March 15th 2010

I decided recently to experiment with oils again. It's been years since I last used them.

One day I went down to the art store in our neighbourhood and picked out a tube of black paint and a tube of white paint, a couple of brushes and some stretchers, and came home to make some frames. I dug out some beautiful white linen that I've been saving to make tea towels out of and cut two pieces to size for the two new stretchers I'd made. I gessoed them and left them to dry over night. The next day I found an old photo that I thought would make a simple sketch and set to work. I've gone back to it a couple of times when the layers were dry. It's been floating around my desk for a couple of weeks now, and I finally decided to leave it and move on to the next.

This is a small painting, (only 8" x 10"), and the other will be 12" x 16". I'll be setting to work on a project really soon and wanted to make sure that I feel comfortable working with this medium again. It's very different from what I'm used to working in, but I love to give myself a good challenge!