is dry to the touch, with a rigger and quite fluid paint, but waiting for the paint to get a bit tacky, which it will in a day or two, is just as sound and a bit easier, perhaps. Anyway, I like the painting, it's inventive, amusing, and in terms of technique just needs a bit more modelling to create greater depth, and - those whiskers.
Posted
Thank you so much Robert. That is packed with information for which I am truly grateful. It is the oil Arches paper. I'm using water mixable oils and I have the appropriate thinner for those paints. But I must admit I'm confused about this fat over lean maxim, especially how it applies to WMOs. Should I use the thinner for the underpaintng and then the linseed oil for upper layers? It was in my mind to practice by overpainting the straw which will be lighter than the darker area under the left of the snout, and won't matter too much if it doesn't work out. I think part of my growth is knowing how slowly the oil paint dries and how quickly I can overpaint effectively and that means trial and error. Comments like yours are most helpful.
Posted
Fat over lean has more to do with the paint than the thinners - some paints are fat, and like Jack Sprat, some are lean. So if you use the earth colours, like burnt sienna, the mars colours, raw sienna, burnt umber and raw umber in the early layers, with or without turps or turp equivalent, you should be fine; thinners just dissolve paint, make it fluid and thin in consistency, and then evaporate - what's left might be fat or might be lean. Too much oil in early layers isn't advisable, though. The fatter colours, those ground in hiqh quantities of oil, include Titanium White, the cadmiums, alizarin crimson - and should be used in upper layers. The relevance of this to those who actually paint their pictures more or less in one sitting - doesn't have to be literally one sitting, just a few layers, thicker paint over thinner - isn't very important. Fat over lean had more to do with the older traditions of painting methods - those built up on a monochrome/grisaille base, then layered with thin glazes.
As one layer gets a little bit tacky, you can add those details which would otherwise be difficult to do; it's a good practice to do them wet-in-wet, though, as it teaches you to employ a very light touch with the brush: it takes some confidence - and like a lot of things in painting, that comes in time.
I admit to not liking water miscible oils, for any number of reasons I've mentioned before; and I don't have enough experience with them to judge how fast they dry by comparison with traditional oils - evidence on that front seems to be contradictory. Some oils do take an age, or so it can seem; and unfortunately Titanium White, which is heavily used by oil painters, is one of those that takes longest; others include the cadmiums, and a colour called Yellow Lake, which is very useful but - it doesn't half take its time to dry. It's not available in water miscibles though (even if a paint with the same name is offered) so not a problem with the paints you've actually got. Alkyd mediums do speed drying - I don't know if they're compatible with water-miscibles: two for use with regular oils are Liquin, or Galkyd; there's also an alkyd Titanium White, though the use of these three would make it more difficult to mix your paint or clear up afterwards with water - you probably know better than I do if there's a drying medium available with your paints.
Edited
by Robert Jones, Napa
Posted
Some progress last evening. Tried for too much detail in wood grain. Then had problems with the distressed paintwork, which forced me to simplify. I must make a label for my wall - SIMPLIFY IT'S NOT A PHOTOGRAPH However, I was reasonably pleased wth the outcome. The left hand panel to do, and then wait for a day or two.
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