01-27-2020, 02:38 AM
(01-20-2020, 04:37 AM)Tristan Berndt Wrote: I think your paint is a bit on the oily side. I know Speed suggests using oil and turpentine with the paint but in general, professional oil paints in the late 18, early 1900's were a lot stiffer than the commercial paints we have today. So when he says the paint in the tube is a bit stiff for free handling, that paint is much more stiff than a modern Winsor & Newton paint. Old holland is the only company I know of that prepares their colors traditionally stiff, but it does vary with age. Paints soften as they age, so paints companies that store tubes for a long time change in consistency as they age (I've noticed this with some of the colors I rarely use and have had for years). Winsor & Newton who Speed mentions also changed in quality (becoming softer) after being bought out by a bank years ago, they used to be the golden standard but have fallen a bit since then. If you like fluid painting, by all means keep doing it, but if you're trying to take advice from people like Speed, it's good to know how his paints are different from ours.
With the values, they seem to be kind of weird. Like, the difference between the highlights and light shape value is huge making the cast look like a shiny grey object when it's actually a matte white object. There are other value issues based on the photo. One example is when I squint at it, the half-tones on the side of the nose group more with the shadows than they do the light, in your painting they group with the light. This kind of stuff repeats all over the place where the big values are proportionally incorrect. Now this is based on a photo but considering how greyed out the painting is, I think it still may be a correct observation. The big values are important, they will be what communicate the big impression and overall sense of form and volume. Seems like you were more concerned with the details and it maybe distracted you from the big stuff? This can happen when you lock yourself into a "method" where you can't easily fix things. Like if you paint with one color at a time, you can't just mix up the right value and place it where it needs to be because you're following a process where it assumes you're not making mistakes.
Thanks for pointing out my mistakes Tristan. In regards to the paints being oily do you suggest that I use no medium at all? I find them to be a tad stiff out of the tube but if the paint doesn't need it I'll try it.
I didn't realise I was making mistakes in the groupings of my values, it looked correct when I mapping out the lights and darks but when I compare it to the photo it is definitely off. I'm definitely having some issue with assigning the vlaues correctly and grouping them. I didn't feel like I was getting distracted from the overall big forms as I was trying to stick to Speed's approach of working from the bigs to the smalls but maybe I did at the very end?
Would you suggest spending more time on these then? Say over a few days? I'm trying to stick to Speed's advice of completing the painting in one sitting which I have been with these but please say if I'm wring. :)