READY.....SET.......PAINT!

First Day of oil painting!!! My jam. Oil painting is the probably the least portable of all the painting mediums, so of course that is the one that I decided to use. I remember when I first started with oils…they felt so foreign and weird. Now, I feel at a loss without them. Although, it is just a matter of getting used to something else, but that takes time and I want to focus on making paintings rather than learning a new medium…although I did bring gouache, watercolors and casein paints….I always think I can do more than I actually can.

~ Look at the boat and notice how much the tide lowered ~

As anyone who is around me for any amount of time can attest, I am not an OCD neatnik. Quite the opposite; a wake of messy chaos usually surrounds me. But traveling with oil paints to another part of the world has forced me to be organzied and compact, and weigh the multiple factors involved with this complex endeavor. Like, what to carry it all in….I found a perfect Rucksack to accomodate most of my art supplies, though I still haven’t figured out how to transport freshly wet paintings and palettes…. I have to hold them in my hands, on the way home, and they love to pick up the wind and flop about.

Above note the fancy, yet minimal and somewhat portable “Open Box M” paint box/easel that mounts to a tripod (vintage 1960s, thanks to a load by Eric Perlman who lent me his father’s tripod). The canvas is actually Rives BFK paper treated with PVA, thick acrylic medium and Gesso, using a technique taught to me by Ted Kutscher. The painting is held by a spring-loaded pincers. Note the mineral spirits container hanging on the side, which does not leak when closed. In the box is a makeshift palette (i need to have glass cut to fit, which is my usual palette). The small altoids box is where I put any garbage oil paint. And I really appreciate the side shelf for storing brushes….although they tend to roll off….I will rig some method to fix that. In an odd way plein air painting is a lot like sailing, in that you have to be preparred to make whatever you have with you work once you leave port.

Probably around 50 people stopped and commented…almost none in english, but we understood one another anyway.

I did not take pictures of them. Sorry Karen, but honest, they were there!

An older couple (maybe ten years older than me) seemed fascinated, and kept talking to me as if I understood. Oddly, I sorta did. Her husband took some pictures of me, and he tried to take a picture of his wife, who started walking away when he did. I have several of her walking away….which I will not post. I gave them my business card with website, and they said they don’t do computers or the internet. I suppose that affords them the time to actually socialize with random people like me.

Here is the final painting. I am happy with it. It is more about composition and color and value and sense of light, than it is about boats, at least, that is how I approach it.