Oil Painting #2

Oil painting of a frozen ground and water in the foreground. Trees and mountainous area in the background and a red and gray stormy sky.

Ummm…Justin, are you not supposed to be working on a novel manuscript?

I might be procrastinating somewhat, using up my creative energy to try an artform that I have always wanted to learn since childhood. But, yes, I am supposed to be working on my novel.

At the same time, I am not one to stand in the way of whatever twists and turns my journey as an artist takes me. If that means veering off course and painting for a bit, then that is the path my muse and I are traveling. I often burn out by expending too much energy on one project, and I tend to do better if I bounce around. Plus, I will probably need a cool cover design for my book. Why not learn to paint well enough to create one?

This is my second attempt at an oil painting. I can say that, without a doubt, it is much better than the first. The biggest difference is using a wet-on-wet technique, which is the method I thought I was employing the first go-round. It turns out that you need a thin base of a liquid white on the canvas before you get started. No, I did not do that in the first attempt. Needless to say, the entire experience was different by applying that. The brush glided across the canvas and paints mixed with ease.

I am happy with the improvements this time around. I ran out of white paint midway through this one, so I had to improvise, mixing in a blue. Instead of a three-paint project, it became four. That didn’t matter too much, though. Learning how the oil paints work and how to manipulate them with the brush are the important things right now.

The biggest takeaway from this attempt is that I need to have plenty of white on hand.