Wednesday, August 19, 2009

EXCITED

And I may have to change the title of my blog!!!

I was getting a bit jealous looking at other's art work - as in paintings.

This has been my dream ever since I was very young, to be an artist. I studied drawing and painting for 4 years in college, then a year or so after that I got sick.

Then, I got a little better and tried painting again. Painting made me sick, I would wake up the next day feeling like I had the worst hangover, and my eyes would usually be swollen almost shut and even my face would be very puffy - not a pretty sight!

and I cried, a lot!

Then, the other day, I just had to break out the oil paints, along with a painting I started about 8 years ago!
I painted about 2 hours on Sunday - and I didn't feel sick, my face didn't get all puffy - and I woke up Monday without feeling like I drank a whole bottle of whisky the night before!

Painted on it for about 1 hour on Monday, not bad.
worked on another one - the very 1st layer so that was with a lot of paint thinner - I could tell that was getting to me after about 1/2 hr - so that will have to happen outside for now on I think - but - again I woke up the next day without the icky side effects! although I did sleep a lot on tuesday.
I did have the window wide open and the air cleaner going right next to my palette. For a while, I had another fan going blowing the fumes away from me, but that was blowing cat fur onto the painting, so I turned that off. :) No paint thinner during the painting sessions, just wiped my brushes as clean as possible in between colors if need be and go on!

I'm also pretty happy about the way the picture came out, as the paint is really shiny due to the painting medium I'm using. It may take a while to get it finished as I'm still a bit hesitant to paint for more than a couple of hours at a time, and besides, the back doesn't really allow me to paint longer than that anyway.

So, with much delight, I give you the beginning stages of
"Amaryllis" a 24" x 30" original oil painting on artist board.






6 comments:

Unknown said...

I'm excited for you! just go slow, take it easy and enjoy!
If we come across any low-toxic oilpaint paraphinalia, I let you know about it.
BTW -Eric won't take responsibilty for you painting again *grin* he didn't know I posted his paintings for like a week! He blames me!
I'm glad your inspired! it makes you happy!

Unknown said...

Hi Heather -
I am taking it slow - taking a few days off from painting - just to not overload the system! About the only thing that is non-toxic in the way of "oil" paints are the water based ones - just haven't heard great things about them tho. There is a mask I may look into.
Thanks for visiting!!!

Christine Burgess said...

What a wonderful painting. I hope you will be able to continue because it would be a shame not to use your talent. There must be some kind of mask you can get.

Unknown said...

Hi Chris:

For now as long as I stay away from paint thinner I do pretty good - but - a mask may help - especially if I want to paint when it's cold! We shall see! It's sort of like a mystery!!! So glad you stopped by and left such a nice comment! Thanks!!!!:)

Creations by Marie Antoinette and Edie Marie said...

O h my,I think its beautiful!!!I think as long as you don't get into the fumes to much and only paint a little at a time,you'll do Ok.But I do think you should continue.You are a talented artist.There is all kinds of new paints and thinners out there.I'm just so excited for you, and happy to boot.XXOO Marie Antionette

Unknown said...

Ah Toni Marie
You are always so kind! Thank you for such sweet comments. Please forgive my delay - family in town the past few days - the left today (sniff sniff) - but the good thing is they will now be less than 400 miles away instead of 1800 miles away!
Haven't painted in over a week - and ready to do some more after catching up on some other things.