5 Years of Art Blogging! Happy Birthday OrbisPlanis

This week we're celebrating 5 years of blogging about art, painting, and painters at OrbisPlanis. I hope you have enjoyed all the information as well as my own art all these years.

What started out as a blog about re-newing one's interest in art (e.g. A New Art Blog on How to Renew Your Art Skills) turned into a blog with information about painting (e.g. Mixing Believable Greens) and painters (e.g. What Was Claude Monet's Color Palette?) and more recently A Painter's Blog about my own journey through watercolor, oil, and acrylic (e.g. Experiment With Painting This Summer).

Happy Birthday, OrbisPlanis, Happy Birthday To You!.

Cool Thoughts in Oil

Cool Day
Oil on Canvas Panel
5 x 7 in/12.7 x 17.8 cm
Copyright 2013

I painted a little oil painting recently to help me keep cool on a very warm summer holiday weekend in the US.

The scene is a line of trees on a cool, overcast day with a hint of an impending rain shower.

It makes me think I feel cooler anyway, and I wanted to share it with my readers. I hope you feel cooler, too.

The Silver Lining of Acrylics

Stopping By
Acrylic on Canvas Panel
8 x 8 in/20.3 x 20.3 cm
Copyright 2013

I understand why some painters complain about acrylic paint.

Acrylic dries too fast. Acrylic mediums and gels can be tricky to use properly. Acrylic is hard to blend.

But, for every complaint there is a silver lining.

You can paint as quickly as you want and make corrections almost immediately. It dries fast because it's water-based, which means it's easy to clean brushes and hands, and there's no odor.

The use of mediums allow you to paint as if you're using oil, allowing additional time to move the paint around and to provide a gloss, satin, or matte finish. Try that with plain oil.

OK, they are more difficult to blend but only relative to blending oil really. This makes one spend time to learn the best paint consistency and how to better paint lost-and-found edges, which most painters should be doing anyway.

Today's image is a little acrylic I finished this week. Not bad, I think.

If you haven't tried acrylics in a while, you will be surprised at how much fun they are to paint with.  

Experiment with Painting this Summer

By the Lake
Oil on Canvas Panel
5 x 7 in/12.7 x 17.8 cm
Copyright 2013

I am enjoying painting again in oil, although I'm sure I will alternate between painting in oil and painting in acrylic all summer long.

Summer is a good time for experimentation, and that's what I want to do--try new things, learn new things, discover new painters.

I hope you can take some time this summer to experiment with painting and  discover new things to inspire you. 

Today's image is one of the smallest paintings I have done, only 5 x 7 in (12.7 x 17.8 cm). I find that painting small is a good way (for me anyway) to get re-acquainted with oil painting. Plus, I'm painting alla prima, so small is good.

This is a scene of a small waterfall at a man-made lake within a condominium complex. It was enjoyable to paint the strong sunlight, the contrasting dark shadows, and the reflections of the rocks.

Painting should be enjoyable if not pure fun.

View from the Back Porch

View from the Back Porch
Oil on Canvas Panel
8 x 8 in/20.3 x 20.3 cm
Copyright 2013

Today's image is a small oil painting I completed last week. As I mentioned a few blogs back, I recently decided to return to oil paint after several years.

I'm still painting in acrylic as well, but have put my watercolors away for the time being.

Anyway, I painted this painting from a reference photo taken one summer day on a visit to the Potomac River in the state of Virginia, USA.

It was a beautiful, if somewhat warm, day, and I would have liked to have painted en plein air. However, I'm pretty sure the National Parks Service would not have allowed me or any other painter to set up an easel on the back porch of Mount Vernon.

So I had to make do with my reference photo. Not bad, I think.

Acrylic & Oil

Nectarines
Acrylic on Canvas Panel
8 x 8 in/20.3 x 20.3 cm
Copyright 2013

I am painting in both acrylic and oil--not in the same painting, of course. Do many painters do that? I don't know.

This week I painted two paintings, one in each.

This acrylic, Nectarines, is today's image.

I am comparing my experience in both to determine if one comes out ahead. I don't know yet.

Of course, the difficult part is not necessarily the medium but in actually rendering the painting.

I don't expect miracles, but I will continue to paint in both and see how I'm progressing.

As a Painter, Never Say Never

Ocean Blvd.
Oil on Canvas Panel
7 x 9 in/18 x 23 cm
Copyright 2013

If you're wondering what today's post is about from the headline, I'll tell you.

It's about being open and flexible and receptive and...whatever. Not a bad way to live life, especially a painter's life.

I say that because several years ago, I had "sworn off" painting in oil, although I rarely swear.

Painting in oil is messy. It is also smelly, even using OMS. It's also time-consuming; all that time to clean up your brushes and palette, not to mention how long it takes for the paint to dry.

That's what I told myself when I packed up my oil paints in their little black plastic container and pushed them way back in one of my art drawers where I put things I'm not using. I forgot about them.

Then a painter friend of mine mentioned the name of a painter with whom I was not familiar and had never heard of.

That would be Qiang-Huang.

I googled his name and saw his beautiful work on his blog and website. He paints almost daily and posts his paintings, most of which are relatively small, up for bid. Much of his work is still lifes that have beautiful effects of lighting.I hope you have time to look at his work. There's no argument that oil renders beautiful, time-tested results.

Anyway, it inspired me to take out my oil paints again and paint today's image.

Never say never.

Paint Out of Your Comfort Zone

Rose and Bowl
Acrylic on Canvas Panel
9 x 12 in/23 x 30.5 cm
Copyright 2013

Whatever your comfort zone is, it's time to paint out of it.

That is, I'm pretty sure it's time to give your predictable painting repertoire a break, not only for your sake but also for those who like to view and collect your paintings.

Take your creative neurons on a thrill ride and paint whatever it is that you never, or almost never, ever paint.

If you paint seascapes, paint a flower or a bouquet.

If you paint portraits, paint a landscape.

If you paint city streets, paint an animal or a herd.

That goes for painting abstract versus representational and vice versa, too.

You get the picture.

It's one thing to paint the same thing(s) over and over until you achieve near perfection and call yourself a master or past master.

It's quite another to keep painting the same thing until your creative juices for painting anything else dry up and blow away. Don't let that happen. Do what I did.

I rarely paint still lifes. Ever. But I did this week. In fact, I painted two of them, one of which is today's image. I'm glad I did. I needed a break from my landscapes that I have been painting for months and months in both watercolor and acrylic.

It's refreshing and some of those skills that have been hibernating inside you will be glad you gave them a stretch.

Get Real, But Not Too Real

Many people like abstract paintings. Many people don't. It seems most either love them or they don't like them very much, if at all.

From the Pier
Acrylic on Canvas Board
7 x 9 in/18 x 23 cm
Copyright 2013

I am one of those painters who like some abstract paintings--primarily those in which my mind can take the shapes and colors and put them into some type of order that allows me to make sense of the image before me. The other ones, no, thank you.

That's why I have not been in a rush to visit the Picasso Black and White exhibit now on display at the MFAH but ending soon. I may not make it, but I don't think that makes me a bad art person. More power to Picasso; he has plenty of fans already.

I do like representational paintings more than abstract. I like the painting to tell a story or at least have the ability for the viewer to make up a story.

However, liking the representational style doesn't mean I like all those baroque, neo-classical, and/or romantic paintings that were so prevalent up until the 19th century. I don't. They're either too dark or have too much theology or are just not very interesting (although well painted). Also, photo-realism is a bit much for me.

You may know I do like the loose, realistic paintings of the Impressionists, although at the time they were criticized for being everything but that. I like John Singer Sargent. I like Winslow Homer. I like Georgia O'Keeffe--her landscapes not her flowers. I also like Edward Hopper, although, except for his watercolors, he didn't paint very loose. I can take or leave Gauguin, Matisse, and Picasso as I've already said.

I do like several current painters who paint in the representational style of contemporary realism, such as Frank Serrano, Kevin MacPherson, Qiang-Huang, Joseph Zbukvic, and John Hammond to name a few who paint in oil, watercolor, and acrylic, respectively.

If you also like representational paintings, you may want to check out their work.

10 Things I've Learned About Painting

Shoreline
Acrylic on Canvas Panel
7 x 9 in/18 x 23 cm
Copyright 2012

As a current painter in acrylic, I am attempting to take my work to a higher level by putting into practice some of the techniques I have read about in my many books on painting.

I respect acrylic for what it is and what it does and how you use it. That is, I try to accept acrylic on its own terms with both its advantages and disadvantages.

I have gleaned several things that will help me with my acrylics, and I believe many are applicable to other painting mediums as well:

A good composition can make or break a painting, so choose it well.

Simplify.

Use the most limited palette you can.

Underpaint using a wash of similar color to the overall color(s) of your painting to cut the whiteness.

Loosely draw in the main elements using your paintbrush.

Block in your darkest darks and lightest lights first.

Painting a smaller painting may be a better choice as you gain experience rather than a large canvas.

Paint with the largest brush you possibly can.

Paint fast, keep it loose, and leave out the details.

Paint like no one else and learn to appreciate, if not love, your own particular style.