An earlier pastel painting I still have, pinned to the wall of my studio.
Another problem besides gooey paint was getting the hang of a brush. Then, what sort of brush, at that? There’s round ones, flats, brights, filberts, long handles, short handles, soft, bristle, synthetic, hog hair, and probably others.
Surfaces vary tremendously. Canvas, Gessobord, linen, oil primed, raw, stretched, un-stretched, paper and even sandpaper. We haven’t even gotten to the paint yet. Although it seems to me that the variation in paint is smaller than the other materials.
I remember well the first day out plein air painting with oil, in August of 2003. After a summer of four-days-a-week painting outside in pastel, that first day with oil was pretty rocky!
Two things come to mind about that day. I was shocked and dismayed at how much my painting looked like one, hanging in my childhood home, that my grandfather had painted in China. I had never really liked it. It wasn’t in the flourishing bold style I admired.
The other thing is that as I was painting and dipping my brush in the solvent it was amazing how sticky that solvent was! So weird. Keeping at it through the whole painting dealing with sticky solvent and then surveying the disappointing results of my hard work made for a discouraging first day. When I got home I realized the solvent wasn't solvent at all. It was varnish! It's a wonder I didn’t scrap the whole thing and go back to pastels.
Being pretty gung-ho I submitted oil paintings to shows. Soon rejection letters began to pile up. Uh-oh. It was discouraging and I was struggling. But I couldn’t give up oil, it must be in my blood. You just keep on working at it and maybe stay away from the submitting to the national shows.
Back in the day, when I used pastels exclusively I found it easy to get into national shows. I was a signature member of the Pastel Society of America, and other pastel organizations. Awards were won. I was gaining notoriety. When I switched to oils all that had changed.
Over the following years, I slowly progressed with oils, always enjoying the process but seldom happy with the results. After about ten years of struggle I decided to "master" oils before picking up a pastel again.
I needed help.
Swallowing my pride, I sought help from a painter in Fort Collins whom I admired. Traveling once a month for a lesson gave me a better understanding of color, which was the main problem in my opinion. How the heck do you get the background to stay back and the foreground to come forward and make it all look sunny? Things like that.
Things went well and painting became easier and more fun. Staying away from national shows I was juried into other shows. A few more years went by and things were going smoothly. Painting was fun and successful.
