After meeting with Lauren and Andrew last week, the guys behind the Trenton CSA, I took a little break from my frenzied painting therapy. I guess it was more of a big break, as I went to San Diego for four days and gave my brain, my heart (and my lungs) some time to heal. The sun and the companionship of my dear friend, Meranda, did me good, but as with everything in life, the shadows always creep back in. I'm back home now, back to work both in my studio and at school. The shadow hasn't left, and as this naturally lit composition proved to me, it's hard to pin down where exactly it's coming from.
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Creating oil paintings with a fast approaching deadline is a bit nerve racking. Especially when you do not use any mediums to quicken the dry time of oil paints. I asked googled for some tricks to speed up the process of oxidation and came up with some odd solutions, including the use of my oven and black lights. I don't know if those techniques work, as I didn't try baking my art for fear of fire and fumes. However, what I did, worked. And thus, I now share my success with others who might be struggling to speed up the dry time on an oil painting.
The suggestion I followed involved a warm/hot dry environment and light. This was supposedly the optimal environment for oxidation of oil paints. I turned the heat up in my studio to 74 degrees and left on all the lights. I also turned on the ceiling fan to increase air flow and closed the door to keep the heat in the small space. I left my work in this warm/dry environment for a week. The results are pretty crazy. The paintings are almost completely dry. The areas with high concentrations of Titanium White - a notoriously slow-drying color - are the only areas that remain unhardened. I feel confident that even these areas will be dry by the deadline of April 24. I do not claim to have the answer, but I can attest that this solution helped a great deal. Good luck to you if you are trying to speed up this process in your own work. What I see when I look at my reflection is twisted and warped and unrecognizable. Crying for hours a day will do that to you. This is not a copy. I set this composition up a second time and repeated the painting. I have a thing for repeating myself... Never changes anything though. |
Lora Marie DurrDuring my undergraduate studies, I spent a great deal of time in the painting studio working with traditional oils. Teaching middle school art for the past 12 years has taken me away from those roots. This "one a day" project is aimed at re-inspiring that creativity and technique. Archives
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Other "one a day" painting blogs to check out:
Hannah Phelps Kellie Marian Hill Carol Marine Lisa Daria Darren Maurer Carol Aust Karin Jurick The usual Subjects |