J Dunster Art Blog – Oil Painting, Portraits, and Cats
Figurative art, oil & acrylic painting, figure drawing, and cat portraits
Another experiment with student paint (sort of) as well as an attempt to get better at acrylics! I dabbled with some acrylics recently, and was so abysmal at it, that I have now decided to try to improve my skills. I don’t recall having such dire issues with acrylics when I was much younger, but I paint differently now, I guess. Continue reading “An experiment in acrylics & limited palette”
So… I got a bee in my bonnet and decided to do a review, or perhaps a treatise, on the subject of student-quality paints.
Lately I’ve had reason to shop at the North-American-based chain craft/art supply stores, Michael’s and Hobby Lobby. I realized that for many people, these types of stores are their only access to art materials, at least hands-on. So, I thought I’d explore what it would be like for a new artist to try to select paints (oils or acrylics) from one of these stores, while also being budget-minded.
So I purchased some oil and acrylic sets from both stores (haven’t finished collecting my samples yet) with the intent of trying them out and reporting back what I experienced.
An overview of chain craft store brand paints. Continue reading “A word about student paint”
Little fluffy kitten, how could I resist painting you? You are beyond adorable! Continue reading “Fluffy Siamese Kitten”
Annnnnd . . . it’s another cat head! I love painting the cat heads, as if that wasn’t already abundantly clear!
I’ve found a rich source of cat head references, at PaintMyPhoto. Fellow PaintMyPhoto member Inge Dagmar Manders has generously provided several lovely photos of her kitties, and this is (I believe) the second photo of hers that I’ve used as reference for a painting. This is of her cat “Rocky.” He appears, at least in this pose, to be the epitome of innocence, with beautiful aqua eyes and a sincere look. Very likely Inge has a different opinion of him, knowing how cats will be!
What I loved about this kitty was the abundance of colors found in the fur. Warm and cool, pinks in the ears, around the nose and mouth. Blues and warm grays elsewhere, battling for attention, shaping the structure of the cat’s head. All wonderful stuff, I love it!
I painted this on a SourceTek panel (which you can buy at canvaspanels.com). Portrait-weave, oil-primed linen on Baltic Birch. What’s not to love? And love it I do! I have a lot of SourceTek panels stockpiled!
“Seated Kitten” oil on panel 8×10″ thanks to Cherry Aron of PaintMyPhoto.com for the photo ref I used as inspiration!
My latest effort, this time a full body cat painting (not just the cat head! 😉 ). Continue reading “Seated Kitten”
This is such a remarkably beautiful kitty! I found the reference photo over on PaintMyPhoto and couldn’t resist painting this cat. It’s just a little painting, 5×5″ on an Ampersand Artist panel (with a slight “canvasy” texture). Continue reading “Pretty Kitty”
Some more experimenting with water mixable oils (WMOs).
My previous post showed a work in progress oil sketch where I used a combination of several brands of water mixables (mostly Weber wOil, with a touch or two from Talens Cobra, Lukas Berlin, and Holbein Duo Aqua). I used wOil’s Alkyd “Fast Dry” medium. Continue reading “More with Water Mixable Oil Paints (mini tutorial II)”
Oy. My current schedule has not been conducive to painting and it’s very frustrating. But hopefully it will be back to “normal” (what qualifies as that for me!) soon.
I haven’t been able to spend much time at my studio, so I set up a very humble corner at home where I could paint. But painting with solvents (like paint thinner) was a no-go, so I thought I’d break out some water mixable oils I had, and see what I could do. I’ve done two paintings so far, neither finished, and I post the more “finished” looking of the two. It’s just a simple oil sketch of one of my made-up people (no model or photo reference). It needs more tweaking, which I’ll do as soon as it dries.
MY IMPRESSION OF WATER MIXABLE OILS:
Right now the main advantage I see with water-mixables (also known as “WMOs”) Continue reading “Mini-Tutorial: Experiments in Water Mixable Oils”
This little grey kitty was spontaneously painted on a 4×4″ panel I had lying around. He has such clear eyes, such a sincere expression, what’s not to love?
The panel I used was primed with lead primer (don’t worry, it’s perfectly safe unless you start chewing on the edges!) which is especially wonderful to paint upon. The paint slides over the surface in a unique way that is just . . . so sublime. The primer I used was Holbein’s “Foundation” oil color, I believe the umber-tinted one. I love Holbein’s foundation line, which includes a white, a grey, a sage green, and a beige (tinted with umber).
I like painting on small panels sometimes because less is more, and usually it can be done (or almost done, in this case) in one sitting! It gives you a feeling of accomplishment to do a new painting almost every day, right?
This painting has been simmering on the backburner for about a month. I set it aside after doing the first stage, worked on some other paintings for a while, and finally decided to complete it.
The green background (grass and foliage) gave a green cast to the cat’s fur. Quite a challenge! Without the background color of grass green, the colors bouncing off the kitty would not make any sense! This is a beautiful tortoiseshell/calico kitty with clear, green eyes that reflect the green of the background.
This painting was the one that caused the damage to The Brush. I have a favorite paintbrush, entitled “The Brush” because it is THE go-to brush that I grab often during my painting. It was so loved, so relied on, so adored, that its beautiful handle snapped off in my hand as I was working on “Cat in the Grass.” There’s still enough of a handle left so I can continue to use it, but it’s also starting to show wear elsewhere. (I guess I am hard on The Brush. I do wash my brushes religiously, but I guess something about how I use The Brush is contributing to its gradual demise.)
The Brush is probably just a simple sable Bright (size 6) but I have bonded with this specific, particular brand of brush, so I’m afraid to deviate to any other type, because maybe it’s not quite like The Brush. My source for The Brush is The Italian Art store, their own label (which I’m sure is actually made by some other brush maker and stamped with The Italian Art Store’s name). So since I am hard on The Brush, I must order duplicate The Brushes, so I am never without a supply!