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Jul on 18 April 2011 |
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Rovinj harbor, oil on canvas board, 15 x 15 cm, ©2011 Julie Galante. [SOLD]
Recently I’ve been starting to use other people’s photographs as the inspiration for some of my paintings. I’m trying to get a feel for whether I’d enjoy painting cityscapes on commission, so I asked a few friends to provide me with some of their favorite photos from their hometown or a fondly-remembered vacation.
Working with these photographs (and my pretend clients) has been a valuable experience. I’m learning how to explain to others what makes for a good painting photo and what doesn’t, something I had never bothered trying to articulate before. Eventually I’ll put together the key points in a guide for potential commission customers. I have something similar for my clients about portrait commissions already, and it is very useful in helping me get good reference photos even when I’m not able to take them myself.
This painting is based on a photo from my friends the Regensbloggers. I happened to be with them on the trip when this photo was taken, so at least getting a feel for the place was easy enough.
Do you paint commissions?
2 comments Tags: cityscape, commissions, Croatia, daily painting, oils, painting
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Jul on 4 August 2010 |
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Rovinj, 24 x 18 cm, acrylic on panel.
I love medieval cities, especially the parts where the buildings are chaotic mixes of construction and decay from various centuries. I am constantly in awe of how beautiful they manage to be. I mean, how is it that people 600 years ago could create buildings that could age into something this charming, while my culture’s predominant architectural calling card is the strip mall?
These days I have been experimenting with ways of capturing the layers of walls, arches, and brickwork that one sees when wandering the narrow, cobblestone streets of a medieval European town. The panting above is a scene from our recent trip to Rovinj, Croatia (from last week before I switched to oils). Below is a painting of a building I photographed in Assisi, Italy, at the beginning of the year. I’m considering doing a larger (and more colorful) version of this one.
Assisi, 24 x 18 cm, oil on canvas
Tags: acrylic, cityscape, Croatia, daily painting, Italy, oils, painting
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Jul on 29 July 2010 |
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Lovran, Croatia, 18 x 24 cm, oil on panel
Overall most of my painting experience is with oils, but for the past five years acrylics have been my main medium. I love both types of paint, really – the crisp vivid colors of acrylic, the smooshiness of oil – but my primary reason for choosing acrylics so often recently is due to my painting set-up. My studio is a room in our apartment. Oil mediums and thinners, even those that claim to be odor-free, stink. While personally I don’t mind the smell (like it, even), it seemed that having our apartment reek like an art department would be a bit ridiculous.
I’ve played around a bit with water-mixable oils over the years, and generally I’ve liked them, but they are not well-stocked at any of the art stores I frequent, which I think is why I find myself going back to acrylics again and again. But I still find myself longing for oils.
So, I’ve decided to stop thinking about whether it’s feasible to paint with oils in a home studio, and just try it out. This week I packed my acrylic paints up and made room for the oils. My first attempts out the gate are a little shaky (see the little Lovran painting in this post), since I’m not quite used to the medium any more, but I’m figuring it out. Hopefully I’ll have some decent work to show you over the coming days.
What medium do you use for painting most often, and why?
2 comments Tags: Croatia, daily painting, oils, painting
