Returning to Oil: A First Stab

Here is the studio in the underground S. Dillon Ripley Center at the Smithsonian Institution in Washington, DC. An, oh dear, now I remember. There’s a reason why I shifted to water color, to acrylic, to words. I’m a whippet, a greyhound — fast, fast. The work has to spin like a Porsche on the interstate, seventy, eighty miles per hour while I slam the gas pedal down. Oil is the quintessentially slow medium, the glazing and underglazing abetted by the s=l=o=w drying time. A good thick layer of titanium white in the clouds can take three weeks to become dry to the touch. It does not come as naturally to me. I have been ruined, painting signs in screaming yellow and red acrylic. A protest sign painted tonight can be on the march tomorrow.

 Another couple errors I immediately made — too small a canvas. This board is 9 x 12 inches. There’s no room! Since I have to carry the canvas into class with me (I have impressed my husband into driving me, but I still have to carry it) my instinct for the 9 by 12 foot canvas has to be throttled. But I’ll have to go spring for something with more elbow room, otherwise it’ll be impossible. And, I forgot even though I knew it fifty years ago — ultramarine blue does not dilute. Mix it with white, and you do not get light blue. You get gray! Why is this? It’s wrong. My instructor lent me a dab of cerulean for this first run at the image, but I have to buy a tube if I want any sky in future. And while I’m at it I now recall that my favorite yellow is Naples yellow, more mellow that cadmium. Buy more canvas board, more paint, yes, gotta do it.

Anyway, you see the original photograph, above? Here’s my first hack at painting it. In many ways unsatisfactory. Must try again.