Category: Oil Painting

Last Sunday marked the 208th day of I being a teetotaler; this oil painting is 208 days in the making.  My story of “From a Borderline Alcoholic to a Teetotaler” will be posted here another day, I promise.  Today I wish to write about a hobby that I’ve left behind for about one and a half years.

Ever since I told Cynthia that I refrain from use of alcoholic liquors, on more than one occasion when we were scratching our heads on what gifts to bring along, she always pointed to the bottles of the unopened wine.  “I don’t understand why we can’t give them away since you are not drinking anymore,” she would comment.

For the past 208 days, I have five bottles of white wine, one bottle of red wine, one bottle of VSOP, and two cans of cold beer lying somewhere in my home.  I am not opening them because I have made a decision and I wish to stick with it; I am not giving them away because I wish to paint and immortalize this moment.

I swear when I lined up the bottle readied to start painting, I had this sudden urge.  But that urge was soon overwhelmed by the smell of the turpentine.  Do artists get addicted to oil painting because of this thin volatile essential oil?  That certainly gave me the lightheadedness.  How I miss oil painting.  To get the perspective right, I had to sit on the floor.  Not a very comfortable position to paint.  But it is good to try something different.  In retrospect, I don’t think I have got the color of the white wine bottles right.  Perhaps next time, I will do a better job.

Click here for my oil painting “gallery”.

Let me show you how my Inspiration Factory works. One fine day I was staring at the big pile of folded clothes awaiting to be ironed. It was more than usual because of our Melbourne trip (note: this blog was written a while back). So I asked Cynthia casually …

Me: (Nodding at the direction of the pile of clothes) How long will it take to iron those?
Cynthia: (Looking at somewhere else doing something else) Usually about 15 minutes.
Me: No, no … I mean those (pointing at the pile)
Cynthia: Oh, that’s a lot. Half an hour I guess.
Me: Just half an hour?!
Cynthia: Ya (continued doing that thing she was doing)
Me: I have an idea …
Cynthia: (Paused what she was doing and thinking) Uh-oh …

And I told Cynthia that I wanted to paint her ironing. Her immediate response was, “Do I need to stand for FOUR HOURS?!” “No, no, no,” I waved my hands in mid-air and reassured her that she just needed to iron the clothes as per normal. All of a sudden, I was bombarded with questions such as “What should I wear?!”, “What if I look fat?!”, “Will it be shown in your blog?”, and etc. I was surprised that she did not ask if she needed to wear make-up (she did ask what to wear). The only person I can think of who does housework wearing make-up is Paris Hilton in her Simple Life. I explained to her that the main focus of the painting is the ironing board. I did not know if she was delighted or disappointed.

To paint this, I have to do all the sketching before the model stepped into the picture. Once the sketching was done, I worked as fast as possible to sketch the model and to start putting colors and shadows. Whenever the model stepped away, I painted the surroundings. Keeping the perspectives of the composition to me was the most challenging part because there were lots of lines. In the end, I think I needed a different kind of brush to draw those straight lines. It was really difficult for me using those that I have.

Click here for my oil painting “gallery”.

Last week, I have painted probably one of the most expensive oil painting to date. You will see why. Click on the thumbnail to view a larger image and click here to view the real life composition.

So far, I have painted vegetables and fruits, sky and reservoir, teddy bear and human face, I have yet to try painting flowers. How difficult it was for me to paint flowers! There are just so much detail with the petals and stems, leaves and water.

This time, I calibrated both my viewfinder and the board that holds the oil painting tablet into a 8×8 grid so that I can replicate the composition as faithful to the reality as possible based on the coordinates of the objects. In layman’s term, it is much easier for me to paint the objects in the same way I see them through the viewfinder – for novice like myself in especially. It took me 45 minutes just to sketch the composition (which I am happy about). I made lots of mistake this time ended up have to scrap the oils time after time. I wanted to give up halfway because I did not have a clue on how to model the yellow and white flowers and how to fill in the gaps in between the stems.

Anyway, I managed to finish the painting. It is expensive because first, I paid two dollar for the flowers that cannot be consumed like vegetables and fruits. Cynthia looked at the bunch of flower over our meal and commented that they don’t look good nor smell nice. Well, it is no roses I suppose. Second, I have wasted a lot of paint on this and probably have to stock up more paints soon. Took me 4 hours to finish the painting. I wonder how much time I would spend on a canvas that is 4 times bigger.

Click here for my oil painting “gallery”.

I have a mixed feeling on this self-portrait oil painting and it is edging towards the borderline of disaster (click on thumbnail to view a larger image at your own risk). Perhaps I am not used to looking at my own image, having this somewhat intense guy who somewhat looks like me with a face larger than me staring back at me … it is sort of scary. When Cynthia returned from work and discovered my new oil painting, she couldn’t stop laughing. I reckon she knows my face better than I do (duh!) and she kept on asking how come this and how come that. I have to drag her into the bathroom and post “that look” to her. To demonstrate how I got “that look”, I positioned my shoulders 45 degrees relative to the mirror, I turned my head at a 30 degrees relative to my shoulders while my eyes looked straight ahead. Still, the questions of “how come” did not subside.

While the result could be disastrous, it was my intend to create a pair of eyes that captivate attention, lips that are redder than normal for contrast, and an overall texture of ruggedness. For that, I think I have achieved what I wanted. Hopefully my next self-portrait will be better.

To paint this self-portrait image, I have to turn my tiny bathroom into a painting studio because that is the only place in my home that has a huge mirror with 3 spot lights over my head. The easel was mounted right on top of the closed toilet bowl with a jar of turpentine to wash my brushes resting on top of the bowl’s lid. The paint tubes were lined up carefully along the side of the bathtub. The smell of the oils can be overwhelming at times because there was hardly any air circulation inside.

An excerpt of our conversation after Cynthia saw the painting.

Me: So, what do you think of this self-portrait?
Cyn: Erm …
Me: (looking at Cyn with anticipation)
Cyn: Well, the painting looks intense.
Me: Shall we frame this one then?
Cyn: Hmmm … how come you are not smiling?
Me: I can’t.
Cyn: You can’t?
Me: No, I can’t keep smiling for 3 hours. Besides it looks insane to smile at the mirror while painting.
Cyn: Hmmm … perhaps we can hang it somewhere that we don’t get to see first thing in the morning?
Me: …

Looking back, I don’t think I want to hang this painting in the bedroom either. Last night before I retired to bedroom, I dimmed the light, looking at that pair of eyes staring at me sort of freaked me out.

Click here for my oil painting “gallery”.

I was thinking to myself, before I can paint human beings, I better start practicing on teddy bears. After all, it is a lot easier to ask a teddy bear to stay still for 4 hours than a human being. Knowing the peppers that I deliberately bought as oil painting subjects were expiring soon, I have this ambitious composition of having a teddy bear next to a plate of peppers. As though it was not already a challenge, I placed a tiny candle light in front of the teddy bear. I have also chosen my living room for the more gentle background colour (all 3 rooms of my home have different tones). Satisfied with the composition (click here to view), I started with my sketching.

(Click here or the thumbnail to view a larger image.)

Not sure if I have deliberately taken my time painting this picture or the composition is kind of complex, it took me a long time to finish. By the time I was done with the painting, the candle light was out (about 3.5 to 4 hours). There was a lot of colour switching from the 3 primary colours to the different shades of white. The candle light took me a long time to model as I took time to observe what effects it has on the surroundings. First it was the reflection of the orange light on the glass holder itself. Some reflection on the rim. Parts of the teddy bear was lit up in faint yellowish light. The reflection extended to the green pepper as well. Very challenging to model glass object as whatever behind the glass tends to be a bit darker.

Cynthia has already commissioned me to draw some of her other teddy bears. I wanted to title my 4th oil painting as “Three Peppers and a Teddy Bear” but Cynthia suggested “My White Pepper”. “My White Pepper” that is then.

Click here for my oil painting “gallery”.

One day I woke up early ready to send Cynthia to town. I looked out of my window and what a lovely view! I saw a slightly hazy blue sky casting a misty silhouette over the Seletar Reservoir. The urge of wanting to paint was overwhelming. But first I must send Cynthia off.

(Click here or the thumbnail to view a larger image.)

On the way back, I got more and more excited. Clouds of fluffy shape floated above me waiting to be painted. Once I reached home, I wasted no time and set up my humble painting studio in my living room. Using my window frame as the view-finder, sketching exercise was a whole lot easier. In retrospect, I shall sketch the clouds the last and use a colour other than light blue. By the time I finished my sketching, the clouds have already moved and formed into somewhat different shapes. Oh, one more thing. Windy days post extra challenge to painting clouds as well.

It is so true that always paint from life. I saw so many different shades of blue from the sky and so many different shades of green from the trees. I took a picture right after I finished with the painting and the photo just does not do what the nature offers justice (click here to view the photo).

My buddy Tong Kiat thinks that the cloud on the top-right-hand corner looks more real (does he mean that the rest of the cloud …). Cynthia thinks that the cloud looks like a horse (hmmm). And my sister Lora told me that one morning she stared at the painting and saw the clouds moving. Hope you like it as much as I do. To tell you the truth, beautiful clouds aside, my proudest achievement is that tiny chimney and the tanker from a far distance. I was tempted not to put the tanker into my painting. It is the smallest subject that requires the highest concentration.

Click here for my oil painting “gallery”.

My 1st Oil Painting was a plate of fruit, a bottle of wine, and a small magazine. This time round, I wanted to try something slightly different (click here or the thumbnail on the left to view a larger image). Too bad, all the grapes I have bought couple of days ago are already inside my stomach. Since I didn’t have flowers in the house, I have decided to paint my lettuce inside the refrigerator together with five tomatoes. The working title of my second oil painting was “Dinner at Seven (You Are Mine Tonight)”. That explains the knife by the way.

(Quick look at the painting against the live setup)

I found painting the lettuce was the most challenging part of all. Looking closely, there were lots of light and dark areas in a certain pattern. Comparatively, making the tomatoes to look 3D was much easier.

My second painting aside, I currently run into some unresolved logistic difficulties. Depending on the colours I use, some parts of the paintings may take up to 2 weeks to get reasonably dry. According to the experts, oil paintings take up to 6 to 9 months to dry to a stage that can be varnished and framed up to the walls. So meanwhile, what do I do with all my wet paintings? I have already used up 3 boards (coming next: Seletar Reservoir Under A Blue Cloudy Sky) and each board costs slightly more than S$5. I have to find a way to temporarily hold my paintings to dry for at least 2 weeks and to store them nicely thereafter for 6 to 9 months. Right now, I have no clue (any suggestions?).

In an attempt to quicken this drying process, from my second painting onwards, I use a drying agent called Alkyd Flow Medium. It supposes to work wonder and I can see the immediate effect on how fast my paints dry up on my palette (I must have overdone it a bit). After I was done with the painting, time for washing up and I have ignorantly used my hands to clean the dippers that had Alkyd in it. All of a sudden, my hands were covered with this very sticky stuff that could not be washed off. Whatever I touched got sticky too. It took me 20 to 30 washes with lot of hand soap to get the Alkyd off my hands. After that horrifying experience, I use lots of paper towels to wipe the dipper clean after each painting session instead. Not everything can be learned from the books I guess.

Click here for my oil painting “gallery”.

Trivia Quiz: What activity can be messy in nature, requires lots of paper towels, yet fun and enjoyable, and with a scent that can make you go high the longer you do it?

Answer: Oil Painting, that is!

Well, this is it. My very first oil painting (click onto the picture to take a closer look). At the back of my head, I know one day I will regret on posting something so amateurish in my website. However, true to what my website is about – where good things are meant to be shared – I am exciting to share with you what I have learnt so far.

(Quick look at how this painting compares to the real setting)

When I first told people around me that I wish to do oil painting, I have some interesting responses. Mark, for instance, thinks that I can do it because he has seen some of the doodles I have posted in my site. I think he has more confidence in me than I have with myself. Tong Kiat is more pragmatic. He suggested watercolour instead as the medium of oil painting can be smelly. Breathing in too much of it can get people high. Turned out that his sister has painted in oils before and he even knows someone who can be the critic – as I cannot afford a tutor – for merely S$20. A friend of mine (better not write her name down) even volunteered to be a live model. Again, amazing confidence she has in me. And Cynthia’s response can at times be flattering as she thinks that whatever comes out of my hands are good.

Took me nearly an hour to unpack all the stuffs and set up my oil painting studio. The entire set, including the brand new lamp that I got it from Ikea today for S$19, costs me just over S$200 and I think it is a worthwhile investment. This first oil painting of mine titled “Fruits and Wine” took me 1.5 hour to paint and am definitely looking forward to my next one. The books I have read all suggested to paint something simple as a beginner because success breeds success. I guess I just wish to skip the boxes and single fruit for now.

Click here for my oil painting “gallery”.