![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
(no subject)
Jul. 10th, 2007 05:06 pmCouple of weeks ago, I got my oil paints out for the first time in, gods, far too long. Long enough that most of my tubes seem to have sealed themselves shut. No matter, that's what pliers and determination and unconventional ways of getting at the paint are for. "Unconventional ways" here usually means the metal tube splits at a weak point, usually a crease formed from trying to twist off the cap. My prussian blue has long been sealed shut, and has formed a few little mountains of dried linseed oil around the holes in the tube that I don't use to extract paint.
One tube was as stubborn as hell and isn't a color I've used often enough for the tube to form weak points. I tried unrolling the end and getting the paint out that way, but couldn't, so I rolled it back up, and proceeded to try once more to muscle the cap off--
--and squirted a thin ribbon of cobalt blue all over my painting shirt and the floor. My first thought was, it would be one of the carcinogenic ones. My second thought was, oops, I probably should have put the painting tarp down. But it cleaned up off the hardwood fine, and my painting shirt has a brand new light blue splotch on the front (my classmates used to tell me I should have the shirt framed).
Unfortunately, my capped tubs for thinner and linseed oil were also sealed shut, and I couldn't find my noncapped tubs, so I ended up using a couple small jars from pimientos that I'd happened to save, "just in case." See, packrat habits do pay off sometimes. Eheh.
I love many forms of art, but there's just something deeply satisfying about oilpainting. The different brushes, physically moving the paint around on the canvas, the smell of linseed oil and the citrus paint thinner I use, the colors - oils have some of the most beautiful, deepest colors in the art world. Alizarin crimson is one of my favorites, as are ultramarine blue and prussian blue. And the blacks you can make with those are simply gorgeous (eh, not mixing the three together, that would make some kind of muddy bluish purple). Not all blacks are created equal, and the black you can get from a tube just doesn't compare with the alizarin/veritian black, or the ultramarine/burnt sienna black or the prussian/burnt sienna black. One of those also makes a beautiful gunmetal grey, but I'd have to look at my color chart to remember which.
I painted a small landscape. It didn't come easily. I haven't painted in far too long. But it turned out okay. Sunday I went back and touched it up from "okay" to where I can actually consider it good. Mostly, it needed more contrast (glazing... I love glazing).
Wow, I ranted for longer than I thought I would ^_^;.
One tube was as stubborn as hell and isn't a color I've used often enough for the tube to form weak points. I tried unrolling the end and getting the paint out that way, but couldn't, so I rolled it back up, and proceeded to try once more to muscle the cap off--
--and squirted a thin ribbon of cobalt blue all over my painting shirt and the floor. My first thought was, it would be one of the carcinogenic ones. My second thought was, oops, I probably should have put the painting tarp down. But it cleaned up off the hardwood fine, and my painting shirt has a brand new light blue splotch on the front (my classmates used to tell me I should have the shirt framed).
Unfortunately, my capped tubs for thinner and linseed oil were also sealed shut, and I couldn't find my noncapped tubs, so I ended up using a couple small jars from pimientos that I'd happened to save, "just in case." See, packrat habits do pay off sometimes. Eheh.
I love many forms of art, but there's just something deeply satisfying about oilpainting. The different brushes, physically moving the paint around on the canvas, the smell of linseed oil and the citrus paint thinner I use, the colors - oils have some of the most beautiful, deepest colors in the art world. Alizarin crimson is one of my favorites, as are ultramarine blue and prussian blue. And the blacks you can make with those are simply gorgeous (eh, not mixing the three together, that would make some kind of muddy bluish purple). Not all blacks are created equal, and the black you can get from a tube just doesn't compare with the alizarin/veritian black, or the ultramarine/burnt sienna black or the prussian/burnt sienna black. One of those also makes a beautiful gunmetal grey, but I'd have to look at my color chart to remember which.
I painted a small landscape. It didn't come easily. I haven't painted in far too long. But it turned out okay. Sunday I went back and touched it up from "okay" to where I can actually consider it good. Mostly, it needed more contrast (glazing... I love glazing).
Wow, I ranted for longer than I thought I would ^_^;.