This is the 12th edition of Art Letters, weekly updates from my studio. To read the letters before this one, click on the link below :)
Happy Sunday, Friend!
I recently met the owner of an art store, who asked me what kind of art I made. I never know how to answer that question. Do I say I paint acrylic seascapes? Well, I do, sometimes. But I also paint with watercolors and oils. Do I say I’m a mixed media artist? No offence to mixed media artists, but I always felt that sounded like saying “I’m not good at anything in particular”. Let me know if I’m completely off here.
I mumbled something to her about how I do everything, and I’m sure it sounded silly. But I get real FOMO when I commit to one medium! When I see artists making beautiful charcoal portraits, I feel like I wanna do that. Even though I HATE the feeling of charcoal on my hands and the messiness of it. I was tempted to buy pastel paper, when again I hate the friction of pastels on any surface.
What I do love these days is experimenting with oil paints. Here are three oil paintings I did recently, and I don’t care that they don’t go with my brand, and are subjects that are so different from anything I’ve painted before. But goodness, the feeling of running oil paints on a canvas is SO smooth! They look like they smell so good, you know what I mean? (They smell horrible though).
The creaminess of oils reminds me of cake frosting and flower petals, and I love it! There will definitely more paintings and more subjects in the future with oils. I hope though that the big stack of acrylic
paints in my studio does more than collect dust for the next several years :)
This letter was all over the place, sorry about that.
See you next time!
Love,
Riddhi.