Lego Minifigures 37: Snowboarder

Another figure with a board. No doubt there may be a sequel to this painting - but in the meantime, here he is, whooshing down paper mountain (I decided that my usual white tile was too shiny, albeit the right colour. Fortunately, there is always plenty of paper here at Artist Towers, so - with a little bit of support from a box of drawing pins and a turn of the canvas - one sheet of very lightweight card became a snowy slope...)

Acrylic on canvas, 7 x 7 cm

Lego Minifigures 36: Skateboarder (2)

Here's the reason that Lego 34's title had a (1) appended to it. My son - who owns this minifigure - wanted me to paint it twice; once on the board, once holding it. Judging from the big cheesey grin on the minifigure's face, I'm guessing that he's just done some smooth stunt on that board of his.

Acrylic on canvas, 7 x 7 cm.

Oil on Paper

There are a number of old paintings that I've included here that are oil on paper. I don't really know what happens if you try to apply oils to cartridge paper (the artist's standard paper), because I haven't tried it, but I can't imagine that it would work very well.

The paintings you'll see here were done on a special paper, sold for the purposes of oil painting. It has a texture that mimics canvas and a waxy sort of finish that, no doubt, equates to the priming on the canvas. The paper is cheaper than canvas, and takes up less space than a stretched canvas would do, or even a board, but paintings on it are a bit of a pain to frame. I'd say that it's a good choice for sketches and for getting used to the medium, less so for anything you're thinking of in a more permanent vein. Also, if you're taking it out somewhere, you'll need a board to put it on, so it doesn't save any weight or space on the expedition!

About framing. I have had one of my oil-on-papers framed. It was done commercially, and the framers had a process by which they bound it to a board before applying the frame itself. If I remember correctly, it was a heat-adhesive process; some of the impasto was 'lost' (squashed, I think), so I think they must have used some sort of press.

Some examples of oil-on-paper works already posted:

Vegetable Chilli

This was painted on a black ground, using a knife. I deliberately left a few black outlines around the vegetables to delineate them and to emphasise the bright colours. Now, this painting is over ten years old, but I distinctly remember cooking the subject for tea that day. I do enjoy a good veggie chilli.


Oil on paper, 20/11/01
cropped from 16 x 12" paper

Godrevy Lighthouse, Cornwall, New Years' Day 2012

No, I didn't sit on Gwithian beach and paint this on New Years' Day (it would have been too cold!). I sat in our dining room and painted it today, from one of a series of photographs that I took on New Years' Day.

It's a long time since I painted from a photograph. It's not something that I usually like to do, but the sea presents a few challenges without the aid of a camera (not least it being quite a long way to go; even the closest bit of coast is too far to give a reasonable amount of painting time during a school day), as did the weather that day. The photograph was a 12MP digital image that I printed out at A4 size. I also printed a couple of the other shots at a smaller size, but I didn't really refer to them.

New Years' Day this year was dull in Cornwall, and my photograph was very nearly monochrome, so I deliberately brightened the image up with blues and greens - and a hint of rose madder. No point being too slavish to a photograph. I do think that I should have worked bigger; this was a large subject for the size of board that I chose, particularly as I applied the paint with a knife.

Edit: See also: Godrevy Lighthouse, Cornwall, New Years' Day 2012 - bigger version


Oil on board, 12 x 10"
The board is a commercially prepared canvas board.
SOLD

Lego Minifigures 35: Space Girl

This is one determined lady. And she's wearing silver lipstick - not to mention that pink space suit (she was meant to be holding the helmet, but it didn't quite work). I took an artistic liberty with her weapon; in reality, it's a long, blue, transparent cylinder that sticks in the end of the space gun. But when it came to painting it, I thought it would be much more fun to give it the laser gun treatment beloved of sci-fi film makers. I added a suitable reflection on the shiny floor, too.

Lego Minifigures 34: Skateboarder (1)

This cool dude isn't wearing any protective gear, as my son (clever boy) noted. But I still like him. You might notice that his skateboard has fallen off the edge of the canvas...

Lego Minifigures 33: Clockwork Robot

 

I love the clockwork key on the back of this figure. Of course, it doesn't actually wind the robot up, but it looks good! Incidentally, I was wrong about my son's Romans project; it turns out that they are actually doing electricity and robots (!) first.

Acrylic on canvas, 7 x 7 cm.

Lego Minifigures 32: Roman Soldier

My son's class are doing a project on Romans this term, so this little figure turned up at just the right time...

Acrylic on canvas, 7 x 7 cm
SOLD