Laying Down Paint : Unfinished Projects

By Elissa Rosenthal

 Hello, everyone! This week I've been working on that unfinished painting I showed you from last week. It is oil paint, though, so in order for me to get the look and kind of detail I want, I will have to wait a while to do the part of Aphrodite, and even longer to do more detailing.

I realized when I was mixing some of my paints, that I stated something incorrectly last week about what type of paint I used as the original background. This, on its own, made me realize more on why I stopped the painting on this canvas back then. I now remember that I was trying out, for giggles, to mix acrylic and oil paint. There is probably some way to properly do this, however, given my lack of experience doing so, it ended up just making it where there was a lot of paint put on the canvas unnecessarily.

Now, this doesn't mean I didn't use quite a bit of paint in my first attempt to salvage this canvas, I did, though I doubt as much as the first time. Luckily, though, I believe I've been able to keep the paint I used for my depiction of Venus in case it needs more detailing. The paint I used for the dolphins, however, ended up becoming more and more muddy, so I had no other choice than to throw it out.

Pallet for Venus

Pallet for dolphins

During the whole painting process, particularly for this part, I mostly focused on larger shapes and values and blocking them in. This is my first time trying to finish an oil painting so I'm quite happy with how it's turning out so far. Not to say I can't do better in the future, I'm sure with practice I can, but it is a good start. One of my main fears right now is not allowing enough time for the paint to dry completely, so, if it doesn't seem completely dry by next weekend I will be doing something else for that posting. For my medium, I just decided to use olive oil. I know it's not a traditional thing to do, to use regular oil as your medium versus using a labeled medium from the store. I've used traditional medium from the store before, however, my current space does not have enough ventilation for it, I have roommates who don't enjoy the smell, and so far using oil seems to work. I will state, though, using olive oil seems to work a lot better than using sesame seed oil, less smell too.

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Working On Unfinished Projects

By Elissa Rosenthal

Hello everyone! I hope you are having a good day today!

For this week in my journey of getting back on the artistic horse, I decided to work on a project of mine that I had put to the side for quite a while. It is a depiction of the goddess Aphrodite in oil paint.

At first I wanted to exaggerate the proportions of the head and eyes, and ended up deciding against it as I did some practice sketches. To me it did not seem to align with the goddesses image, so I decided to go a little more on the traditional proportion route. Though I may do a little bit of exaggerating with some features later on.

This is one of my first sketches for the face I was planning on using for the depiction of Aphrodite. 

In my original planning stages for the piece I wanted to have the depiction of Aphrodite crossing her legs, however, due to my gained knowledge on goddess since then, I've decided to have her be a mermaid. Plus, with painting in layers I can always start over or go over particular parts that aren't  pleasing to the eye.

The photo above are sketches of mine to try to see how I want the mermaid to be posed. 

From my own experience with painting, the main thing is to make sure the canvas will not be showing through, so at this particular stage I'm not too concerned with how the background looks. It was set up for the previously decided pose for the goddess which is why it is a bit off on placement. I'm thinking of maybe doing some geometric patterns or sea life around the edges to help with the balance of the painting. This is so the tail doesn't lead your eyes off the canvas.

Here, I've started to sketch the figure on the painting itself with a charcoal pencil.

In case you wish to know, the medium I used for the paint was just simple sesame oil. The original reason why I set this painting aside was because I needed the oil to have plenty of time to dry. Then it ended up being where I knew I needed to study more to feel comfortable doing the painting at all. I hope that I can do well with this painting in the coming weeks. 

For next week I will be showing my continued progress with this painting. Hopefully it goes well! And if not, well, there is always another canvas needing paint. 

Thank you so much for reading my blog, I really do appreciate it!

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