Thursday, January 28, 2010

CROWS IN A GROUP PAINTING (REACT )

This is the finished crow collage.  I decided to put a mat around the piece which I created with Bass Wood and painted with acrylic paint because I wanted the composition to be tight.  I had tried an earlier version where there was more space around the group of crows who are looking at something, but had to wipe that composition off.  I wanted the viewer to guess what the crows see.  I guess I personified them by including some words in the collage ," I'm not a size two", " Stop me if it's too much for your eyes" and the simple word "react".

Now for another problem.  I read a recipe online by another artist about a medium they use.  I decided to give it a try.  My palette of oil colors are mainly Graham Oils, which contain walnut oil.  The mediums recipe is 1 pt stand oil, 2 pts linseed oil, 1 pt turp.  The problem I am having is the painting will not dry.  It has been two weeks since I finished and it's still very wet.  I have to admit it's the first time I have used a medium  and I really like working with it.  I did try and us it sparingly into the oils; but perhaps the mixture of Linseed Oil with the walnut oil is the culprit.  Anyone out there have an idea if this is the cause of it taking so long to dry?


Friday, January 22, 2010

Crow Collage

This is the start of a new collage.  I started this with a different composition and wound up wiping the first start off.  With this new one I tried painting the entire piece in oils with a sidewalk and wasn't happy with that either, so I wpied that off and am now giving the painting a mixed media/ collage attempt.  Frustration still rules!

BIRD


This is a painting I started with my Thursday painters group.  As I stated in my last post I have been having problems lately trying to figure out what I want the final painting to look like.  I was again having problems with this piece and tried something different with the background.