I've come up with a new project for myself. In my house, the stairwell is open, so it faces the family room. My mother's been thinking it is rather blank, so she wanted to buy a bunch of stuff to cover it up and make it pretty. AS it turns out, our dishwasher broke and we had to get a new one, so the stairwell beautification kind of took a backseat. Lucky for her, I can paint! :D (kind of...). So she's given me the go-ahead to make a painting series and hang them up on the wall. Half of them will be framed pictures, and half will be canvases. I'm thinking landscapes, because I'm painting with oil pastels. I'm not too good with doing detailed art with those, so it's basically a given that I won't do anything more detailed than a tree or flower. I may do a couple still-life's of objects around the house or paint some patterns. The first one I made in the series is a painting of a seashore at midday. Originally, I was thinking of doing it at nighttime, or sunset, but I ended up not doing it. The painting turned out alright though. I did it on a little 4x4 canvas, with my first ever set of pastels. (What an amateur -_- ) My skills are definitely not far enough yet to paint an ocean sunset. I've actually never used pastels, so it was kind of cool to test out the new medium. Especially since it's so different than what I've used before. Like pencils, or watercolors. I may buy a water soluble set to make watercolor-ish paints with, as I've heard the oil pastel with water can get a pretty neat effect if done the right way. Below I've written out everything useful I learned about oil pastels.
-Blending works best for me with a finger
-I can also blend with q-tips, for a "worn out" effect.
-Pastels can be layered light over dark (yay!! :D)
-Shadows still follow the color-theory patterns (expected, but uncertain)
-Colors look best when they stay in their respective groups.
(Primary, Secondary, Tertiary, black & white)
-There is little to trick the eye into seeing. Drawing subjects as-is is the best approach for me.
