Post #413967 by Robb Hamel on Fri, Oct 17, 2008 8:22 PM

Grog/LLT: don't go dukin' it, yous guys - we'll have peace on my thread if I gotta CLOBBERS the both 'a ya. Grog, close your eyes, here's a lot more talk....

Thor: thanks for the too terrific comments. The answers are:

1. Oils give the time to do blending - that part is clear - but there is a special blend of oils I use that give effects that I'm not sure can be duplicated with acrylics. I've only begun to learn how to get some of these effects but am on the path. Long-term experimentation is the war, paintings are the individual battles.

2. Building opacity with oils is satanically difficult. I've discovered a number of cheats for doing it sorta quickly, but I still have to deal with insomnia sometimes wondering if something is going to work out.

3. Mediums don't seem to do much with the exact way I work. Everything for me comes down to pigments.

Pigments are alchemy and learning/earning extremely hard-core, sometimes centuries-old techniques for dealing with them is the key to me. The Macdonalds I-want-it-now approach works reverse to how my brain is wired.

Again, I'm just getting rolling, but I can see the direction to walk (not drive) for my destination.

My ultimate goal with all this is to create MOOD, through the recreation of the effects of LIGHT. Thor, you obviously focus on the same - I cannot believe how well you deal with 6 or more sources of light. Wow.