Oil Painting – Daily Object Writing – Apr 19 - Paul J Penton

Oil Painting – Daily Object Writing – Apr 19

Apr 18th, 2010 | By admin | Category: Uncategorized

Like a God you bring into being another world as seen through your own eyes. It might be on a canvas in a studio or out somewhere in a field or the bush. A blank canvas has rough sketch marks laced into its skin and the broad swathes of sediment are deployed, that will lie beneath the swirls of the suface. Perhaps in some Van Gough inspired moment of madness you might see the light in a certain way or patterns and shapes. With hairpin turns of the spatula you begin to shape and mold the drying paint like clay, like putty. The picture begins to form. Maybe it’s a still life, a bunch of slightly off fruit in a bowl filling the kitchen with a tangy aroma, or perhaps it’s a photograph of a relative you want to try to capture.

Light and shade is constructed to fool the eye, while gobs of oil permeate skin, the smell of the linseed and the turpentine prevade the air, the brushes become a magic wand swished around the canvas and to a casual observer magic is happening, but to the artist in their one eyed drive to fulfill their vision it’s not good enough, only worthy of throwing away. But finger tips continue squeezing the tin foil capsules and worms of colour keep appearing, catehrine wheels of colour explode in the mind of the artist as they meld together.

Stepping back, the picture is formed. A few more whispers of the spatula and it’s complete. You might need to go to art school to under stand its Picasso irregularities, or to appreciate its Vermeer lightness or delight in its Van Gogh perspectives, but it’s done. Hands are wiped on a rag then washed with oily solvent, some pigments resist and are imbued into the skin. The paint on the canvas now simmering and dissolving into itself to add another layer of magic over time. Though it looks still and finished the process still continues beneath the surface and beneath the surface of the artists mind questions remain, is this finished? Could I have done X, Y Or Z differently? But that’s for another painting.

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