South Florida experienced near tropical storm winds and rain today. I hadn’t seen my newly trimmed trees with storm quality winds up until today. One elderberry sapling needed roping to the older palm tree to keep it from folding over onto the walkway. That’s the only tree problem from the rain. Having checked the plants, I pulled out my French easel and began to paint. The French easel is now parked permanently on the patio but the paints are covered until use. For these small projects, I bought new 8 x 10″ canvas panel boards.
The above image is first day of paint. Using the water mixable oil paints makes it very easy to paint without the mineral spirit mess or smell. Using water to thin the layer of paint still feels odd to me. I grew up with turpentine or even benzine as oil based paint thinners.
The red arch is part of the hula hoop plant decoration. Its vibrant red oranges serves as a perfect complement for the overly green painting. The distant sky is painted with the warmer greys which also perk up the green complement contrast.
Experimenting with these oil paints as a medium, I am satisfied they have a painterly feel. My former art teacher, Larry Gerber, told me he didn’t like their tackiness. He’s right about the tackiness. Original oils don’t have that gluey quality. And when I laid down the thin layer with water, it looked chunky gobs of colored cottage cheese.
The second layer of paint laid out more thickly. It covered over the colored cottage cheese layer. It worked but to be honest, I’m still geared to thinking in terms of original oils. I’m not yet used to what the lack of spirit medium curtails.
Painting on a rainy winter’s day is a mellow exercise. The fogginess invites the muted colors so that it takes just a tiny drop of paint to either warm or cool. And for a rainy Saturday morning, that fogginess invited me back to sleep.