Painting With Oils Again

I finished another oil painting and I am so very, very pleased with it.

Oil paintings take me so much longer to complete than acrylic paintings that I end up putting many, many hours into them.

Every time I am finished with a painting session, I have paint all over my hands and clothes. Consequently, I now have designated oil painting clothes!

I also find it interesting how my color palette in oils is so very different than when I paint in acrylics. It's so much more subdued and subtle.  I like both for different reasons - the happy, strong colors and the soft, muted ones.

Because this is a recycled canvas, the molding paste and paper collage I used for the previous painting give this new one plenty of excellent texture.

This girl has attitude. For a while she was looking quite angry, which really didn't go with the cup in her hand. I toned that down some, but not all the way. A little attitude is good, right?

The Offering12 x 16 inch oil on canvas

Available in my Etsy Shop here. 

Wishing you all a wonderful weekend ahead. We are having the best weather here and I hope you are, too!!

With lots of love and happy wishes,

❧ Silke

Paintings

Dear friends, I so love all of your comments on my last posts - there is such wisdom, kindness and support in this community. It amazes me again and again! And if fills my heart with gratitude! 

Yesterday, after asking myself how I would be different if I didn't care what others thought, a funny thing happened. I was suddenly ready to let go of my two oil paintings. That was unexpected.

Why would I want to hang on to them in the first place? Well, I do love them and I won't be sorry at all if they don't sell and stay here with me. But often I think I hang on to my paintings because I don't want to put them "out there" where they might get scrutinized and criticized.

Right now, that doesn't seem to matter to me. What matters is that I have a gift and I'm ready to share it! That's a very nice feeling indeed!!

Both are available in my Etsy Shop.

Yesterday, I started another oil painting and for some reason I found it frustrating. Part of the fun of  working with oils is that they dry so slowly and you can rework your painting for a long time. And part of the utter frustration I have with oil paints is that they dry so slowly and it's hard to paint over an area I don't like. Yesterday I really wanted the painting to dry fast...

So, today I think I'll get out my acrylics to just play with color and see what happens. It's a light-hearted play sort of day! I hope for you, too!!

With lots of love and appreciation,

❧ Silke

Full Steam Ahead!

Dear Friends, do you sometimes feel like your life is running away and you are barely keeping up? Yes? I feel that way right now.

And I think part of the reason is that I would like to think back and reflect on the wonderful travels we've had, things we've done and people we've met since December and there is just not much time for that.

Life goes on and it does so at a good clip. New fun things are waiting to be explored and discovered. And maybe that's the solution.

I often think about the concept of living in the present moment and how that is really where I would like to reside. Well, if that's true, then maybe it's enough that I enjoyed all the present moments when I was traveling and now I am on to new adventures that demand my full attention.

Still, I want to show you some travel photos after Daniel is done editing them all so patiently, but for now I'll share a new oil painting portrait I started today and hope to finish this weekend sometime.

It's coming along nicely.

If you haven't done so, remember to enter my giveaway in my previous post. If you have done so, thank you so much for your comments and your continued visits!!

With love and gratitude,

❧ Silke

Sunday Potpourri

Good morning, friends and Happy Sunday!!

1. For Christmas, my sister and her family gave me a Troll Bead charm bracelet with a very beautiful glass bead. Because the beads are somewhat pricey, it's going to take me a while to fill up the bracelet.

In the meantime, I found a youtube tutorial (click here for the link) on how to make beads from paper and made eight of them yesterday! I might make some more today. They aren't as stunning as the glass beads, of course, but they still look great I think.

2. The results of last weeks life drawing class. It was a whole different story to draw someone with glasses - so much more going on with the shadows: deep shadows, lighter shadows cast by the glass, shadows through the glass, etc.

I kept having to tell myself to just draw what I saw and not what my brain was telling me. In the end, the drawing pretty much looked like the model and I was very happy with it.

3. I did some more tweaking with my oil painting and it is now done. Signed and done!

 I am so pleased with it and enormously proud! She is hanging in our living room until she's completely dry and ready to be varnished.

After that she might wander into my Etsy shop or she might stay put in our living room. I'm still quite attached to her.

4. I had mentioned before that last year there was a lot of emotional upheaval in my life and for that reason I somehow felt I needed to hang on to everything, including my art. That energy has shifted and I listed most of my artwork in my Etsy Shop. I am ready for my babies to fly the coop... You can click here to have a look or on the Etsy links on my left sidebar. I'll be adding more as I create more.

5. I am also selling my knitting, crocheting and sewing again, but I have migrated that shop from Etsy to eBay. I seem to be doing better selling my scarves and things on eBay. If you want to have a look (there is lots to choose from, crazy knitter that I am!), click here or on the eBay link on my right sidebar. I'm adding new items all the time...

That was it for the potpourri of stuff on my mind...

I wish you a wonderful and relaxing Sunday!!

❧ Silke

My first Oil Painting

Because of Kelly Berkey's online class I finally started painting with oil paints. I had wanted to try oils for months now, but never could quite get myself to do it because it seemed so overwhelming.

Well, it isn't overwhelming anymore once I've had Kelly explain to me what I needed and how I needed to work. Oil paints are really wonderful for the exact opposite acrylics are great. Acrylics dry so fast that you can easily do a very texture and layered piece in a day.

Oil paints dry so slowly that you can do wonderful blending with your colors and work into the them even after a couple of days. Plus, the sheen of oil paints is just gorgeous - there's a glow about them.

The only problem I had was that by the end I was as covered in paint as the canvas was... I hope that'll get better with practice. 

For this painting, I really wanted to practice working with light and shadow, going a bit darker with my shadows than I usually do. There are a couple of areas I might tweak with a little bit more, but overall I like it!! A lot!

As temperatures are dropping and rain is about to fall, I am grateful that we are not in the snow and ice path of this latest storm. Stay warm and safe, everyone!!

❧ Silke