I packed her up in the car-seat with plenty of toys for the road, and a fully stocked messenger bag (that I double as a mans diaper bag), and hit the road en route to Plaza Art. Unfortunately fate did not smile upon our visit as they had three blocks around Grace Street completely closed off and it just happened to be where the store is located. This would have been my first trip ever to a new art store downtown since the terrible news of Main Art closing.
Since that time I have been forced to rely on the limited provisions of the Michaels stores in my area. I am a firm believer that things sometimes happen for a reason, and today was nothing short of fate. I have never given much thought to the A.C. Moore stores since they assumed ownership of Ben Franklins Arts & Crafts locations here in VA. This is not because I have anything against them, but more so to do with the fact that I usually bought most all of my supplies from Main Art. There is something to be said for a local business especially one that caters to the artist, rather than a chain store for many reasons. You are always able to order really specialized and obscure art supplies, materials, and tools. I can remember fondly a trip made to Main Art where I had them order me Koh-I-noor rapidograph pens made specifically for inking animation cels, and the clerk there never seemed intimidated or confused. They really June their stuff!
Well back to the purpose of this posting, and today's fateful turn of events. Lily and I stopped by A.C. Moore on the way home from the busy rush hour congestion of Richmond City. I was mostly trying to kill time, but a small part of me hoped that I would find some new interesting art supply to tweak my creative interest for the evening. While casually browsing the aisles of the art supplies, I happened to come across a set of 18 oil paints n clearance for $5.00 as well as some terpenoid on sale from $13.00 to $8.00. After the initial apprehension about painting in oils went away I made a solid purchase the cashier evened a coupon for me so in total I spent like $11.00 for a decent quality set of oils an some terpenoid cleaner.
The inner self defeatist had apprehensions again at home as to the complexity of painting with oil, and I almost talked myself into returning them for more acrylic paint instead. While I was checking up on Facebook I noticed my friend Brittany was selling a unique and quite impressive eye painting. We started commenting back and forth about art, and it really inspired me to "unplug" for the evening and take a journey into a painting.
The ritual in full effect with no way to stop, I began my meditative, and methodical preparations of gathering my materials, organizing my workspace, and cracking the first tubes of paint. The first things that I noticed was that the oils had a rather pleasant smell almost joke olive oil and a whipped buttery, cake frosting-like consistency to them. I began to play with the canvas and some basic colors to matte in a background. My second revelations was that the paints really have a long life, and blend and move across the canvas with the whisping of a brush just like we have all seen Bob Ross do when applying large areas of color.
My painting ended up leading me into a sky-scape, but this time based on the colors I had played on the canvas, the mood and tone was that of a blood red summer skyline. I had so much fun blending and playing with the live paints as they stayed creamy workable the whole time. Could this be that me and Oil paints are a match after all? I still like hard and controlled mediums like Acrylic, and Drawing instruments, but I am starting to find a therapeutic quality to letting go with things like Watercolor, and now Oils. Maybe this is because they beg the painter to let go and explore not worrying about working against the confines of the medium. Here is the initial stage of my latest painting entitled "Good Bye Blue Sky".
***Sorry for the poor photo quality as these were taking on the iPad and not my digital camera.
Oils can be "controlled" too, if you're patient and work in layers(as in spending multiple days/months working on a painting). They are so much more vibrant... and the texture.. LOVE THEM
ReplyDelete~Lizzy
Hey thanks Lizzy!!! I am going to have to try and work this into my process. I think maybe I can block in my colors and my highlights and blend accordingly. Thanks for the input and advice, as well as the time you took to post a comment. On a separate note I really enjoy your post about your adventures in parenting. Your little guy sounds like a blast! Also how are your paintings endeavors going. I know it's tough to find the time and energy when you have other responsibilities. I can't wait to see some of your work too :)
DeleteI'm getting close to posting one... but I'm going to have to block it from my step mom from seeing it. I want to add some more highlights to it first... Needs another day of drying before I can even do that. I'm mostly going to post because I haven't painted in a while, and I have a question about something my sister said.
DeleteBut with oils there's blending while wet, blending while semi wet, and various ways to blend while dry... It just depends on the effect you desire. You can kinda shade like pencil if the bottom layer(s) are completely dry, and you put little enough paint on the brush(always use stiff natural brushes) I don't know how to get into it all, off the top of my head, but definitely my favorite medium.
~Lizzy