Corn Thieves

Winter crops are ready to be harvested now and its like a little bit of Autumn in Summer time. The ‘crow-bangers’ are blasting away, mostly in vain as the crows figure out fairly quickly its only a harmless noise and not the farmers shotgun. The weather has not been good for farmers this year, too much rain so tempers are a little frayed.

I started the painting using Drying Poppy Oil only, diluted 50/50 with White Spirits. As with Linseed Oil the handling is difficult. Paint is inclined to slide on top of the wet under layers with no interaction with the paint already laid down. Liquin seems to be a little ‘tacky’ from the start and subsequent paint applied sticks and if brushed, a certain amount of blending of the colour happens. So before the sky was completed I added some Liquin to the medium. This improved the situation somewhat.

The colours always seem to be richer when oil is used. I think it has more to do with the dark colours staying wet and rich as the painting progresses. Liquin, as I mentioned above, begins to dry quickly and colours loose their wet glassy appearance. I add a small amount of oil (5-10%) to Liquin to reduce the dulling of the darker tones. The time scale for this dulling caused by Liquin drying is under an hour and a half in Summer and maybe two hours in the colder months of Winter. Which means a little more oil in the mix at his time of year.

Brushes are something I take for granted as I assume the video of the painting process lets you see the different brushes and their use. Over the next few posts I intend to say a little about the brushes I use.

The colours used were: Burnt Sienna, Raw Sienna, Cadmium Yellow, Sap Green and Cerulean Blue. Plus Black and White of course.