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The Magnolia tree bloomed & I caught it that evening, as I stood on the sidewalk, with my giant stretched linen canvas resting its crossbars on the construction cone's flat top...I stood & sketched each bloom in oil pastel...Later, moving to a private garden, where I began laying down memory with walnut oil paint & painting knife, allowing my mind to drift a little so a happy accident might occur...Can you see the Husky Puppy named Sky eating the Amaryllis flower in the foreground?

  He was in my arms as he leaned forward to munch on the floral delight...Sky works at Toose Art Supply if you are hankering to pat a friendly dog today...

 
 

My way of painting: Start with Plein Air...Oil pastels...Later use a knife & oils...Eco-dammar after 6 monthsI take a prepped linen canvas, already stretched...I like to prep with Liquitex clear gesso...Clear interferes less with colours...3 coats...Then I bring along good oil pastels, Sennelier is nice...Lay your sketch down in oil pastels-you can use different colours (buy the big box)...Then later, in oils & knife(outside in a garden with sunlight), I lay down colour in paint...What this does is it separates the image ever so slightly from reality-your colour memory will be different than true...This liberates the subject a bit, so it is not quite real...It allows for some imagination to come through...The marriage of real & imagined is my hybrid style...Ya I'm totally into making things easier but still classy...if you learn to paint with a knife you don't need solvents at all, plus you save huge because brushes are pricy... (Also animal hair brushes have politics attached to them-depending on country & animal, so you get to feel self-righteous about the knife too)...With the oil pastels you can lay down a really fresh well done sketch with your colour choices...Later, you can use oils with a knife (try this), & instead of using a palette that gets filled up with paint (messy & wasteful), just lay down your oils straight from the tube onto your pastel lines, all colours down first, then you can smush them in with the knife, which gives a wonderful marbly blend in places where colours touch & mingle...Then you get a thick painting with lots of texture...Ok the waiting to dry is way longer, but you get a total masterpiece...You can photograph it fresh & post it on your Facebook or website & by the time it sells (maybe 6 months later), or goes to a show, you can lay on a coat of eco-dammar varnish...(I smear my eco-dammar on with disposable surgical gloves...Mine is from Eco-House.com)...I don't use solvents, or turpentines at all...How to paint my way...by Sari Grove

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