Art-lessons – Page 2 – Home Office Charm

Getting Ready: Oil Painting &Abstract Term

I was nursing that awful cough & sore throat that everyone in London has. It meant that I didn’t make anything this week. Instead, all I could do was lift a finger to order the oil colours that my new art teacher suggested the class buy.

Managed to get my order of oil paint medium

I was so sick that I wasn’t in the mood for painting in the class this week, but because it was an online course (oil painting), I could log in and meet my other classmates, see the setup and observe. They seem like a nice bunch from around the world including the USA. I like how the teacher wants us to show our painting on screen so that she gets the effect of looking over our shoulders. I find it fascinating what teachers can do in the online learning space.

Being a mutted observer for my online oil painting lesson.

I was so sick this week I completely forgot about the Friday evening class in abstract painting. However, I am on the mend and feeling less under the weather.

Next week I hope to join my art classes and show you more of what I’m doing.

Inspired by exaggerating skin features

Behind the Scenes

My art classes for drawing and painting ended last week and inspired a new focus in my portrait paintings.

I noticed the extent to which I’m interested in the deeper anatomical elements of the skin. For instance, I noticed I spent a lot more time than others in the class on the intricate details of features such as thread veins and fine lines.

While mixing the different colour skin tones, I got the idea of potentially using my cosmetic chemistry insights and knowledge to develop a series of figurative paintings in future. I will link back to this post when I have done the paintings influenced by insights I gained this week.

Character as the X factor in portrait paintings

Personal Reflections

Less beautiful people make the best models. This week I discovered how people with more character in their faces contribute to making the most interesting paintings.

This picture is about a life model who had a very amazing head shape. In this painting, I am halfway through and hope to have finished it next Sunday.

I still have fine hair details to include and I must get the interesting skin tones and textures sorted.

Only time will tell whether I manage to do justice to this man’s interesting face. Whatever the outcome I shall post my result in a future post.

Well-manicured: Perfecting my brush strokes

Behind the Scenes

In an earlier blog, I complained about how I wasn’t happy with the brush strokes on the green sauce boat. https://wordpress.com/post/homeofficecharm.com/2811

Since then I spent some time practising what I said I would do and remembered that inner manicurist in me. Thus I imagined that I was painting a very fussy client’s fingernails. That seems to do the trick because keeping the medium and paints nice and light and thin and applying several thin layers help me to create a lovely glossy transparent look. It appeared to be like the glossy effect of the original sauceboat

Getting gloss medium layers right

Top tip: I might inspect more paintings for the brushstroke work. It never occurred to me how much time and effort should go into getting the painted effect I want right. And thanks to my old career in beauty therapy and those manicures, french polishes I did I can gain confidence in my painting brush stroke techniques.