Slipped and Fell In Love with Oil

I HATE TO WAIT FOR PAINT TO DRY! In the past, I always shied away from painting with oils in lieu of faster drying water based mediums like acrylic paints and all the fabulous water soluble products on the market today like Gelato's (from craft stores) and InkTense blocks or NeoColor II wax crayons (from art supply stores). Since I like to heavily layer my work, to me painting with oil was excruciating as I set my work aside for sometimes weeks before the paintings were dry enough to work over.

Well! In come Gamblin Paint Co's FastMatte fast drying oil paints...

My Gamblin FastMatte Oil Paints stash!

These beautifully pigmented oil paints contain just enough alkyd resin to dry for the most part overnight, or when I use them more thickly, then in 2-3 days. I always like to attack my canvas or wood boards with color by making an underpainting (giving me a running start to my artworks) and the FastMatte paints do the trick to move me forward with my paintings lickety split.

Some of my FastMatte oil underpaintings on canvas pads.

Plus, the FastMatte paint is tacky enough when freshly applied to the work surface to take one of my favorite mixed media items, transfer foil! Been luvin' on the Pebeo Mirror Foil lately. Here is one of my recent paintings, "Mangoes", made with all Gamblin FastMatte paints and mirror foil. The background was already dry when I painted the mangoes and leaves on a Monday...and submitted the dry painting to a show that same week Saturday!

'Mangoes', Oil Paint on Wood Panel, 12in x 12in, 2014

Gamblin also has deliciously smooth oil painting mediums which help to speed drying time that I have been experimenting with this year. Because I'm a "texture" girl, my favorites are Galkyd Gel (they like to call it G-Gel) and Cold Wax Medium. The G-Gel gives a smooth, somewhat shiny, textured surface finish and the Cold Wax Medium gives a stiffer matte finish, both of which cause the oil paints to dry faster than oil paint alone and still maintain a robust final paint film. 

Now I feel EMPOWERED to PAINT IN OIL and use the luscious tube oil paints and R&F Oil Pigment Sticks that have been hanging 'round my studio calling out my name!

Check out your local art supply store or online for Gamblin FastMatte oil paints and oil mediums. And, leave a message below if you would like a private or group lesson in Fast Painting with Oils!

HAPPY  ARTING!  Tristina :D

Creating on the Fly

Hello! I have been away with my actress daughter in Los Angeles for the past several weeks... Here's a drawing of the beautiful sunset over California we saw as we were flying in - the colors were just too beautiful to pass up:

I took along my artists travel kit complete with drawing/painting pad, Inktense watersoluble pencils, charcoal pencils, graphite, Pentel india ink brush pen, scissors, watercolor postcard pad and my latest Somerset Studio magazine for inspiration. Well, the whole trip was such a whirlwind...I felt I was hardly able to read or make anything! Now that I'm back in Florida looking over what I did draw, I scanned into my computer the one other colorful picture I did and put the free Google program Picasa to work on it; here are the interesting results:

Original picture from my notebook using the Pentel india ink brush pen and Inktense pensils with a brush & water.

Now, here are the variations from the Picasa program...

 Infrared Film

 HDR-ish

 Invert

Heat Map

 Heat Map

 Duo-Tone

Gotta say, I love them all! And more variations are possible just by adjusting the sliders on the different styles in Picasa, like you see on the Heat Map above.

Please comment with any favorite photo editing programs and styles you use. :)

Happy Drawing and Editing!  Tristina

Inspiration From Latest Magazines

Been gaining inspiration from the May issues of Somerset Studio and Cloth Paper Scissors Magazines. Below is a sketch done this morning from my breakfast Pomegranate using Inktense watersoluable pencils and Caran D'Nache watersoluable oil crayons. This idea came from an article I read yesterday in the latest Cloth Paper Scissors to just draw the mundane things you see each day, with no worry as to whether the drawing is "good"...it just doesn't matter because it is in your journal for you!

Next, I have been doodling over the past 2 weeks in my journal as I read the latest Somerset Studio and their Art Journaling magazines. I am really interested in the human face...so practice a lot of faces from both sketches I see in the magazines and pictures of real people. I especially like the flower and circle doodle border on this one. I'm getting into the whole birdcage thing, too!

What is it that gets you inspired to paint or draw? Where/How do you find your subjects?

Thanks for sharing you comments and Happy Drawing!  Tristina :D