Moving Through Media

Someone said to me today, “It doesn’t seem to matter what media you choose, Gwen, it is always your thing.”

That caught me off-guard. I have spent the better part of a year now embracing oil paint. It has been extremely different than any of the media I have used so far. Somewhere in my childhood, I recall using a small set of oil paints and when I daydream about it, I can even smell the linseed oil. Oil Paint and its supplementary cleaners and thinners have come a long way. No longer do they have to be so volatile and odorous. That makes things simpler.

It doesn’t, however, make things any easier when it comes to learning how to best use oil colour. A lot of the tips and tricks (or rules - depending on how you look at it) that I have gathered with acrylic paints do not apply to oils. I had come to rely on the erasing quality of white paint with acrylics. Make a mistake? Simply white it out immediately, make a coffee and return to start again. You don’t do that with oils. They just get muddy and slimy looking. So, in order to keep the colours rich and true, which is - let’s face it - the whole reason you switch to oil paint in the first place, you have to learn specific techniques on how to lay the paint correctly on the canvas.

I have struggled with it, then found my niche, then struggled with it again. Just when you think you have it all figured out, nothing works the way you had planned and you have to stop, let the painting dry for a week or so, and come back to it with a plan and a fresh mind.

It has been good for me in many ways. I am a quick painter and I love to move through a painting and solve the issues and the problems, moving the work from the ‘ugly’ stage through to the ‘not bad’ segment, and finally through to the ‘wow, that worked out well’ peak in one sitting. Oil paint won’t let me do this. Everything is slower and more methodical.

I admit, sometimes I yearn for the days when I splashed paint on the canvas and would lose my thoughts completely, while something exciting emerged in no time, seemingly on its own from the paint.

But life is not like that and especially the years past middle age. You have to slow down, move more carefully, be purposeful and calm. And with that comes power, faith in yourself, and in your art practice.

Always and ever, my art practice weaves itself through my life and teaches me more than just how to cover a canvas with pretty stuff. It teaches me how to live well, and that is such a gift!