Journal of My Oil Painting Techniques

My oil painting techniques on still lifes are pretty much the same as the other subject matters. I finally decided to paint today even though there was no figure model available.

Doing still life paintings is a very peaceful experience, as you are just alone in your studio quietly enjoying the day doing what you love. I wouldn’t like to do this everyday though, because then I may become a hermit. Besides I don’t just want to be a “still life painter” or a “portrait painter”, but want to be versatile and just be a painter.

I did this painting on top of a used canvas which already had a painting on it. I began throwing on thick oil paints to quickly cover up and indicate the shapes of my still life subject, a brush and a paint tube. I did not do any preliminary lay-in or drawing but began as if a sculptor would loosely throw on piles of clay to start his sculpture, then define the forms from there, except here in painting, I had to also think about the colors as well.

I took all technical aspects into consideration at the same time as I worked, the composition, shapes, forms, values, etc.. I continued to rapidly apply more and more paint onto the canvas surface to quickly cover up the old painting underneath and build up the new forms and shapes. I used the bigger brushes only, using the point and the edges of it for the more detailed areas, instead of picking up a small brush, even though it was tempting.

Then I just kept on defining the forms, trimming and adding here and there to make the globs of paint form into definite subjects. My aim was to make everything accurate and close as possible to what I saw in front of me.

There are several two-dimensional measuring systems, such as the sight-size method ,or just other measuring painting techniques, but I decided to just use my pure vision and trust my eyes, as one of my important goal as I paint is to always train my eyes, and I feel that using measuring means just makes things easier for me, even though a lot of artists who practice the methods claims that it does train the eyes. I do respect the sight size or the measuring methods for the accurate results they produce, but I don’t feel that they are effective in honing the draughtsmanship.

So I kept on defining, altering and forming this painting until the daylight started to fade. Since I don’t paint without the daylight, I had to stop here, but will continue tomorrow and write more about the still life painting techniques.