I finished this painting last night. It's my 8th oil painting, and my first that isn't of a place or person that exists; I didn't paint from reference. As with every painting, I am not completely satisfied, but happy with what I've learned, and excited about the next. This one took a strange course. It started like this: and I got bored with it, and did this: which eventually turned into what it is now. Back to SF over the weekend for a conference. I taught my 5yo daughter how to correctly use the term: Pshaa! A few days ago, we were having a 'yes!' 'no!' battle when I switched yes up to 'pshaa!'. Last night at the dinner table she used it perfectly. So proud.
You're doing great. Now the kid has harsh and mellow in her vocabulary and has seen them tossed together in a colorful phrase. Half the reason my kid is reading chapter books to herself is because we've read too and with her, the other half is that we use lots of crazy language. I try to use as much varied and creative language with Haz as I can. Vulgar, silly, serious change the grammatical rules, change all of one vowel sound to another and talk that way for 30 minutes until we are cracking each other up trying to make harder goofier sentences. It's so fun when you notice them purposely using new language. It's even better when you notice them using it naturally. I was talking to her about our friend who is training to become an acupuncturist, what that is, what it's supposed to do how you do it with needles. At the end of the conversation Hazel says, "That Sonija is one sharp lady!" Nice joke kid, keep it up.
Thanks. I did a little bit with acrylics in high school. Acrylic is awful. I then painted mostly geometric things with house paint a few years after that. After more than a decade, I got back into it with oils. I don't want to paint with anything else. I am self-taught when it comes to painting. I took a number of art classes in high school and college, but that was almost all drawing. I do study how other painters I admire do things, and I do that at museums. Not a lot, but from time to time. My advice would be: paint the light. Create the dark, then paint the light on top. Don't paint objects, but the light which defines them. That's the world as we see it. The objects only exist in our heads.