….finished my first oil painting or so I thought

On Sunday I stayed up very late to finish my third assignment for my on-line course with Karine Swensen. It was the first time I’ve ever used oil paints and I was really enjoying working with this new medium. After two hours I was ready to call the project complete and I took some photographs to share with my fellow colleagues who were also taking the course. I’m almost embarrassed to tell you that I didn’t get to bed till sometime after 2:00 in the morning and I had to get up early to go to work. I usually don’t have problems dozing off but that night it felt like I was never going to sleep. I looked at the clock at 3:00 and then again at 4:00. I guess I fell asleep shortly after that but I had to get up at 6:30.

It is surprising to me that I was able to function with so little sleep. I didn’t check on the oil painting until later that night and to my horror I discovered that the oils had run down the painting and that the entire centre appeared to be crackling. I have no idea how or why this happened. Maybe some of my artist followers can give me some advice so that this doesn’t happen again. I took a rag and wiped away the drips and a brush to remove some of the cracks in the paint.

This morning when I looked in on my painting again I discovered that it had dripped some more and the crackling appeared worse. The perimeter of the painting is fine but the centre is a mess.

Here is a photo of my painting before it started to fall apart. The first photo is the watercolour sketch that I took my inspiration from.

The larger photo is the painting before it literally started to ‘melt’ on me. 

Here are a few photos of what the painting looks like now after I tried to fix it. I think that there was too much oil in my paint. Maybe some of my artist followers can give me some advice on how to avoid this in the future. As you can see I’ve lost some of the detail in the bottom of the painting and some of the highlights have disappeared. Oh well, live and learn. I think I’ll let it dry before I do anything else with it.