Visiting an old friend

I haven't painted anything in a year. I've been so busy with school, I haven't had time. It's not the only thing I haven't had time for, but it's something I've enjoyed since I was very young. I used to watch Bob Ross on TV when I was little, and I picked up tricks just from that.

I just watched the girl with the pearl earring, and it inspired me. I don't know if it was really that good a movie or not, but the suject matter triggered a desire for that something that I haven't had in a good long while.

So, I have a bunch of time off work, no school, and my easel's out. The temperamental artist has returned, at least for a while.

Update:

got the first glaze done on a painting I've been meaning to do for a long time. It's this cat I took a picture of a few years ago that was so pretty, he had warm brown eyes; not even orange, brown.

A glaze, in terms of oil painting, is layering the paint. You mix the paint with oil or turpentine for surface glazes so that it just tints the base colours underneath it. It all looks entirely too yellow right now, but I'll put a blue glaze over it to even it out, then I'll do finishing touches and highlights. The first glaze is kind of a sketch, but with paint.

I don't use turpentine though, the smell isn't worth it. I always wondered, why use turpentine when you can thin the paint with oil? And I have special soap for my brushes, so I don't use it to clean my brushes either. Otherwise I'd have to paint outside, or open a window. Not fun this time of year.

And the most wonderful thing for oil painting: Q-tips. Mostly because of the disposable nature of Q-tips, and the rediculously expensive nature of most art supplies. I go through a lot of them. they're good for blending, and fixing spots when I don't want to run off and wash my brush.

I acumulated a decent number of brushes now too. two fans, one coarse and one fine, a small coarse one and a big one, and a bunch of different fine brushes, a couple flat and angled. When I got started with oils, I got all fine brushes, and looked at the fan brush wondering what i'd ever use that fancy thing for. Then I got painting, and first picture, I remembered Bob Ross and thought, shit, that's what I need it for. And about the same time I realised I'd need coarse brushes for things like animal fur and scruffy looking things. Can't make things look scruffy with a brush that only does smooth strokes. Well, you can, it's just ten times as much work.

It's neat, having all the right tools, and knowing how to use them, plus a little natural talent and a lot of practice. It's good to know I haven't lost any of it.

In the words of Peter S. Beagle, in "the last unicorn", "I always say, perserverance is nine tenths of every art. Not that it helps to be nine tenths an artist, of course."

PS: took a pic of the first glaze so you can see it in my gallery on lj.