I started the art day with a twenty minute timed sketch, and this is feeling good as a way to start the day. I’m probably going to use that practise as a first sketch for my 100 Day one hour portraits, it’s a good way to get a feel for the shapes before starting with the oil paint. I’m not invested in the goodness or badness of these sketches, they are a way to get my hand moving and my eye/brain looking.
I reset the timer for one hour, and painted my little portrait.
I enjoyed this one a lot more than yesterday’s effort, and got a lot more out of the exercise. Yesterday I tried out a blend of safflower oil, OMS and Liquin as a medium to loosen the oils, and I didn’t enjoy that. The Liquin stinks, and I don’t know if that’s because it’s a bit old, or because I’m a bit old, but I don’t remember it being so strong.
Anyway, today I just used a very tiny bit of Gamsol, and that didn’t make my brain want to explode, so that was a win from the start. That isn’t an excuse for my weird painting mood, yesterday, tho, that mood was entirely the work of my inner critic.
I tried to pace myself so that I had the paper covered by the half-way mark, and I almost managed. I’m really enjoying the timer, and finding it stops me from overthinking, and also encourages me to use my brush with much more intent.
I started out with some blobs of leftover paint from cleaning down my palette yesterday, and used a limited palette of cad red, yellow ochre, ultramarine, and burnt umber.
The image reference is from Pexels, by Alehandro Cavalcante.
I did some other bits and bobs, mostly in my sketchbook, and all in all it was a good painting day.
Til the morn,
Suzanne
373/400
Thrummie Bizzum 
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