Work in progress
4×4 oil portrait painting
Daily painting: 365 day art project
Day 47

I have 13 days left of these oil portrait paintings, and to be honest, I’ll be ecstatic when I stop painting them. I keep coming thisclose to throwing in the towel, and going back to painting with acrylics. It would make my life sooo much easier. I’ve been dreading going into my studio these days, which is so unlike me. Feeling like this has caught me off guard because I normally love and prefer oils when painting portraits. Trying to get one rush-painted every day is not fun, I’ve realized.

There should be no hustle, bustle, or racing against the clock when it comes to oil painting. Painting should feel like lounging in a tub full of bubbles on a rainy day, glass of wine in hand, violin music playing softly in the background, with nothing on the schedule that needs attention. Instead, this feels stressful, frustrating, hurried, and I get annoyed that the oils aren’t behaving the way I want them to (y’know, like acrylics).

A couple days ago, I started using a medium I normally don’t use to speed up the drying time. The problem with that is it’s also drying out my palette. I usually mix about 3 to 7 days worth of paint on my palette. Since I started using the fast drying medium, my oils are caking and hardening on the glass, and my brush as I’m painting. It makes painting difficult. I prefer a buttery brush stroke.

Also, I have to constantly scrape my glass palette with a razor blade, which means I’m wasting paint. Oils are expensive, so this is far from an ideal situation. Hey, I wanted the oils to act like acrylics, right? Um..no, I guess not. I prefer to give the oils the time they need to do their own thing. If my back wasn’t up against the clock, the days weren’t marching swiftly on, and I hadn’t promised to blog every day, I know I could do better. 

I don’t think oils are the best choice for what I had in mind this 365 day art project, so I probably won’t be using them again. No worries, tho. I’ll still be painting with oils behind the scenes because I adore them when I’m able to slow my pace. 

PS: After writing the word “buttery” in the paragraph above, this thought came to mind…forget about using a fast drying medium. Instead, mix Dorland’s wax medium in with the paint on the palette because Dorland’s wax + oil paint = buttery feel on brush. Duh. I knew this already, and have used Dorland’s several times before in my oil paint. If I remember correctly, it also dries slower than the medium, so my paint shouldn’t dry out on the palette as fast. Hopefully this is a solution to my problem. I might also get better alma prima results with the wax. hm.. I’ll let you know.