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Mike Stengl

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Oct 19, 2003, 12:41:51 PM10/19/03
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so let's say you just stretched a new canvas, let's say it's kinda
big. maybe 2 1/2 x 3 feet. what is that 15, 20 dollars worth of
canvas? you paint on it for a few days, enough for some early layers
of paint to start drying and finally you realize you've made some bad
choices and it's not going to become anything but an eye-sore. what do
you do? 'nother question: how many canvases like this do you have
leaning up against the walls of your home?

Flying_Naked_People

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Oct 19, 2003, 3:04:02 PM10/19/03
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Mike Stengl <eatn...@humboldt1.com> wrote in message
news:45dd5dd.03101...@posting.google.com...

You put it aside and let it cook in your mind with the intent of "working it
into something unbelievable."

You now have a starting point for creativity. Really - what absolutely *wild*
thing can you do with it?!?

Of course, I (think) you can gesso over it and do something else ( a cop out
).

In regards to your second question, I have one canvas I started back in 1998.
It was my second attempt at painting - which I simply can not do without
nervously sweating all over the damn thing. But one day.... o-o-o-o-o-o-ne
d-a-a-a-a-ay!! (shaking fist).

--
Naked Angel Art
http://www.rcip.com/nerdgerl

Mike Stengl

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Oct 19, 2003, 11:50:33 PM10/19/03
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"Flying_Naked_People" <http://www.rcip.com/nerdgerl/email.htm> wrote in message news:<vp5o122...@corp.supernews.com>...

>
> You put it aside and let it cook in your mind with the intent of "working it
> into something unbelievable."

ok, so, how would you go about beginning to work on it again? do you
just add paint, do you prepare the surface with some secret medium??

>
> Of course, I (think) you can gesso over it and do something else ( a cop out
> ).

how often do you do this, what is the result? does it get so slick
that you no longer feel the tooth of the canvas? how does that effect
your next painting session?


>
> In regards to your second question, I have one canvas I started back in 1998.

ONE! i have t-o-o-o many...

Dilettante

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Oct 20, 2003, 8:58:40 AM10/20/03
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eatn...@humboldt1.com (Mike Stengl) wrote in message news:<45dd5dd.03101...@posting.google.com>...

you realize you've made some bad
> choices and it's not going to become anything but an eye-sore. what do
> you do? 'nother question: how many canvases like this do you have
> leaning up against the walls of your home?

The answer to the second question is that if you don't have quite a
few failures, you have not had enough practice to develop your skill.
So, it is a good sign if you have a goodly number of these.

But if you decide the work goes nowhere while you are doing it, rather
than after, you may not have done your homework.

This means having had an inspiration, an original vision that you were
trying to document in the first place. You must know the reason you
want to make a painting in the first place and what you are trying to
say. This is your guiding light.


This should have been followed by many many sketches first in pencil
or pen, then color sketches if was going to be a painting.

Having decided on the best sketch, you can then execute your vision.
Your piece will "go somewhere" because you have already worked out
exactly where it should go. Had the preliminary sketches gone nowhere,
you would have been able to abort the project before the canvas stage.

The final piece you put on canvas will be the message, ideational or
purely visual, that originally came to you. You will have done your
technical homework, so the final product will have meaning.

This would be my solution to the problem.

Dilettante

Flying_Naked_People

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Oct 20, 2003, 12:23:33 PM10/20/03
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Mike Stengl <eatn...@humboldt1.com> wrote in message
news:45dd5dd.03101...@posting.google.com...
> "Flying_Naked_People" <http://www.rcip.com/nerdgerl/email.htm> wrote in
message news:<vp5o122...@corp.supernews.com>...
> >
> > You put it aside and let it cook in your mind with the intent of "working
it
> > into something unbelievable."
>
> ok, so, how would you go about beginning to work on it again? do you
> just add paint, do you prepare the surface with some secret medium??

Just add paint.

> > Of course, I (think) you can gesso over it and do something else ( a cop
out
> > ).
>
> how often do you do this, what is the result? does it get so slick
> that you no longer feel the tooth of the canvas? how does that effect
> your next painting session?

I don't have the intimate experience with oil painting to answer these
questions. But between riding bikes with the neighborhood kids and watching
cartoons, I've seen my father re-gesso and re-paint.

Mike Stengl

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Oct 20, 2003, 4:55:14 PM10/20/03
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hu...@myself.com (Dilettante) wrote in message news:<ba63903f.03102...@posting.google.com>...

certainly a hole in my system. sometimes i paint without sketches,
sometimes i use a sketch but never a color prelim. your absolutely
right and it means it's my own damn fault, however, it is unnatural
for me to work in any other manner, but you have found my flaw and
now i'll just slip back into my own stylistic heaven and hell...

DNALJM

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Oct 21, 2003, 12:00:20 PM10/21/03
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I don't have very much art lying around. There are a few things in limbo
but they won't be there for long. They will either be finished or sanded down
and repainted. There's a still-life painting I got bored with underneath the
self-portrait on the upper-right part of my page. I didn't even bother to
resand it or mute it down but I did put the background in quickly.

Finished paintings are sold quickly even at a laughably low price so that I
can have the room and I always go on the assumption that I will make things in
the future that will make the current paintings/drawings look like sh*t.

Jane


http://www.geocities.com/teslathemothgod/

b b

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Oct 21, 2003, 6:38:43 PM10/21/03
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On 19 Oct 2003 20:50:33 -0700, eatn...@humboldt1.com (Mike Stengl)
wrote:

>
>how often do you do this, what is the result? does it get so slick
>that you no longer feel the tooth of the canvas? how does that effect
>your next painting session?

If you are going to leave a painting for a few days it's sometimes a
good idea to just WIPE IT DOWN with a rag, perhaps with some mineral
spirits before starting to paint again on it. You will have something
to start from and the painting surface will remain fresh. Don't hold
on to every little success. Be more concerned with getting the picture
to move, or hang together. I love to work on that blurry surface that
I just described. All the color relationships are there, you just have
to jump in and paint -- on a toothy surface!

Dilettante

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Oct 22, 2003, 7:17:04 AM10/22/03
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(b)lue(b)owl...@hotmail.com wrote in message


> If you are going to leave a painting for a few days it's sometimes a
> good idea to just WIPE IT DOWN with a rag, perhaps with some mineral
> spirits before starting to paint again on it.

Be careful about using mineral spirits. Mineral spirits remove acrylic
varnish. Some acrylic varnishes double as mediums. So, you may be
removing the medium you have mixed your pigments with.

Dilettante

b b

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Oct 22, 2003, 2:28:30 PM10/22/03
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I guess I wouldn'thave to take this into considation because
I use oil paint and my only medium would be turpentine and possibly
some linseed or stand oil. The odd times I might add in Damar. So
wiping the whole thing down would be no problem.

Mike Stengl

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Oct 22, 2003, 8:22:39 PM10/22/03
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>
> If you are going to leave a painting for a few days it's sometimes a
> good idea to just WIPE IT DOWN with a rag, perhaps with some mineral
> spirits before starting to paint again on it. You will have something
> to start from and the painting surface will remain fresh. Don't hold
> on to every little success. Be more concerned with getting the picture
> to move, or hang together. I love to work on that blurry surface that
> I just described. All the color relationships are there, you just have
> to jump in and paint -- on a toothy surface!


thanks for the feedback, this makes perfect sense to me.

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