Studio Notes August - Oils or Acrylics? - Hola
Painting – Oils or Acrylics?
Every time I think about the new paintings I haven’t started yet, I ask myself, do I use acrylic or oil paint?
I’ve bought some non-toxic medium and solvent and I’m looking forward to making marks with R&F oil sticks. They’re fat and look very luscious. I haven’t used them before and I’m hoping to find a flow with them.
I’ve spent years working with acrylics. They just sit on the surface and aren’t as slippery or buttery as oils. I haven’t worked with oils for a long time now and find the paint can be manoeuvred in so many more ways than acrylics. It moves and creates so many different endings, which only come when you decide the painting is resolved.
Once acrylics are dry, that’s it. You either paint over them or leave them as they are.
Oils can be wiped off while they’re still wet, and they stay workable for much longer.
I like to start by putting down the paint very quickly. It’s usually very busy, with strong, rapid strokes. The first 20–30 minutes are very physical and can be exhausting.
Then I stand back and look.
I go in and eliminate, add, eliminate again, until I’m satisfied.
I want to almost take it back to before it existed. The nothingness I’ve always searched for. Before existence, before being tainted and torn — just as in life sometimes.
Looking for that purity after being part of a storm.
The marks just have to be put down quickly, before they’re gone.
I suppose I’ll just have to wait and see which one speaks to me when I get into the studio.
Hola
Hola
Hola, I did it all…
Tramped the olive groves , the vineyards. Dust smudges - sandals scuffed
Low lying flats, jagged facades ahead
Heat in the skin… but inviting
Laughter, families, humming and gaiety
Wooden plank seats in the sun - bushes - festivals of giants and brown faced lovers who speak no name
Lingered lunches of vino, olives, salad, octopus…. yuck
Tracks, not Francos fleeing the sights of revolutionaries…
Catalan whispers no more - proud, loud and applauded going about their day
I did so much
Miss the days of open spaces
My studio in the Spanish afternoons
Vincent’s bedroom, the stone bridge to my workspace where I created dreams and scenes
Spanish daydreams in the hot melting sun
The flies, the Moroccan’ who visited
The slow meaningful way to spend a day and the nights of banter with artist’s egos, vino, tinto, sampling unknown delicacies
The greeting cheek to cheek - brown eyes - foreign sounds from faces that could be Australian
Mornings , anticipation, newness, familiar, madness, exoticness and togetherness
Those Spanish nights and days are etched into me forever
Arts Residency in Barcelona - Jenny Davis 2005
2005
Med. Oil paint, paper (Requires Framing) The painting is mounted ready to be framed.
Size 75cm (W) x 60 (H) x 1cm (D)
Connections
This artwork was created when I was awarded artist in residence at the Can Serrat International Art Center in Barcelona, Spain.The work was influenced by time spent in Barcelona, where the city’s colour, movement, and layered streets left a strong impression on me. At the same time, I was thinking about the quieter rhythms of the Catalan countryside where I was living — the slower pace, the textures of the landscape, and the sense of space.
PCS Misma Voy Barcelona - Finalist painting in the John Leslie Art Prize, Australia.
Details
• Original artwork. Secure checkout. Tracked shipping from Australia.
• Certificate of authenticity included
• Carefully packed and shipped worldwide