Speckled wood

[morpheus]

Well,

Mrs Morpheus has done it again, what do you think of this?

It's oil on canvas and it's been fascinating to watch it coming to life, I feel so proud that I've got such an artistic partner, in fact thats one of the main reasons I've asked Mrs Morpheus (tots1968) to be Mrs Morpheus for real



I've been asked to ask the other artists on the forum, how long do you leave your paintings before you varnish them?


best regards from tots and me

[Cazzie]

Aww that's beautiful! Well done tots!

[Meles meles]

great painting

[jdurbo]

Thats a very good painting from Mrs M

jen xxx

[naturelover]

hi in answer to your question, i yoused to do oil painting and you have to leave them quite a long time befor you varnish them,a few weeks at least depending on the tempriture there in,are you yousing the spray on oil painting varnish by newton and windsor?,dont try yousing a brush to put it on as it might be dry on the surface but not underneath and you will smudge it,by the way the painting is beatifull well done and good luck with more.

[stirling]

I would leave it for a couple of months,then use matt varnish,think it gives a more natural finish.
Very nice first attempt.
Best from mike.

[tots1968]

Originally Posted by naturelover

hi in answer to your question, i yoused to do oil painting and you have to leave them quite a long time befor you varnish them,a few weeks at least depending on the tempriture there in,are you yousing the spray on oil painting varnish by newton and windsor?,dont try yousing a brush to put it on as it might be dry on the surface but not underneath and you will smudge it,by the way the painting is beatifull well done and good luck with more.

Hiya, thank you for the kind comments. Smudging the painting is something I am really scared of doing. I looked at some varnish and it said on it to leave for 6 months before applying it, but one of my friends had a painting done for me which arrived varnished but was a lot less than 6 months old. The spray varnish seems a good idea because it would be rotten if it ended up with big thick brush strokes on from painting it on but I would be scared of getting big runny bits of the spray varnish (previous experience of spraying a wardrobe has left me scarred as there are still big discoloured streaks all down it!!!!!!!) I like the idea of the matt varnish, I guess it depends what they have got in hobby craft, also I think the only spray cans there were for acrylic paints, does that matter? If I did have to use paint on varnish , how do you avoid brush strokes? Its all a scary new world to me and I am learning as I go along. Thank you to everyone for saying such nice things, it was because of encouragement from people on this site that I had a bash at doing the painting in oils as originally I was going to use acrylics, I must admit although I found the oils harder to use the finish is nicer and it has given me the confidence to try more oil paintings.

[stirling]

You would be ok with a brush,the oil paint will not move when dry.
Use as big a brush as poss.and use varnish spairingly to avoid build up.
Hope this helps.
Best from mike.

[tots1968]

Originally Posted by stirling

You would be ok with a brush,the oil paint will not move when dry.
Use as big a brush as poss.and use varnish spairingly to avoid build up.
Hope this helps.
Best from mike.

Thanks Mike, I think thats where I always go wrong with varnish on furniture etc, I think its also something I still need to get used to with the oil paints too, it takes lots of fine layers, which takes some getting used to especially when you are as impatient as me. The flowers look really clumpy on the photo - though they don't look like that in the painting. Morpheus says its because it had to be resized to 500k limit (original photo is 3 meg (apparentely)). Resizing has degraded the photo therefore the look of the painting on screen. There is a lovely robin painting on the forum which is lovely and clear so if anyone can tell me how to get my picture to come up that clear please let me know.

[tots1968]

Originally Posted by stirling

You would be ok with a brush,the oil paint will not move when dry.
Use as big a brush as poss.and use varnish spairingly to avoid build up.
Hope this helps.
Best from mike.

Hi Mike,
was just looking at the lovely robin picture and realised you did it!!!! It is brilliant. When you are using oils do use use artist quality or student quality and does it make that much difference?