I went ahead with my demo on Thursday in 100 degree heat. I want to thank everyone who came out to watch me paint Scott, Barbara, Pauline, Matt and Charlie and everyone else. We had about ten brave souls who stuck it out and I appreciate it.
Thanks to Mat and Pauline for the process shots. As I’ve said before I can demo and talk or I can demo and take pictures but its really hard for me to demo, talk and take pictures too.
The size of the painting was 18×24 and the painting time was a little over 2 hours.
Nice painting Armand…thats pretty large for just two hours. I paint outdoors often and find when the temp exceeds 100 and the humidity is low the paint sinks into the support within minutes and the consistency of the oil paint thins to the point where it is difficult to get thick, opaque coverage. Have you encountered this and have you any solutions? I suspect there is a molecular change happening.
Cheers,
Scott
Fort Collins, CO
Scott,
I have experienced that, in the Sonoran desert where temps can get way above 100 and there is very little moisture. What I do is lay down a thin wash of mineral spirits onto the canvas first. It preps the canvas enough to prevent later layers from soaking in too much. On really bad situations you can add a little linseed to the MS mixture for really dry conditions and then make sure you don't violate the fat over lean rule by making all subsequent layers have more oil in them.
Thanks Armand, I'll give it a try!
This is incredibly helpful to understand the plein air/alla prima process! I think I get it. But I'm bookmarking this page, to be sure. 🙂 Also, it's beautiful work!