"Impatience" by Sally Shisler

"Impatience" © Sally Shisler, 2010
(4x4")-201079; Members-$75
Or Impatiens - whichever suits you. These little purple flowers are an awesome accent - both in the garden, and in a painting. I'm enjoying working with these color mixtures. If I put just the right amount of oil into the paint, the knife strokes flow even more freely than usual, quite like watercolor, which I think I mentioned in a recent post. I had another artist ask me about my surface preparation, and whether or not I tone first, or if always use a white background. The answer is that I mostly use white, and it's because of the brilliance that it brings to the painting. A few months ago I was experimenting with every kind of canvas surface & preparation under the sun. For a time I was over the moon about the natural tone of clear acrylic primed canvas. The warm middle gray of it is a great starting point and it gives solidity to the painting. I discovered, though, that I had to really think a lot about how the paint would dry over time. It seems to absorb more pigment than the white oil primed canvas that I'm painting on most of the time now. And 'happier' images just seem happier on a white base.
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