Journal of My Oil Painting Techniques

Alla-Prima is one of my favorite oil painting techniques. I went out late last night with my french easel and couple of 14″x11″” canvas boards to paint the night city-scenes but on my way, ran into a girl standing there eating brownie. I asked her if I can do a painting of her and she ended up posing for me there for couple of hours.

I did not do any lay-ins or drawings but just started throwing on paints very roughly on the canvas and just moved along very fast since I didn’t know when she would quit standing there for me. Since I was trying to work as fast as I could, I couldn’t take any photos of the process.

She said she just got off work and just hanging out for a bit. It was kind of hard talking and painting at the same time but it was fun.

The color of this photography is pretty orangish because I took it at night with the artificial lights. I really liked and exagereated on the pink of her lips but the color doesn’t seem to traslate well here in the photo. Same with the greens of the eyes.

She asked me at one point if I am going to paint the rails along the sidewalk and told me she really likes the rails, so I put them in. I indicated the lights from afar and thought it added a nice touch to the composition.

I am not too happy about the sloppy overall look of this direct portrait painting. Yes, it is done fast and with the alla-prima approach but I’ve seen plenty of direct paintings done in a neat fashion. Some people told me it is just my style, but then I don’t like my style. But I really think it has a lot to do with my oil painting techniques as well, so I will look into it. Perhaps it’s the messy palette I keep, or maybe the worn out brushes. Whatever it is I feel like I need to correct it so that my sketchy works will look cleaner and organized.

I kind of wanted to indicate the people passing by with quick strokes but wasn’t sure if I should go ahead with it. I have seen Sargent do that a lot in his paintings of street scenes, demonstrating his dashing alla-prima oil painting techniques. But I ended up not doing it afterall, afraid that it may take away the focus of the main subject, the girl.

I also wish I could have use more broad strokes with large brushes but I ended up getting caught with the facial details and spent a good amount of time with the tiny pointed brush trying to render the details.

I used a lot of colors, sometimes mixing the colors right on the surface of the canvas instead of on the palette, so I think the colors in the piece looks a bit intense. Next time I would need to keep in mind to mute and saturate the colors a bit more.

Again, I think I would need to work a lot more on drawing the accuracies. Even though my aim is to do a realistic representation, this piece does not look very realistic to me but rather impressionistic, which I do not prefer.

I am looking into measuring methods, holding stick in front with arm out, one eye closed. I don’t really know how it works. I always thought it was used by people with untrained eye, but I recently realized I was very wrong. But I am happy to realize my mistakes now.

I read recently that even John Singer Sargent held arm out and measured like that! Here is a quote from a pupil of Sargent documenting his methods: “He then took up the charcoal, with arm extended to its full length, and head thrown well back: all the while intensely calculating, he slowly and deliberately mapped the proportions of the large masses of a head and shoulders, first the poise of the head upon the neck, its relation with the shoulders. Then rapidly indicate the mass of the hair, then spots locating the exact position of the features, at the same time noting their tone values and special character, finally adding any further accent or dark shadow which made up the head, the neck, the shoulders and head of the sternum.”

I may go back to the scene again if I feel motivated one of these nights and work some more on the background. It was fun practicing alla-prima oil painting techniques outdoors at night with a good subject.

I did some pencil drawing sketches today.

I visited my friend who is living at a homeless shelter. He had recently been released from prison and now he is staying at this shelter where everyone was on the same boat. The securities thoroughly scanned me with the metal detector and confiscated my metal pen, and the hand mirror before letting me in.

I had lunch there and was surprised how decent the food was. Also gave plenty of seconds. I don’t know if I should feel too sorry about the homeless people on the streets anymore. I think they just choose to stay outside.

I took my mechanical pencil for its convenience and drew in my sketchbook. I went to the TV room where a lot of people were waiting to get their beds for the night. Lot of them were napping on the chairs because they haven’t slept well the night before since they missed the curfew and had to spend the night outside. The securities were strict about anyone lying down on the floor.

There was an incident in there where two guys on wheelchair started fighting each other. Then I constantly saw other guys getting kicked out of the shelter in handcuffs. I guess some guys will just never learn.

I sat there and started sketching the people. The man with the cap was working at the cafetaria. He noticed I was drawing him and was nice enough to sit still for me for a bit. Later, I went out to the backyard and did some sketches there.

I think mechanical pencil is great for pencil drawing in the sketchbooks because you don’t have to worry about sharpening it and don’t need to carry a knife or a sharpener.

As usual, I was most interested in capturing the faces and worked the most on them, then quickly indicated rest of the areas in a loose manner.

Doing sketches of people in public is definitely a great practice for me because I can’t just rely on what I see since they are always moving around, so I had to think about the all around forms, almost as if I’m doing sculptures. I relied on the lay-ins and added the features on top of it even after the poses have changed.

Everyone was very nice and I enjoyed sketching there a lot.