Intersection Abstract Painting WIP Day 7, 30 paintings in 30 days

INTERSECTION Abstract Paining

30x30cm (12"x12") Oil Pastel on panel

Work in Progress

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Day 7 of Jan 2017 30 paintings challenge

Click Here to see Day 6's painting

I started two geometric abstract paintings today and finished neither of them.

I had the urge to use oil pastels, a medium  I haven't used for a while. I went through a spell of using them after I finished using soft pastels (my favourite medium) because the dust affected my lungs. I mainly painted flowers in those days and you can achieve lovely gradations by blending. At the time I was very hesitant to use oil paint in the belief that they were 'difficult' to use.

I had two supports ready one of MDF panel and the other of a gessoed mount board. I had coated the panel with magenta as a base and the mountboard with a graded wash of acrylic. I tested the mountboard surface with the oil pastel but decided it was too rough for the oil pastel. In hindsight this was wrong. A certain amount of 'tooth' is required, the panel is proving too smooth.

Oil pastel never dries and the surface can remain fragile to knocks and scratches unless framed behind glass, but I had heard that using liquin allows it to dry so that it what I have tries. I will let you know if it worked.

Because of my dithering and indecision about the supports I wasn't able to finish either painting.

Some work in progress images

 The first layer of oil pastel using quite a lot of liquin

The second layer of oil pastel using slightly less liquin. The painting was getting very warm at this stage, so I added the extra blue strip and made the existing blue lighter. Now I need to incorporate that extra blue so it fits better into the painting.