Close up

Close Up
14" x 11"
oil
linen board

Alberta weather. Yes. Dan Schultz was up from Colorado Springs to lead us through the workshop “Painting Figures en Plein Air” but it is September and the weather is rarely predictable in our neck of the woods. I wonder why it is called a “neck”. Well, we waited five minutes and the temperature changed, it dropped. The intermittent rain did not abate and the concensus was to retreat to the warm confines of our host’s studio. The model, Mia, was relieved as she looked through her apparel for a suitable outfit to accommodate an in-studio session of portrait painting. There was some grumbling, not enough to dampen spirits, and I looked forward to the challenge of portraiture because I had not painted one in some time. Dan suggested we limit our palette to the traditional selection of the old masters, red cadmium, yellow cadmium, black and white. Black had been a forbidden choice during my formative years. I did have a student grade tube in my collection as it had been a requirement for the workshop. Since I had never attempted this particular limitation I decided to follow along and see what happened. I had read that ivory black created a blue cast when used with these colours so I was anxious to find out what it could do. To my surprise and enjoyment the result was quite pleasing. I began to think ahead to the request made to me not long ago with regard to another workshop that I might lead in painting portraits for my St. Albert friends. This restriction to only four tubes of paint would make the process even easier. Delightful in fact. Another piece in the puzzle fell into place for this upcoming workshop when I shared my new knowledge with another emerging artist who came for consultation. Fat over lean. We applied the paint thinly with oil colour greatly diluted by thinner and then the pigment straight out of the tube on top. It did not work. The technique does not work well with student grade paints. Switching to artist grade colours we had no trouble adding a new layer over the first. Fun, fun, fun!