Oil Painting

I've had this desire lately to go back to painting in oils.  At the moment I have no oil paints, linseed oil or turpentine, but I do have a number of stretched canvases I purchased a while back.  But still, I like to think about painting in oils, and there is something about them that I just love.  It's partly because it is one of the most respected and historic mediums.  But also I love the smell of oil paints and linseed oil and the feel of brushing paint onto canvas.  It's buttery and rich.  The colors are beautiful and the fact that it dries slowly means that you can work it and rework it.  I've done nothing with acrylics, but they seem as though they'd be similar in feel to oils.  I do have a bunch of tubes of acrylic paint that I bought some years back when I was going to experiment with them.

I suppose one of the drawbacks of acrylics is that it dries really fast.  Well, this is a good thing, too, because you don't have to wait for the painting to dry enough in order to continue.  But I guess that I'd really need to plan the painting really well before starting.  I don't plan very well, actually, and I'd rather just let the images come to me as I paint, which is one of the reasons I really like abstract expressionism.  Of course I'd have some idea about what I might paint, and I'd even do a sketch or two, but other than that I am at the mercy of the medium and, of course, my genius that, due to poor health and my own egotistical overestimation of my brilliance, has suffered a great deal.

Anyway, when I start making lots of money I will be buying the best oils I can find (probably mail order or at a place called Pat Catan's which has a good selection of art supplies).  Usually I shop online at Cheap Joe's and Jerry's Artarama, and sometimes at Dick Blick Art Materials, but they can be a little pricey.

So on I think and dream and look forward to the day I can smear oil paints onto canvas.

Powered by ScribeFire.