I decided to get a three-year license of Photoshop Elements. (Like they can’t even sell anything outright anymore? What’s up with that?!?) I’m toying the idea of downgrading from my subscription to Photoshop, because for editing photos of my paintings, maybe it’s overkill. I still haven’t decided, but so far, if I go in to the “Advanced” panel in Elements, it isn’t bad. Much better than I expected. And some of the time-honored keyboard shortcuts are still there!
“Alain in Limited Palette” 6×6″ oil on canvas panel. The limited palette consisted of White, Ultramarine Blue, and Burnt Sienna.
I adjusted this photo of Alain on my easel (shot at an angle to avoid glare) and was able to effectively re-square it and edit it moderately in Photoshop Elements. I still prefer the full Photoshop, but since my needs are rather basic, perhaps Elements will be sufficient!
The “small fix” referred to in the title was a few tweaks of the painting itself. I am a follower of Adam Clague’s Patreon, and he has these fabulous critiques every month over Zoom. He gave me a few tips on how to improve this painting. I did them and this is the result.
This is my latest painting, probably not my finest piece, but I had fun! Tons of fun! I used more deliberately loose impressionistic brushwork in this one and enjoyed the process immensely. I post it here because I just finished it last night. However, I have another thing I want to talk about…
QUICK AND CHEAP INTRO TO OIL PAINTING
In my last post, I touched upon AI, and also the scandal surrounding a person entering the Art Renewal Center’s contest and winning a purchase award. Problems emerged when it was discovered the artist didn’t paint the image at all, but used AI. The award was rescinded, it was very embarrassing for Art Renewal Center, but in the end, it turned out okay. Welcome to the New Normal. Every artist now has to work extra hard to prove that they did their own work!
Watching all of this drama unfold reminded me that artists who paint with physical paints (in oils, watercolors, acrylics) have an advantage, because AI is a digital-only platform. AI doesn’t encroach into our realm, unless someone is trying to pull a fast one (the way the person in the Art Renewal Center scandal did).
My blog reaches artists who already work in traditional media, but if you happen to be a digital artist who is interested in doing more oil (or acrylic) painting, I’ve got you. It’s not that hard, not that expensive, and you can get started right away.
Choose Limited Palettes to Start (No Need to Buy Lots of Paint Colors Right Away!)
“Minus” 6×6″ oil on canvas board. Limited palette of White, Burnt Umber, Ultramarine Blue, and a little bit of Yellow Ochre.
“Mercy,” 4×4″ oil on Gessobord. A limited palette of White, Alizarin Crimson Permanent, and Sap Green.
These are two examples of limited palettes, using white and maybe two or three other tubes of color. Pigments like Ivory black and iron-based colors (Burnt Sienna, Terra Rosa) are particularly affordable and are quite flexible and work well in limited palettes.
The classic starter palette (and very popular!) is the Zorn Palette. I love this palette and use it all the time.
For a digital-only artist who is not used to color mixing, a limited palette is ideal. You learn to adapt to your palette limitations because you don’t have every tube of pre-mixed color available to you. Often you aren’t going to get an exact match of the color you want with a limited palette, and there’s nothing wrong with that! It’s about color harmony, temperature, and values. If you get those right with a limited palette, you’re well on your way. Many ateliers and painting classes start their students out with a limited palette, and for good reason.
Don’t go too cheap, but don’t go too fancy when buying materials.
I have some long posts about paint brands (which I intend to update, since it’s been ten years since I wrote them), but here’s the gist of it. PLEASE don’t get super cheap colors from Amazon, Hobby Lobby, Walmart, etc., in the form of a set or a kit. These colors often fade too quickly, have the lowest-quality materials, and are hard to work with.
For “cheap” (but respectable) student oil paints, I recommend Gamblin 1980 and Maimeri Classico brand paints. (House brands like Utrecht Studio and Blick Studio are fine, as well as Lukas.) Also, Plaza Art has a house brand that is quite nice. Please get a higher-end white. I like Maimeri Classico’s Titanium White, but also Winsor & Newton Artists Titanium White (NOT Winton) will do well.
If you’re painting in acrylics, Liquitex Basics is good, but please get a better quality white, either Liquitex Artist Titanium White, Golden Titanium White, Utrecht Artist or Winsor & Newton Artist Titanium White. Student grade whites for acrylics are misery. Misery. I have tried and tried and I just cannot. (I intend to write at length about acrylics some day!)
For painting surfaces, you can buy watercolor paper, coat it with a layer or two of Golden GAC 100 Acrylic Medium, then a coat or two of acrylic Gesso, wait a day or two for everything to dry, and you’re good to go. This will work for both oils and acrylics.
There’s a lot more I’d like to say about getting into traditional painting! But this is enough for now. Happy painting!
I haven’t been “gone,” I just haven’t been posting on this blog. But I have been painting! At least for the past several months with regularity. Before that, life got in the way, and also procrastination got in the way. Hopefully, that’s changing.
There’s a lot more to talk about, and I’m eager to share. But for now, I’ll just post three recent paintings and leave the rest for a future post.
“Alain in Limited Palette,” 6×6″ oil on canvas panel. This painting was not quite done when I took this photo. I have since tweaked a few things to hopefully improve the likeness. The limited palette consisted only of White, Ultramarine Blue, and Burnt Sienna.
“Sepia Tabby,” 5×7″ oil on panel. A limited palette of Burnt Umber, White, and a minimal amount of Yellow Ochre and Ultramarine Blue for the eyes.
“Yellow Crochet Flower,” 8×10″ oil on canvas panel. Part of the Raw Umber Studios challenge. This website offers royalty-free reference photos, virtual classes, and other goodies. I have an image subscription and am going to be using some of their reference photos for studies. This painting used only the Zorn Palette: White, Black, Cadmium Red, and Yellow Ochre.
So I guess the theme with these paintings is “limited palette.” I love limited palettes! They pose a challenge, but at the same time, they make it easier for the artist to have color harmony in their painting.
I feel right now like I want to go back to basics and focus on what I don’t know. Also, to find out about new things I never knew I didn’t know! It’s an endless process!
The guilt over neglecting this blog has finally become too much! I’m trying to catch up with so many things in the past year. After a lengthy period of sharing caregiving duties with a sister for our mom (who had dementia) the “new normal” is requiring some adjustment. Furthermore, there were other things that have happened in the last year, things that kept me from painting (or updating this blog) as much as I’d like.
I can’t say that everything is now perfect and normal, but when is it ever? All I can say is that things are gently pushing upward. For that I am grateful.
Anyway, I have done many paintings in the last year. I’ll post many of them in future posts, but just want to share a select few here:
Backlit Tiger – 8×8″ oil on canvas panel.
I’m going through a “tiger phase.” This is just one tiger example. I’m not done yet! I’ve got many more tigers (and other big cats) to paint! If painting tigers is wrong, I don’t want to be right! Continue reading “After over a year… (IMAGE DUMP!)”→
“Zorn Cat,” 8×10″ oil on canvas panel. Thanks to furlined of dA for the stock photo used as reference!
Another cat head! As you know, I love painting the cat heads.
This painting was used as an exercise for some oil painting classes. (Yes, I now am teaching!) I wanted to start my student out with a simple, limited palette, and the Zorn Palette is well suited for that. Continue reading “Zorn Cat”→
“Jason in Acrylics,” 4×5″ acrylic on canvas panel. Thanks to Jason Aaron Baca (model) and Portia Shao (photographer) for the stock photo used as reference!
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”→
I’ve been absent from this blog for too long! That’s mostly because I’ve been busy migrating all my stuff to a new, bigger studio.
I have waaaay too much stuff, particularly art stuff, like panels, boards, paints, brushes, and other art STUFF. My previous studio, while very cozy, was too cramped for all my STUFF. One day I snapped and said, “This is it!” and decided to move to a new studio, which is far roomier.
But first, a new painting. “Male Profile,” again using my fave model, Jason Aaron Baca (photographer Portia Shao).
“Male Profile,” 6×6″ oil on panel.
I tried to go with a looser feel in this portrait and think I like the direction I’m going. The palette was simple—I don’t think I technically used a Zorn Palette, but I did try to keep it limited. Really loving the limited palette these days.
Now onto the studio—it’s not huge, but so much bigger than my postage-stamp-sized previous studio. Not that I didn’t love that studio too (got a LOT of work done there!) but I was running out of room, fast. Something had to give! And this new studio can accommodate a computer & scanner, and even a little kitchenette of sorts (hot plate, dorm fridge, and so forth). Very conducive to getting a lot of work done, I hope!
View of Studio
This is just a small view of the studio, which still needs to have more STUFF schlepped in to it. I’m trying to be sure to protect the carpet from the oil paint, as you can see with the variety of rugs and so forth littering the floor!
“Black Hat” 8×10″ oil on panel. Thanks to Cathleen Tarawhiti on dA for the beautiful photo I used as reference!
The latest effort, only I’ve been picking at it and picking at it for a while now . . . I don’t know why some paintings are like that. There are the paintings that come together in a few hours, and then others that I have to revisit and fix this and fix that. Why why why? 😉
I liked the simple color scheme in this one (lots of black and grey) and the drama of the pose.
A very limited palette was used on this one. I maybe used some magenta or perm. alizarin crimson somewhere, but for the most part I tried to limit it to Zorn: White, Black, Vermillion (Cadmium Red Light), and Yellow Ochre. There wasn’t much need for many more colors than that.
I used an 8×10″ acrylic-primed panel from Dick Blick, it’s got a canvas-like texture which I kind of like!
I’ve mentioned the Zorn Palette before. It’s a limited painting palette that consists of four colors: White, Black, Vermillion (Orangey-red) and Yellow Ochre. It’s incredible how many colors can be achieved with just these four paints! The background on this painting “looks” blue, but it’s just black and white mixed together. (Black is often a bit cool, which will create the illusion of a muted blue.) The purple in the shadow side of her face is a mixture of white, black, and vermillion. Mixing colors was so fun for this painting!
Here’s another recent example of the Zorn palette in action. (Scroll down the page to see the second painting.)
Again I used a stock photo for reference. Thanks go to shewarmachine.
“Mercy” miniature painting, 4×4 inches, oil on Gessobord
First, I’ve been toying with the thought of using a limited palette of White, Sap Green, and Alizarin Crimson (Permanent). One of my favorite artists, John Larriva, has been playing with variations of this palette for a while, and that inspired me!
Mercy converted to B&W. Interesting! Click on image to see larger version.
Just because I felt like it, I also converted this image to B&W to see how it would look. It’s said that you can tell if the values of your painting are correct if it still looks okay in B&W. I think my painting passed the test (I hope?).
Anyway, about the limited palette: I used Liquitex Everwhite, Dick Blick’s Alizarin Crimson Permanent, and Williamsburg Sap Green. (More about the Everwhite later in this post! 🙂 )
I found the whole experience of limiting myself to just these colors, Sap Green, Alizarin Crimson Perm., and White, to be really challenging! I wasn’t sure I could do it at first. I desperately yearned for a yellow. But after a while, I got used to it and realized that it was starting to come together. It’s a bit like the Zorn Palette (see an example of that here) in that you have to think of warm and cool tones, and not so much about getting the right blue, yellow, or red. Mixing the green and the crimson together will make a pretty good dark (almost black) and it’s amazing how the flesh tones finally start to “click” after a while when you’re mixing. I’ll have to try this again sometime soon.
Okay, the other thing: Liquitex Everwhite! It’s no longer being made! An artist friend was showing me his collection of yard sale oil paints and it was the mother lode for a paint geek like me! Brand new, still in box, never used, Liquitex oil paint! I asked him if I could buy the large 150 mL tube of white, and he was willing. The tube was untouched, unused, and with a copyright date of 1980. And it was still as fresh and as buttery as it was all those decades ago! So I used it for today’s painting.
Squee! Over 34 years old! And still fresh and buttery!
This is a testimony to anyone who wonders—will my paint last? Yes, oil paint lasts for a long, long time. Occasionally you’ll have a paint mishap, where the tube gets a little hole in it or something, but assuming that the tube is sealed and undamaged, there’s no reason to worry about your paint drying out before its time. So stock up now if you can, and scour those garage sales!
