dilemma...

A few months ago, like I mentioned in my last post, I started working with water soluble oil colours. I've now completed one painting with these new paints, almost finished with a second - and struggling with a third.

Apart from the smell these oil colours have the same properties of regular oil paints - easy to make smooth transitions between shades, a nice fluency, and it takes longer to dry; you can leave it for hours and continue to manipulate the colours without adding new paint.

However, the last few weeks I've wondered if the last point on the list is actually a good thing. The problem seems to be that the paint not only takes long to dry, it seems to not dry AT ALL. The painting I've finished was up on the wall to dry for weeks and when I took it down to wrap it in plastic and put it away, it was still not dry in places. The plastic glued itself to the painted surface like a magnet. It should be said that this particular painting is made up of half regular canvas surface and half textured (sand texture gel, plus modeling paste, both fine and coarse...) surface, and to get the oil paint to cover this grained surface completely I had to add unbelievable amounts of liquid paint medium. I suppose that could be the source of the problem.

On the other hand, should I refrain from using the liquid medium the paint still seems all but impossible to work with - dry, sticky and greasy at the same time, thick and unruly. So while in theory it's a good thing to experiment with new paints I feel slightly depressed and demotivated. One thing is to experiment - which I have always defined as a completely free, unafraid and enthusiastic approach to the work and not so much result oriented - but right now I feel like I'm just trying to do the same thing with oils as I did with acrylic and it's not working. I feel like I'm not doing anything productive or worthwhile at the moment, and at the same time the semester just started and I'm about to dive head first into a seething pool of heavy art theory.

Ultimately, I think I'm getting to a crisis of combining theory and practice - art theory/history teaches that there's a certain way to think about and practice art today (paradoxically they always seem to say that contemporary art history have several approaches and viewpoints, while on the other hand certain perspectives always seem dominant. Like the fact that aesthetic qualities are less important than relational and societal qualities, or in general a downplaying of the "aesthetic experience" which I find it hard to come to terms with), and when I see that I don't match that system in my so-called artistic practice, I get depressed.

So there you have it. I'm thinking of going back to acrylic paints for a while just to get some creativity and joy for the work back, at the same time I have some text ideas that might come into fruition.
Any advice will be appreciated.

New year's resolutions...

I think I promise myself twice every year that I will be a more active blogger. Not that it helps - I'm either too busy with studies or feel like whatever is going on in my life (related to art or not) is not interesting enough. However this year I WILL make an effort to update this blog more often.

I'll start with a recap of what's been going on since last time I wrote (which I see is April. Oh dear..)

-I never finished the Caravaggio-copying-test project, however it was fun while it lasted.

-I took a class covering art from the baroque to the present and got a B, in addition to getting a B in psychology

-I was part of a 3 day exhibition at CC Vest shopping center (photo below), it was a disaster in one way and a personal victory in another.


-I've temporarily switched the acrylic paints for a new type of water soluble oil paint that doesn't smell like regular oil paint but has all the other positive qualities. I'm currently working on (or have soon finished) two paintings with this new paint, for process photos see this facebook album.

-I've signed up for two art history classes (theories and methods of art history, art from 1950-2000) as well as social/personality psychology, and lectures will start next week

And as always I'm just trying to figure out the balancing act between painting and academic studies.. unfortunately it seems that the theory based studying makes it increasingly difficult to concentrate on the theory behind painting. Like deciding what to do next, defining what I'm actually doing. As mentioned above, lectures haven't started yet but I have already bought all the books and started reading (one of the classes requires the students to read a whole book in addition to several essays before the first lecture, and I realised that one of the theory & method books seems instrumental in understanding the essays in the other class.

And I'm rambling again, which is what I usually do, so everything's back to normal. I'll keep you posted.

Promise.