little black journal

I’ve been busy and distracted and rather unmotivated lately and haven’t done nearly as much “creating” as I’d like to do. The only thing that has kept me from being completely unproductive has been the oil painting class that I’ve been taking at a small art school in Seattle for the past few weeks. This has been my first experience with oil paints, and learning to work with them has been both fun and frustrating. I love the richness of their color and texture – they blend beautifully and have a “creaminess” that I haven’t seen with acrylics. But they can take a loooong time to dry, which means you must have patience when layering paint or covering up mistakes. And clean-up time is a chore, since brushes must be cleaned with paint thinner or turpentine (acrylic and watercolor paint brushes can just be rinsed with water). Nonetheless, I look forward to continuing to play with this new-to-me medium. Below is one of my first stabs at a still life, painted during my third class. It still needs a little work, but it’s a start…