My best painting so far. I feel like I’m making some progress now. All thanks to taking my time and breaks every thirty minutes.
I feel like this is the best painting that I have done so far. There are some issues but on the whole it is accurate and executed to the best of my current ability.
I’m happy to say that the last two paintings I have not used any mineral spirits at all. The previous few paintings I was getting a head ache from constantly cleaning my brush for each color change, even after I started keeping my spirits closed only until I needed to clean the brush.
What I started doing was just lightly pinching the bristles between Viva paper towels a couple times and that removes about 95% of all the paint from the brush. The only time I encountered any contamination of color during change was when I was using Pthalo Blue for the handle of this coffee cup. Pthalo Blue is by far the strongest color I have ever encountered. It will take over any color pile with even the smallest amount.
So, I’m very happy to have found a solution that will keep me away from brain damage, yay!
Just some quick comparisons with the drawing. I was really way off with the placement of the letters on the t-shirt. Unfortunately those were totally an after thought, or maybe I was putting them off for so long that I lacked the energy to concentrate on them. Then the left side of the cup is a bit off also. I must say though, I don’t take any of these too seriously. I had to take the photo of the painting at a weird angle just to get rid of the glare from the black, so I’m sure that there is going to be some mismatching due to just the camera angle.
I’m happy with the values here. The really white areas can not be achieved with paint, I don’t think pure white would even match the letters on the t-shirt. But the relative values for most of it is close. Again, their is going to be some things that are off due to the camera though, it is so hard to take a picture of black paint.
This is my new awesome glass palette. I picked up a 12×16 piece of cheap somewhat thin glass at Lowes and a corrugated plastic sign. Because the glass was so thin I wanted something light but rigid enough to support it, first I was thinking thin wood, but then I would have to get it cut. The I thought cardboard, but just didn’t like the idea of it. Finally I found some sign kits at Lowes that were plastic but constructed exactly like cardboard, rigid yet light, perfect. So I cut the sign down to size and doubled it, then I cut a piece of Canson Artagan gray drawing paper eventually making a palette sandwich out of the materials. Glass, Artagan paper, then two pieces of sign board. All wrapped around the edges with masking tape, I didn’t have any duct tape, but I figured this would be just as good. The end product turns out to be very light and perfect for an almost vertical setup on my Julian easel.
