"Paintings With Personality"

The image on top was before I made a few changes to the main shape and the drinking glass. The image on bottom is my finished 11x13 painting.

AAAUGH! Never Again!

And I really mean, never again! The meticulous detail in the painting above just about drove me crazy. By the time I had painted the table pattern in the same detail as the main subject they were all fighting for attention. My eye didn’t know where to look. I ended up covering the salt, pepper, cruet, and glass shapes with tape and spraying everything else with an atomizer. Next, I made four mixtures of paint in bottles, I chose paynes gray, quinacridone burnt orange, quinacridone gold, and a purple I had on hand but whose name I can’t recall. It was a small Winsor Newton tube that I emptied and threw out. Now all the taping was done and all my supplies were together, so I started blowing into the tube.

When I finished blowing the paint on, I let it dry then removed the masking tape. I had to make a few changes to the edges but that’s about it. The edges were hard, making the previously taped over shapes look pasted on. Once I softened the edges the painting came together.

Wish I had thought to take a picture before I taped and sprayed. As it is, all I have is the image after sprayed and then after it was completely finished. You won’t be able to tell a lot of difference between the two photos I took. I put the “part of a drinking glass” in on the far right because it was needed for balance, and then decided a different shape would be more interesting so, changed that. Without the glass the weight was all on the left side of the painting. Cover the glass with your hand and you’ll see what I mean.

Below is a detail of the table pattern after spraying with the atomizer. There are areas where the paint was so wet, it caused the watercolor underneath to run. I didn’t mind, I like for my work to have a loose feeling and the running paint tells a story about the people who might have sat at the table.

In the pictures above, the image on top was right after I removed the masking tape and before making a few changes to the main shape and the drinking glass. I also changed the cruet, it was coming forward more than I wanted so I got rid of some of the sharp edges and calmed the lights and darks to make it recede in space. The image on the bottom is the completed painting.

I took a workshop with John Salminen last October. Part of one demonstration was how to use an atomizer. I made good use of that lesson on this painting. John does entire paintings with a Pat Dews atomizer (a better atomizer than my cheap version). I believe the Pat Dews atomizer is easier to use and makes a finer mist. John covers everything but the shape he wants painted and continues, covering and uncovering until the painting is done. You can find examples of painting with an atomizer on YouTube. I have heard that it is also possible to use the spray air made for cleaning computers in place of blowing. When doing an entire painting, blowing could be pretty daunting.

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