Exploring Texture

I made another knife painting (8x10), this time using an assortment of different textures to create a garden composition. This thick paint looks so tasty! I'm told that paint can be toxic, however, so I will refrain from trying to eat it like cake icing.

Paints With Knives

This is my 9th painting in my first month as an oil painter. This 8x10 piece was definitely a brand new experience for me. This was my first attempt at making a painting entirely with painting knives! And in fact, I made almost the whole thing with just one knife: a small diamond shaped knife, much like this one.

I based this piece off of another artist's knife painting that I found online, by the name of Rybakow. I thought the composition and the bright colors were just beautiful, and having the image of his painting to work from helped me in learning how to use the knife. I don't know if you can see the thick texture in this picture? It really was fun to work with thick, bright colors, and lay them on in organic shapes like sliding butter on toast.

Aloha!

I just love Hawaii. It's so beautiful and relaxing there. I'd almost say there's something magical about the islands. I have postcards from Maui and Kaua'i all around my desk. I was looking at them one day and started to think I could actually paint one!

So here we are. I painted this one on 11x14 and made it in two steps. I painted in the background first, let it dry for about a week, and then painted a black overlay of ground, palm trees, and hammocks. I almost felt like I was there while I painted it! I hope my love for the islands comes through in this picture.

I also got my new paintstation delivered yesterday! This is my new workspace, where I finished the painting above.

Past and Future

I've really been bit by the painter's bug (if there is such a thing). I find it odd that I made a couple of paintings in the past, but never with this sort of vigor. Why now? Who knows, but I'm not going to fight it. I'm going to run with it.

I've been reading a bit of art history lately. I'm very interested in the Impressionist movement (see the picture from Monet below that spawned the term Impressionism, originally a term to scourn the work of these artists).

How odd that their work, at the time, was so ill-received, as they were challenging current notions of art. How dare they use bright colors, visible brush strokes, and natural themes instead of the time-honored methods of painting religious and historical figures with dark serious colors and invisible brush strokes!

I would like to experiment more with loosening up my brush strokes and focusing on light and color. It goes against my nature of trying to make everything photo-realist, so I think it would be good for me.

I've been seeing amazing examples of paintings that were all done with palette/painting knives and I so want to try my hand at it! I went out to Blick art supplies last night and bought a few knives to work with. There are so many different shapes and sizes, it was hard to choose!

I just feel like I don't have enough time to paint! It's been 4 days since I sat in front of the canvas, which may not sound like much, but I would love to dabble in the paints a little bit every day. The problem is, since most of my paintings are done in one sitting, I need to dedicate a fairly big block of time to make one. This is tough to do on a weeknight.

But, I do have a couple of things in the works, even if they are just in the planning stage! In the next week or so, I will be finishing a painting of Hawaii, experimenting with painting knives, and working with another episode or two from the Joy of Painting with Bob Ross. Come back soon!

Brush Strokes

Another experiment! This time trying bolder, looser brush strokes. It is counter-intuitive to a detail oriented realist like myself, but also a fun exercise. I like how it turned out looking playful.

I painted this one 8x10 on Saturday, March 19th.

Nocturnal

I have started experimenting with different styles of painting. I wanted to practice with clouds and I'm also interested in nocturnal pictures. I based this one off of a photo of the night sky. (It was hard to get a good picture to post without catching some glare from the wet paint.) I cut out a round sticker to mask the spot for the moon, so it would stay white while I worked on the clouds!

This was painted 8x10 on Friday, March 18th.

Painting from a Photograph

This was my first painting made from a photo. Honestly, I knew I wanted to paint from pictures eventually, but I didn't think I'd progress this fast!

I added the flower detail a few days later, after the painting had dried a bit.

I finished this 11x14 on March 15th.

Going it Alone

This was my first attempt at painting without any instruction. I used the techniques I've learned so far from Bob Ross and just made up the composition. I mixed the colors to create a gray-blue, more like the colors we see so often here in the Northwest. It's a little 8x10 canvas (the first two were 16x20) and it was fun to make. It went much more quickly than the larger ones, and it was easier to focus without turning back to the television to see Bob Ross, although I did miss his soothing encouragement to create my own happy little world. Still, I suppose I could hear him in my mind (crazy painter?).

This was painted on March 4th.

The Joy of Painting

This was my second painting (similar to the first one), on March 2nd, from a Joy of Painting episode I found on tv. It gave me a lot more practice with using the knife to paint mountains!

My first painting

I started on February 26th with my Bob Ross Master Kit, after spending a bit of time figuring out how to set up my workspace.

This is what I came up with: an easel in the dining room, using the dining table as a space to hold my paints, brushes, thinner, etc. I also rigged a sort of bucket with a rack to dry my brushes on, instead of banging them against the easel like Bob Ross does.

I watched the Getting Started Video and then got to work with the hour long instruction. I paused it so many times. I think it took me about 4 hours to paint this one, plus a lot of time to set up and even more for cleanup. I've gotten much faster now, but on this one, I think I spent about 6 hours total. Still, it was a good first try and motivated me to keep going!

Bob Ross is the man!

I am on a journey with oil paints. How did this begin? I stumbled upon an episode of the Joy of Painting a few weeks ago and got sucked into watching it. I had watched the occasional episode with my sisters when I was little, and I find that he is still mesmerising! The way he creates a whole world in 30 minutes, all the while talking so softly about each happy little cloud and tree; he makes it look so easy!

For the first time, I started to look past his soothing voice and tried to understand just how he made that painting come together. A knife for painting? Where can I get one of those? How can I learn? I decided I wanted to get back into painting. (I made 4 or 5 acrylic paintings over 5 years ago.)

About two weeks later, I was roaming through Michaels, looking for a new craft project (and not thinking about painting at all), when I saw a Bob Ross painting kit! They make kits?! After convincing myself to give it a try, I came back the next day and bought one. And as they say, the rest is history. In the last three weeks, I have made 6 oil paintings and I am itching to do more.

It turns out that painting is just the hobby I needed, and Bob Ross is the teacher to get me started. I will try to use this blog as a spot to post pictures of my work and share my latest adventures. Happy painting!