Saturday, November 20, 2010

Moon Over Ada Mae-5x7


Today was the kind of weather a plein air painter dreams about at night. wonderful, clear, warm light and 70 degrees. Got off two today in New Bern, an 8x8 (i'll show in a few days) and this one. what a great scene right in front of the Persimmon waterfront restaurant. in fact i edited out the restaurant that was to the right and behind the Ida Mae. its a much "cleaner" design without it. it took me years to figure out that i didnt have to paint everything i see in the landscape i'm painting. DUH!




On the paint thinner front, i found some mineral oil and tried it instead of the smelly baby oil today. i thought it was a little too thick so i switched to cheap vegatable oil and found the more liquidy consistency much better for getting all the paint out of the brush quickly. will probably stick with this for now. love the fact that i'm not rubbing toxic thinner into my skin or inhaling it day and night in my vehicle and studio any more.

6 comments:

DGehman said...

Love the play of values and the brush work on Ida's hull.

Hadn't thought about viscosity when suggesting plain mineral oil. Looks like canola oil is doubly attractive: among the thinnest, it's about the lowest acid vegetable oil (olive being among the highest).

What do you use for medium? Asking because vegetable oils won't dry the way linseed does (and canola won't ever dry).

mike rooney studios said...

dave-using Liquin when i want to thin down paint.

DGehman said...

Doh. I even watched you do that (thin with Liquin, that is). But I thought it was just during the underpainting phase.

Have a devil's own time with Lukas Berlin (water-mixable) Medium #3. Talk about fast dry! It thins for 10 minutes at most, then the paint pile begins to turn as stiff as a 40-year-old W&N tube of paint! Dry to the touch in a couple of hours, only a little slower than acrylics.

mike rooney studios said...

dave- sounds like my kinda medium! the faster the better.

DGehman said...

Since in the water-mixable Berlin line, Lukas is trying to emulate everything about their traditional oils, you might want to look at regular Medium #3.

Maybe it has the same snap-dry characteristics.

I don't think you could use the Berlin Medium #3 since it's water-based. I found out it dries like an acrylic because it IS an acrylic dispersion. Clever, these Krauts.

But I'm thinking the Berlin 3 is mainly useful for underpainting. Too much hassle for me to manage, when a pile of paint changes its brushing characteristics over the period of a few minutes... from the butter-smooth Lukas touch to something like half-dried Alene's Super Tack glue. Although at that point, it goes on beautifully with a painting knife.

mike rooney studios said...

dave-i'll never "cheat" on my Liquin!