Practice Scales

Here is the painting I began a while back. You haven't seen it before perse, but I have mentioned it. This is my first venture on a wood panel with oil paints. It is a poplar board and I built a cradle for it (a wooden backing to prevent the panel from warping). I then gessoed the surface to protect it from the oils and sized the gesso to prevent it from overabsorbing the paint. Then I got completely frustrated. The sizing didn't resist the oil paints the way a canvas can and my paint was drying upon application.

After building up the layers and beginning to use linseed oil in my paints, I am back to the normal absorbtion and drying rate of oil paints. And I am very pleased by the smooth surface the panel affords me. Painting tiny detail is much easier on a flat board than a knobbly canvas. So I am finding I am able to paint teeny tiny objects in this composition. I am also getting some nice passages - well one so far. It is the detail I provided. I think the paint application became very nice and wet - soupy. The paint has a sense of flow, accident, or life to it.

I don't have many thoughts on this piece as to what it is about. I suppose I am not really trying to do something like that with this work. It's perhaps just a simple exercise again in still life. So that I can have a place to rest while I am in the studio. This painting is practice - like scales would be to a musician.