Saturday, March 14, 2009

Waiting for the UPS van


So to practice applying canvas to the wooden panels I bought the other day, I stuck some plain canvas on two 9x12" panels, gessoed and sanded them, and trimmed off the edges.  I feel like I can do that process consistently enough now, but that meant I had two blank canvases all ready to paint on.  Here's what I painted...just sort of messing around.  I don't usually paint on such a small canvas so it's challenging for me, but of course I didn't want to spend much money on the panels that I was using to practice on.  

I'm waiting for some clear gesso that I ordered this week so I can try that on top of the printed canvas, since just using acrylic medium made an annoyingly plastic-y surface.  More specifically:  one coat of medium felt fine to paint on but apparently caused some bad chemical mojo because patches of the painting went all flat and dull after a few days.  Two coats of medium prevented that problem but was so unabsorbent that I couldn't blend and scrub in my paint the way I like.  Bleargh.  Oil painting is kind of frustrating, you know?  Maybe I'm just doing too many weird things with it...or else I've just been doing too much drawing for the past several months and I need to get some momentum going with a good direction and then it'll come back to me.  
 

2 comments:

belinda marshall said...

oil painting is so very technical and slow going. am happy to be playing with acrylics for all these reasons.
they are looking good!
have tagged you for the reveal 5 addictions game if you are interested :)

hollie said...

i've never gotten used to oil painting. i'm too impatient and it is too temperamental. but you're getting wonderful results!