Just bringing this back because LAURA, I MISS THIS ;_;
oh man this was back in high school before either of us knew what we were doing with oil paint
Meet my new workspace - since I don’t have studio space in my college’s art department anymore, I had to set up this makeshift studio in my house’s study room under (criminally bad) fluorescent lights. I really hope nobody else in the house minds that the room reeks of linseed oil now.
This was a blank canvas three hours ago. It’s probably going to be another week before I stop hating the sight of it, because the first day of every painting I make is a series of bad color and value choices. :/
As always, I am working from a photo I shot of one of them darned dolls.
do you know what is literally the worst thing in the world
running out of alizarin crimson when you’re painting
SUCH A USEFUL COLOR KFSDJFSDLFJSDF
Spent a few hours today derping around and trying to do a copy of that Georges de La Tour.
Several problems: 1) I can’t paint for shit 2) I have no idea what La Tour’s real process involved 3) I managed to plan the placement of the whole composition far too low and amputated poor Mary’s feet 4) I’m working on a sheet of canvas pad, which takes paint completely differently than a stretched canvas - there’s no spring-back every time you touch the brush to the surface, and it just seems like the surface sucks up all the paint and it is very frustrating, and nothing that I know how to do is working
idk is this educational for me
I also managed to set up a tiny little workspace to paint it, but nothing clicks. The table for the palette is too low, I’m up against a corner with no space, there’s backlighting, my palette glass is too tiny, and my easel refuses to adjust to reasonable heights.
The turp jar reads “DO NOT DRINK THE TURP, OKAY?” because the turpenoid looked a whole lot like water earlier today when it was clean. :’D
I don’t think it’s an overstatement to say that the quality of the work that comes out of my college is exceptional considering that it’s not an art institution. In particular, I was kind of floored by the master copies that the first-semester painting kids did - the Hopper, Neel, and Janet Fish are amazing, and I didn’t get a chance to photograph the two Lucian Freuds or the Velazquez that other kids did. Really amazing stuff. I’m constantly motivated by the fact that my work doesn’t really even stand out in terms of its technical execution in a crowd like this, and hell, I want it to.
Our painting show was today. It’s not a fancy white gallery affair, though - we actually just use the studio space and plaster the place floor-to-ceiling with work, making it kind of a giant eyefuck. Boy, it was pretty exhausting. I took a ton of derpy pictures, more to come later.
In the meantime, look at the back of my head as I wrestle to get my painting hanging straight.
So this isn’t how the piece is going to be installed for our painting show (which is Monday! Any of you guys in Connecticut, by any chance?), but I realized that I hadn’t taken shots of the finished piece yet. It’s actually kind of interesting to see the two side panels one of top of another like that.
I’m…okay with these. I feel like, given my current skill set with paint, this is the most technically competent thing I could have done to realize this concept. I also know that if I keep at it, and dedicate a large amount of time to my work, it’s going to make this look like child’s play one day.
Aaand, a big thanks to Alfie, my migidoll ryu, for letting me manhandle him into a bunch of compromising positions for my painting all year.
Pardon the glare on these shots - my surfaces are practically dripping with medium, and with the lighting in our studio, it’s a miracle that I can see at all when I’m painting.
This is how the lot looks right now. Getting there, I guess.
To be clear, I never actually paint while crouching down, right next to the ventilation system, in uncomfortably tight pants, without my palette in sight. But the way I have these paintings situated normally, there’s an awful glare on them because of the shine of the medium I’m using, so I can’t see a thing unless I periodically take them down and look at them in another spot, and then decide to do an impromptu photoshoot with a ghetto tripod made out of a stool and some chewed gum. Yeah.
I am going to murder that figure. It is looking so terrible right now. ;_;
