Sometimes the Little Things are Really Big Things
A couple of weeks ago I needed to stop at the local Hobby Lobby for a tube of Cadmium Yellow Medium and was pleasantly surprised to see that the store now stocks Daler-Rowney paints. Steve brought a few tubes of this brand with him from England, and they had a lightness and fluidity which reminded me of painting with oils. But he prefers to work with jars of paint and the only way we could get that brand in jars was online for high prices plus shipping, so we never replenished the Daler-Rowneys. I grabbed their Cad yellow plus tubes of Process Yellow, Cyan, and Magenta, and used them to finish and glaze the painting I was working on. I completely fell in love with them, and Steve encouraged me to replace all my paints with the Daler-Rowneys. He didn't have to twist my arm to get that done!
The change is thrilling. It's easier than ever to get the happy colours I love, and the process of painting with these acrylics is the closest I've ever come to the musicality of painting with oils. There is much less drag on the brush and colour depth is much easier to control, preventing "dead" paint areas, even with the earth tones. I'm going to rework a painting from a couple of months ago, gessoing over the dead areas and redoing them with the new paints. The painting's composition is excellent and thus worth rescuing.
Funny how something so minor as metal tubes of paint can impact the larger art process. They appeal to my frugality, as it is easier to squeeze out the last bits from a metal tube as opposed to the vinyl ones. The intensity of the pigment means a little can go a long way, especially the way I paint.
We went to the library yesterday afternoon to get a change of reading material and the librarian suddenly looked up at me and said, "I saw one of your paintings at my sister-in-law's." Small world! But as we chatted I recalled the painting and the buyer. Bit by bit I will achieve World Domination, huh? The aforementioned painting is in the owner's bathroom, incidentally. My art as a special sort of contemplative device....gotta love it!
The local resale shop beckons me every now and again because they offer lots of craft castoffs and leftover bits at prices like ten cents a bundle, plus homemade knicknack shelves every now and again. It's a gold mine for assemblage material. Last week's foray produced large and small wood boxes, frames, a needlepoint frame, office trays, several doll and craft bits, boxes of test tubes and microscope slides, and a bundle of strange red plastic threads which surely will find their way into something equally strange from my imagination. $18 bought all of this plus two like-new sleeveless summer tops. Working from already-made boxes and framing devices saves a lot of wear and tear on my hands, not to mention time and money. And what I do spend goes to charity, which is an extra bonus.
The Art Fair is shaping up and we already have enough participants to make for a nice event. Steve and I have agreed that this year we will only set up one tent and display only our own art, to cut down on our workload and increase our chances of making some money. He has suddenly started painting again, and has produced several true abstracts, of a lightness of spirit that is appealing. We have both agreed that we are going to paint what we like, but also what we like to look at, and sell them for reasonable prices. There is a time and place for the political and the dark, but there is also a time and place for the joyful and beautiful and fun.
The change is thrilling. It's easier than ever to get the happy colours I love, and the process of painting with these acrylics is the closest I've ever come to the musicality of painting with oils. There is much less drag on the brush and colour depth is much easier to control, preventing "dead" paint areas, even with the earth tones. I'm going to rework a painting from a couple of months ago, gessoing over the dead areas and redoing them with the new paints. The painting's composition is excellent and thus worth rescuing.
Funny how something so minor as metal tubes of paint can impact the larger art process. They appeal to my frugality, as it is easier to squeeze out the last bits from a metal tube as opposed to the vinyl ones. The intensity of the pigment means a little can go a long way, especially the way I paint.
We went to the library yesterday afternoon to get a change of reading material and the librarian suddenly looked up at me and said, "I saw one of your paintings at my sister-in-law's." Small world! But as we chatted I recalled the painting and the buyer. Bit by bit I will achieve World Domination, huh? The aforementioned painting is in the owner's bathroom, incidentally. My art as a special sort of contemplative device....gotta love it!
The local resale shop beckons me every now and again because they offer lots of craft castoffs and leftover bits at prices like ten cents a bundle, plus homemade knicknack shelves every now and again. It's a gold mine for assemblage material. Last week's foray produced large and small wood boxes, frames, a needlepoint frame, office trays, several doll and craft bits, boxes of test tubes and microscope slides, and a bundle of strange red plastic threads which surely will find their way into something equally strange from my imagination. $18 bought all of this plus two like-new sleeveless summer tops. Working from already-made boxes and framing devices saves a lot of wear and tear on my hands, not to mention time and money. And what I do spend goes to charity, which is an extra bonus.
The Art Fair is shaping up and we already have enough participants to make for a nice event. Steve and I have agreed that this year we will only set up one tent and display only our own art, to cut down on our workload and increase our chances of making some money. He has suddenly started painting again, and has produced several true abstracts, of a lightness of spirit that is appealing. We have both agreed that we are going to paint what we like, but also what we like to look at, and sell them for reasonable prices. There is a time and place for the political and the dark, but there is also a time and place for the joyful and beautiful and fun.
posted by meg at 9:35 AM
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