Updates on new paintings

Hi all, I haven't posted recently as I have been busy painting in my studio. I have been working on several new paintings and am pretty excited about them. I recently did a new self portrait and have posted it in my gallery website here http://www.marilouoloughlin.com Just click on the Gallery button and go to Portraits and scroll down to the bottom and you will see what I look like in a painting. Sign my guest book and leave a comment if you like.
In this posting I will put in the floral painting I have recently been working on. Here it is ...
This is a smaller painting; about 8" x 8" on stretched canvas.
Also, just wanted to remind those artists who would like to contribute information to the other website http://www.oil-painting-for-beginners.com that I have set up a number of the websites pages so that other people can add new pages to the site to make it have more information and just grow and be a wealth of information to people who are interested in learning how to paint. You can add you website or blog under the Artist Directory and get another link to your site as well. If you have some good content you would like to share on the site, don't be shy, go ahead and enter it in the site. Eventually I would like to have it set up where people can go to their favourite artist contributor to the site and get updated with new information. I will be pretty busy the next few weeks with Christmas coming up and the new year stuff so will try to do the next post in early January. I wish you all a great Christmas and happy New Year. Keep painting, you will get better!

Still Life painting

I purchased a couple of Capsicum peppers or "bell peppers" in the shop recently and set them up under a lamp to give them some good lighting with shadows. I wanted to have some brilliant colours in this small piece (6"x8") size. I have found I do a much better job of painting when I can paint the "real" thing instead of using a photo. But I still use photos as reference material. I had to paint this small piece relatively in one short painting session as the peppers were starting to go "off" the next day as I noticed they were beginning to wrinkle and turn brown in areas. But I was pleased with the result and this is a nice cheery painting.
Also, for those artists who visit my other site http:www.oil-painting-for-beginners.com
I have decided to open the site for other artists to enter information to help keep the site informative and alive and growing. This will definently improve the site and give it more valuable information if I'm not the only artist entering information to help people learn. There are a number of pages that request information from viewers including the gallery menu button which I am opening up as a "Artist Directory" for other artists to have their website or blog links listed in that area. This will be good for the artists too as it will give them another link for their site to improve their traffic with. I am not the "end-all, be-all" authority to learning how to paint with oils and would like other artists to have their say about this topic whether it be what paints are the best to helping with critiquing new artists paintings. If you have any further suggestions on how the website could be improved please leave a comment or email me through the contact me button on the site. Hope everyone has a great Christmas! And happy New Year!

Series of small paintings

In South Australia we have just been going through spring season and I had some blue-violet irises blooming so I thought they would be a good subject to paint. I took a few different photos of the flowers and then began a small painting on stretched canvas. I thought the colours were unusual because they were different shades of blue turning to a majenta shade. I tried to capture this colour variation in the painting.
In the photograph the background colour was trees and tall grass and I thought these things were distracting to the main focus of the painting so I intentionally painted a plain dark background to enhance the bright colours of the flowers and bring out the brilliant colour contrasts. Sadly the flowers didn't bloom for long but now there is an image of the beautiful flowers that will. This small painting will be the first of a series of small paintings that I plan on creating. I have since painted another small still life painting which will be listed in the next post. Thanks for reading about the art.

News and updates on new paintings being added to the website

For this post I would like to write about when I add a new painting to my website in addition to giving information to new painters. The paintings will be listed in my website at the following address:
http://www.marilouoloughlin.com

I would like to write some comments about some of the paintings I am doing and thought this blog would be the ideal place to put the comments in. I will begin with a painting that I did awhile back called "Cow Shed" (above)
This painting was painted on location just outside the small town I live in South Australia. The cow shed was located off a dirt road. I was intrigued with this abandoned stone building that used to be a cow shed. I think the building must of been nearly 100 years old. I was interested in painting this because I thought it was very unique and unusual. These old abandoned buildings tell alot about the history of a place. I wanted to "capture" this bit of "time" on canvas before it disappeared forever. The view I was looking at was into the shed and there was a hole on the other side with a view of the outside. The roof of the shed was a type of metal. There was lots of old "junk" laying around inside the shed. I wasn't game to actually go inside the shed for fear of snakes or spiders. I welcome any comments on any of these paintings if you so care to write about it.

What do I paint when I first begin to learn oil painting?

This is the question many people beginning to learn how to paint with oil paints ask. For an answer I recommend you try all the different subject types to get some painting experience with all of them and then you can decide what subject you like the best. The subjects you can choose from are:
Landscape
Seascape
Cityscape
Floral
Still Life
Portrait
*Human (face or whole body)
*Animal
Abstract
Fantasy

There are many more but these will get you started. For beginners I recommend doing a few still life paintings as you can control the lighting and subjects.
Try as many of the different types of painting subjects as you can so you can decide what you enjoy painting the most. Then do your favourite subject.
With my own experience I began doing landscape painting and some still life and floral paintings. I have gradually gone on to doing portraiture. I still love to paint landscapes but would like to get better at doing portraits.
If you find you are trying a new type of subject matter and learn you don't enjoy that particular type of painting then you don't have to keep on doing that subject. Stop and try something else new you haven't done before.
The main thing is you should enjoy the painting process and you will be getting valuable experience too.

Try to practice your art on a regular basis

If you want to get better at your art and painting; you must make time to do your art on a regular basis. Even if it is only 10 or 15 minutes a day, or every other day. Every time you pick up your paint brush and make an effort to paint something you improve and grow your skill. It is as simple as that. You have to practice to get better. The more you practice, the better your painting skills will get, I guarantee it. If you cannot paint, then just practice on drawing some small "thumbnail" pictures, re-arranging items for composition purposes. If you have never heard of a "thumbnail" it is just a small picture size such as 3" x 3"

I have wanted to practice and get better at my portrait painting and have been working on this type of painting recently. I have just finished a painting of "Ken" who is 90 years old. You can see his picture on my website under "portraits". Ken has some unusual colour eyes, extremely light blue colour. I have also seen people with extremely light grey eyes here in Australia. They almost look like albino eyes.

For people just learning to paint just practice very simple subjects to paint. For example just paint some fruit (maybe an apple) under a lamp to get some good shadows and lights. Still life set ups are great because you are in control of everything, including the lighting. You can also paint from a photograph, but pick something simple. Nothing too complicated or difficult or you will get discouraged.
The main thing is to just keep practicing and working on your painting and you will improve. Keep some of your old paintings and look back at the way you have grown with your painting skills, you will be amazed and pleased.

More Handy Useful Tips for Painting in Oils!

In addition to healthy tips for painting in oils; I would like to write about some other useful tips that some people may find handy and be interested in learning about.

First, when laying out your paints on your palette try not to be skimpy or stingy on how much you put down (I know that some of the paints are expensive). Oil paint usually takes several days before it starts to dry out and will stay moist for several days. If you can put your palette (with your paints) in the refrigerator in between painting sessions, this will keep your paints cool and slows down the drying time of the paints. Some colours will dry faster than others. The earth colours will dry quicker such as yellow ochre, burnt sienna, raw sienna.

Another useful tip for painting with oils is always clean your brushes after every painting session. You don't need to buy the expensive brush cleaning stuff for this job, you can just use ordinary dish detergent to clean your brushes with. First clean them with your turp or paint thinner then wash them with your dish detergent. Put a small dab of dish detergent in the palm of your hand and rub your brush in this soap. Rinse with water thoroughly and lay flat to dry. Try to not stand them up when they are wet as this causes water damage to the ferrel of the brush. After they are dry you can pop them in the can standing with brush side up.
Hope this helps. I'll have more useful tips in another post.