A slow day of weakness and constant stomach pain yesterday. I started to gear up to do some painting and ordered 3 oil paints and 2 acrylics for £85; painting is reassuringly expensive. Reassuring because it means that people probably aren't doing it for this reason. It's rare to find an niche art in these days of cultural overwhelm.
After more tidying and preparation this morning, the afternoon saw my first act of painting of 2024. I glazed 'All The World Will Be Your Enemy', which I underpainted in July 2022. It's been patiently waiting face down for a glaze layer for two years. Here it was when I left it in 2022:
That took about one day, which for me is 9am to 6pm, but in this case it was spread over one afternoon and one morning. The plan called for a spider's web, but those thin lines were tricky in the thick underpaint, so I saved those for today. Today's glaze was initially and primarily to paint that detail, but I ended up glazing most of the painting.
Glazes here are very parsimonious and frugal. The tiniest amounts of paint are lightly brushed over the surface, sort of rubbed in with a soft flat brush as one would massage in oil. I started with the sky, then the flesh of the face/mountain. Fine details, like these white flecks, were added with my favourite detail brush, a half rigger:
Then the web, in opaque paint. Here's the result:
I could have added more. The monolith-like figure was largely untouched, as was the claw and the lower right mountain. and many areas may be improved with a bit more work, but I think this will do. This was the first day of painting using the new easel head I made last June. It worked well, held this panel much more securely than the beech head the easel came with.
