Getting started.

OK. So I've decided that oils is the media I enjoy the most but I still let me nerves get the best of me at times and have trouble getting past the initial stages of a painting to really finish something. I have read many good bits of information on the Internet and in books and decided that I think I need to "learn" how to paint and not just start painting.

While reading through the Wet Canvas website I found a great forum posting (See Here) about a book by Charles Sovek called Oil Painting: Develop Your Natural Ability. It breaks down the painting process into steps, starting with just massing in the shape and gesture of an object. Basically, just painting the silhouette. No worries about shading, colors, blending, temperature, edges.... just shape. Here is where I started:


As ugly as these are it's what the first exercise called for. What it helped me the most was just getting paint on the canvas and getting over any fears of "What if I don't make a good looking painting?". This was not designed to look good but to get you used to forming shapes by filling in the mass of an object and not drawing the outline of it's shape first.

As easy as it looks it was a little hard to remember to not draw the outline of the object with the brush and then fill it in as if it were a comic book. I guess years of drawing with a pencil have engraved that into me so it's something I need to work on. That's why I ended up doing 4 of these exercises.

The next exercise was similar but this time to start getting a feel for the object by painting lighter color where the object is closer to you and darker as it goes farther away.


It's important to not paint the shadows of the object but only it's relationship of how close it is to you (or your hand) and imagine reaching out to touch it. This helps you to develop a mental picture of the three dimensions of the subject.

In my defense :) Sovek stresses to not put much time and effort into making a good painting and worry about smoothing out your paint strokes and blending the tones. I even did too much of that with this painting. It's more important to concentrate on the object and representing it's three dimensions on the canvas.

I also started a second painting for exercise number 2 but I got carried away and started to add shadow and form to it. I also then added some background to help add contrast to the lighter areas:


I'm not that unhappy with how this came out and looks but I am not happy that I didn't stick to the exercise. :( Oh well, I've never been that much for following rules all of the time.

I've also noticed trouble dealing with handling paint on the palette. Keeping it in one general spot, getting it mixed correctly. So far I've only dealt with one color (burnt umber) and adding white. I guess it's not just getting the paint on the canvas that needs practice, also working with the tools.

What media to pick. - Oils.

I guess I should start off by mentioning that just reading through my postings may give you the idea that this process of getting back into art and deciding what media to paint in was something that took place over a brief period of time, like a few months.

Nothing could be farther from the truth.

I suffer from the problem of having way too many hobbies and if something gets to be problematic for me, I put it away for another day. At least for my creative side that is. Sometimes that "another day" didn't come for 6 months or more.

Once I started playing around with oil paints I realized that it was exactly what I was looking for. The control, the texture, the smell... I also learned that with some proper care they are not dangerous, just don't go tasting the cadmium red no matter how delicious it looks.

I decided to jump in with both feet and start painting pictures. I started on a copy of a Monet, one of my favorite Impressionist painters, then tried to copy a landscape from a magazine, then another from a tutorial on Wetcanvas... One by one I was running into road blocks and getting frustrated, I just ended up with a number of unfinished paintings:


As these stand right now they don't look so good but I think they are good starts for someone with such little experience. Why haven't I finished them? I guess it comes down to being afraid to fail. I have had so many starts and then stops because I was afraid to screw something up or even worse - What if I found out that I don't have any talent for this at all.

I know logically this is ridiculous, nobody is able to create great paintings right from the start. I've heard people say that you need a good mile of wasted canvas behind you before you should expect to start making something that looks good.


One of the art blogs I enjoy reading is by David Rourke. He has a great posting on getting started with oil painting that I love to look at from time to time for inspiration. I like his way of looking at the first things you paint:

Your goal, to start out, should be to do some bad paintings that no one will want to look at. If your goal is to make bad paintings, it won't be too hard to get there. After ten of those, you can start to think about paintings that are...less bad. You'lll learn more, in the same amount of time, by making several simple bad paintings than by making one complicated bad painting.

I find myself so worried about making "art" that I have trouble learning how to paint. Why can't I remember all those hours of learning to play the guitar when I was younger. If you don't learn how to do something first how can you expect to do it well? Once I get a grasp on the fundamentals of painting such as, paint consistency, holding the brush, making strokes, judging values, mixing paint, seeing color temperature, then I can work on making art.

During these first fewexperimentss with oil painting I also started a slightly larger piece (16" X 20") for one of the Wetcanvas.com monthly "MOM (Master Of the Month)" postings. Each month they would feature a Master artist and people would try to copy one of their paintings. The month I joined but never finished was for the artist "Caspar David Friedrich" and you can see the forum posting HERE if you wish to check it out.

This was back in the start of 2004.

I actually think of all my "unfinished" pieces this one looks the best at its current stage. Just as a reference below is a picture of the original piece called "The Wanderer" by Caspar David Friedrich:


It's a beautiful piece, though not my favorite style of art. I lean more towards the loose painting style of the impressionists. I do like many styles of art as well as music but I have my favorites.

What media to pick. - Acrylics.

After gathering some information about acrylic painting I decided to buys some paints, canvas panels, and brushes to give it a try. I also found a great new source of inspiration and information:

Wet Canvas Art Forums

Wet Canvas is a great artist community that covers just about any type of art you may be interested in, from painting to sculpture, glass blowing, and computer art.... They are also some of the most friendly and helpful people you could ever hope to meet.

With that inspiration and my new art supplies I started to play around with Acrylics. I felt more comfortable with them then I did water colors but being water based paints they did tend to dry quickly. It wasn't a huge problem but it wasn't something I cared for. I only have one piece available that I did in Acrylics as most were just "doodles" getting used to the media.

I bought a small selection of fruit and painted a simple still life, I was actually very happy with the results:



I was very happy with being able to create some roundness on the fruit and in managing to add some reflection of the fruit colors into one another. I'm not happy with the table or background as these were not there in real life and I just "winged it" and threw them in. I used green as it's the complementary color for the reds of the fruit but it just didn't work too well.

I also have a large (20" X 20") unfinished acrylic painting that I was doing just for fun. I am a big anime fan and a very popular show that I do like is called InuYasha. This is a scene from the TV show that I really enjoyed but it still needs a lot of work.


It was interesting working on something this large as most other things I've worked on have been between (9"X12") to (11"X14"). I hope to finish this one just so I can hang it up and enjoy it for myself.

As I mentioned I wasn't thrilled with the acrylics drying so fast and also the fact that they dry flat. The paint doesn't have any thickness or texture unless you add extra medium to your paint to thicken it.

After reading more on Wet Canvas I realized that oil paints are not that dangerous if you take some precautions. I also was no longer in a location where I would be painting in the same room as my pet birds. I made the decision that if I wanted to paint in oils why not go ahead and do it. I had spent enough on art supplies up to that point, what's a few hundred more dollars. (LOL)

Next up, oils.

What media to pick. - Watercolors.

Being unsure what area of painting I wanted to try out I watched the TV art shows and read some magazines to decide what to do. I loved the look of oil paintings but it just seemed too formal and "stuffy". There was also the concern with those unknown "dangerous chemicals" that come with oil painting. I lived in a house with two birds and myself and I didn't want them (or me) to be exposed to this unknown variable.

I decided that water color or acrylic paints would be my choice as they don't require anything other then the paint and water to start with. As there wasn't many acrylic painting shows on TV but I did love watching Terry Madden so much I decided this would be the one for me.

I got a few books and watched as many shows as I could. They all stressed how watercolors are the most forgiving and easiest to get started with, I felt I made the right decision. I was wrong. I found them very unforgiving and so difficult to control. Imagine trying to juggle a pot of cooked rice without the pot. :(

I made one or two paintings I felt "ok" about but the others were just nightmares. Here are a few that I don't mind displaying:


The two parts of watercolor painting I didn't care for was if you want to have a white in your painting you leave the white of the paper exposed. Watercolor paints are transparent which can add to their famous "glow" as light hits the painting, goes through the paint, and gets reflected off the paper back through the paint. If you want a white highlight on a window just don't paint that spot.

The other is the wetting of the paper. One of the typical painting techniques with watercolors is to paint with the paper wet. Very wet. When someone has the ability to control this it can make some beautiful paintings but I found I just didn't care for this technique myself.

I stuck with watercolors for a month or two but it just never "clicked" for me. I decided that it wasn't for me, I was going to give acrylic painting a try. After all, that was so much closer to oil painting I was sure to love it.

Why a blog?

Hello,

[Why a blog? I've decided to learn learn how to paint and I plan on using this blog as a way to document what I hope will be progress and growth as an artist.]

My name is James. I'm 37 years old and through most of my life I've had what I guess can be called an "artistic spirit". I've always had a great interest in creating things. One of my first passions in life was drawing, and as most artists do I picked subjects that interested me.

I started out copying characters from my comic books and learned a good amount of hand and eye control from doing these. I soon included what was easily the biggest passion in my young life:

Star Wars

I must have been about 12 years old when I drew this AT-AT walker from The Empire Strikes Back. I actually remember working on it during a break in school (4th or 5th grade I think). I never would trace anything I drew everything freehand :)

I got away from drawing for a few years then picked it up later in High School. I had started to play the guitar and was listening to Heavy Metal at the time which inspired these images:


I ended up getting very serious into music and playing the guitar. I was taking private classical guitar lessons and took music theory classes in college. I joined the classical and jazz guitar ensembles as well as other private lessons for the guitar. I took music very seriously and was planning on making it my life but it didn't work out that way.

I ended up getting a great job in another part of Florida and left college but not the guitar. I still played many hours a day for years after that. I didn't get back to art till I ended up loosing my job in 2001 thanks to the big market crash.

I had a lot of time off work and found myself watching the art shows that were on PBS during the morning. I forgot how much I enjoyed drawing and decided to get back to it. I bought a great book called The New Drawing on the Right Side of the Brain. I finally understood how an artist should look at the world. It also helped to improve my drawing even after years of not picking up a pencil:


I know they are not great works of art but I was very happy with what I was able to do even after so many years of not drawing.

I now found myself wanted to go into another direction. Somewhere I always though was far too serious an art for someone without formal training to do. I wanted to paint.

The art shows I've watched showed water colors, acrylic, and oil painting but which to go with. What are the advantages or each one, which is better for the first time painter, how much do materials cost?

I'll go further into this in my next posting.