Wednesday, July 21, 2010

"Behind the Branches" --- Sold

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Thank you. So many friends have shared their tips of the second day painting. Most people use retouch varnish and Liquin. I was hesitant of doing so because my lighter paints were still pretty wet (like in the peaches area). Once, I had sprayed retouch varnish on wet paint, and it dissolved the paint. If you have a painting partially wet and partially dry, what do you do? Ah-ha! I think I know: you paint with quick dry paints the first day, and paint with slow dry paints the second day. Am I right? Another question: If you spray retouch varnish, the painting surface gets sticky. Do you paint on sticky surface?

I painted a small painting last night. I was really working on those branches. To get the texture correctly, it surely took me some time.

9 comments:

Daniel Monteiro said...

Hello, Qiang-Huang. I'm Daniel, from Lisbon, Portugal. If you want to work in a painting for more than a day, there's no other way but to use medium or retouching varnish (spray only a little from a distance of 30 or 40 cm). Or (the best solution), let it dry completely (wait 5 to 10 days; meanwhile you may start other paintings) and use a cloth or a sponge with medium (1 part linseed oil; 3 parts turpentine) and rub it gently on the whole picture, to obtain only a very thin film of medium covering the dryed paint. Now you can paint over it without any sticky problems.

carol morgan carmichael said...

This is another beauty!

Chris said...

Hi Qiang; I don't use spray retouch. I find it covers inconsistently. Best thing is to wait until it completely dries, then brush it on with a sable, very gently. wipe the brush and see if any paint is coming off on your towel. Also,retouch is not for painting over, it is only to bring out the color. If you want to paint over something, oil it up with linseed or walnut oil (not medium). Thanks for posting your amazing work...
Chris

Unknown said...

I use linseed stand oil thinned with mineral spirits as my medium as I paint. Usually it will dry overnight to touch but if there are some dry/matte patches I put a thin layer over the area to see my color again and continue on.

Beautiful painting!!
Rebecca

Ryan Mellody said...

Qiang, you seem to work fairly small, so you could just put your painting in a rubber storage box of some sort to keep it wet. You can also use Poppy or Stand Oil in your mixes to slow down your drying time. The retouch varnish has never worked well for me because of the tacky feeling . . . If a painting is completely dry, I will spray it with retouch, let it dry and then start painting again. Your best bet for a partially dry painting is to think ahead and try to slow the drying time down. If you do use medium a lot, Gamblin does make a slow drying medium for portrait artists called Galkyd Slow Dry, but if you use it, you should stay away from mixing it with any other additional oils or mediums, just a solvent like Mineral Spirits is about all you can use with it. Hope this helps.

Unknown said...

Amazing colour scheme , great composition and lovely light ,just to complete a beautiful piece of art.

Connie Nobbe said...

Qiang, this painting is absolutely beautiful!

I know you have been practicing leaves, but what have you learned? Are you doing them differently? Your leaves have always looked really good. Have you learned something that you can share with us?

Dusty Pines said...

gorgeous - the branches, the color of the apple with the background - lovely!

as chris said, putting a bit of walnut oil over the already-painted areas will help but you have to do it carefully if the paint is not completely dry. i've ended up not doing that on tacky or semi-dry paintings because i had trouble getting the balance right between enough oil to allow painting over sticky areas (or refreshing matte areas), and wiping out or diluting the previous paint! i have tried putting a thin layer of walnut oil over the whole surface of a completely dried painting to try to refresh matte areas, but the resulting sheen never came out uniform for me.

good luck!

Marilyn M. King said...

Love your leaf paintings, they get better and better if that is even possible with your brilliant work!

I place my paintings and palette in the freezer and the paint stays completely wet and no drying out at all. I paint small too but I can get a 12"x16" panel in my side by side and that is a pretty large size for me or I can put several small paintings together in there. I have left a painting for several days (3 or 4) before returning to it and it was still wet. If anyone has any info on long term effects of frozen paint please let me know, I haven't found any. I haven't had any problems with my panels either. I've used Ampersand gessoboard, stretch canvas, canvas panels- both cotton and linen with no ill affects.