It’s been about six weeks since I last blogged, but who’s counting? I am, apparently.

I’ve had plenty ideas for blogging, but I couldn’t let myself. I had to finish my literature essay and write a research plan for a grant application, and when I’m on a mission, there’s little room for anything else as creative.

Don’t get me wrong, I have been crocheting and knitting and painting too! Just not taking photos nor blogging about it. This may come as a huge surprise, I mean it really is an absurd idea — but I do have a life outside blogging.

I’m truly enjoying my painting classes on Friday beforenoons.* I’ve learned a great deal about techniques and equipment. The teacher is Tuomo Rosenlund, whose paintings I saw last year in a summer exhibition that I blogged about. He’s pretty good at giving tips and evaluating works. He takes rounds around the class, stopping by each of us and giving advice. He’s not hyperdogmatic, which is good. It’s more about intuition and his knowledge from experience about what works and what doesn’t.

(My first draft of Amoena, trying to decide which colours to use. It looks nothing like her.

You don’t have to click to make it larger! I did it for you!)

I’m a little special among the people there because I use water-soluble oil colours. Tuomo didn’t actually know anything about them beforehand, so he asked me to find instructions and print them out so he could take a look at them and instruct me! I was amused by that but obeyed anyway. Based on my google-research on water-soluble oils, he concluded that water-soluble oil colours are basically the same as traditional oils, except you can thin the paint with water (and not turpentine) and wash the brushes with water and soap too.

There are similarities as well: both traditional and water-solubles can be thinned with a painting medium, you just have to buy the right kind in the store. I’d never even heard of painting medium! It’s usually a mix of linseed oil and turpentine, sometimes also resin to speed up the drying process. Fascinating, innit? The painting medium seems to make the paint more transparent, I don’t quite have a handle on it yet so I’m being careful with it. I prefer thick coats of paint in any case, which is a problem, I know.

Which brings me to the next thing I learned. You can use acrylic paint on the bottom first! The pigment in acrylics isn’t as rich and versatile as in oils, but it dries almost immediately. That means that you can make a quick sketch and continue more carefully, taking your time, because it’s dry and won’t mix with new layers of paint. I have some starter’s kit of acrylics somewhere, and I plan to use them for my next painting at the sketching stage. Water-soluble can dry in a week (between classes), but not if the paint is pasted too thick.

(And I did it again! This is my monochrome version of Amoena.

It was the first assignment, with the purpose of familiarizing ourselves with light and darkness with only one colour.

It looks a little bit like her.)

Another thing I learned: if you want to draw a very careful draft of your work before you start painting, you should use charcoal, not pencils. Regular pencils will show from underneath thin coats of paint, and bright colours like yellow and white. I actually knew that before from experience, but I didn’t know that charcoal could be covered with even lighter colours. What’s more, you can even refine the lines with charcoal again after you’ve started painting, as long as the paint is dry! That’s very useful. It’s frustrating when you make a wonderful draft on a blank canvas, then lose all that work when paint covers all those little details that took so long to get right.

With these tips and the special time dedicated to painting and nothing else, I’ve already finished Amoena‘s portrait and finished another painting the last time. I will post the portrait when I get it from the workers’ education centre and get hold of a my parents’ camera. (I really need my own some day..) It turned out pretty good I think, not very grotesque, but at least it looks like her. The other painting has two floating heads, modelled after a private person and Noomi Rapace. Next I’d like to try painting some building and a portrait of Dichen Lachman, from the Dollhouse.

I’m not entirely sure how that’s going to work out, especially since I’ve never really painted buildings before. I bought masking tape so I could make straight lines. Other than that, I simply don’t know how to approach the subject. I’m definitely not going to paint anything with a vanishing point, or god forbid several.

All in all, I’m really glad I took that class! If I hadn’t, I probably wouldn’t have painted at all during all this time because I’m always supposed to be doing something more worthwhile. I hope one day I can take another class as unemployed so I get 50% off the fee!

*beforenoons was still used in the 19th century I believe. Why would people stop using such a useful expression?