I will very quickly start this blog off by saying that I started my career in art first with watercolor and markers drawing caricatures as Disney with an amazing team of artists, and I spent ten years roughly in that world and very infrequently thought about the idea of doing oil painting. Once attending an art show I was quickly inspired by the traditional fine arts, except, the oil paint side still made me fearful. That is a story for another time though.
In time I found oils and they found their oily way into my soul as many artists find. But before that I began my fine art career in the world of acrylics. They were fast. Dried in minutes, and I was certain I could quickly make them look just as good as oils. Well, after some pier pressure, which I give into quite easily, I decided instead of faking oils, it would be better just to do them.
Well after being at Quinns Hotsprings and thankfully having a few people come up and ask me a bit about my art, I realized I was missing something rather important and simple. Signage. So as soon as I got home, I grabbed my plein air box, spun it around and painted my social medias on it.
I used oil, and in my excitement I forgot to mix in liquin to speed up my drying time. But I figured hey give it a little bit, and then cover it with a fixative. The following day I touched it and it remained just as creamy as the day before. So, I decided to do something dangerous. I grabbed my odorless paint thinner, a few paper towels, and scrubbed the ever-living snot of all the oil paint and reached in to my old tote of acrylics and began repainting from scratch.
Well it didn’t mix well… dried a bit too fast, but it took the colors deeper. It felt richer, far more than I had expected! I was able to dry brush some shadow beneath the logos and pop it back out with a fresh clean white. Not only that, within 10 minutes I had it outside and sealed it all in with some fixative. The results spoke for themselves, and once again prove that there are no rules to art, and the types of materials you may find as “cheap” can quickly show their value in a moment.