Reworking and "oiling out"

Each year my family looks forward to our annual beach week on the Outer Banks of North Carolina. I have written a lot about how much I love painting down there. A week never feels like enough time, but this year it feels like a lost luxury because the family made the tough decision to cancel our rental due to the risks of traveling during COVID19.

Needless to say I am feeling very nostalgic for the beach, and have spent a lot of time looking the painting, “Radiant Dawn,” which I painted a couple of years ago during another pivotal time of my life. This was the view from the bedroom balcony of our beach rental, and I hung it up in our living room to transport me back there in spirit. It was an emotional time for me but the awesome beauty of this sunrise lifted me up and gave me a deep sense of connection, hope, and gratitude.

But of course the artist in me started to analyze the painting each morning as I “enjoyed” it from our breakfast nook. While I love the sky, I found myself really wanting to rework the lower portion of the piece. I found it altogether too green and too dark, and it did not evoke the feeling of “dunes” to me. I remember WHY I painted it this way, (I didn’t want to make the painting too busy and detract from the sky) but it just wasn’t working for me.

Sometimes when I rework a painting I have to sand the area down or even first scrape down some of the built up paint texture ever so gently with a razor blade. Otherwise the previous brushwork underneath is too distracting. In this case the surface was relatively uniform. It was, however, a bit slick and required some “oiling out” to assist in the adhesion of the new paint layers. To rework a dry painting I may use a bit of my painting medium mixed with Gamsol, or even a light spray of retouch-varnish applied to the area. For this piece, just oiling out with Gamsol seemed to be enough.

“Radiant Dawn,” Oil on linen, 24x30” ©Jennifer E Young

I basically reworked the lower third of this painting, leaving the sky completely alone. (It may look like I did more to the sky, but that’s because I think I did a better job of color correction on my digital image this time around.) Painting everything in a close value range can be a challenge, but an important one to keep the sense of unity I was after from the start. Here is the newly adjusted piece, with changes that my family didn’t even notice 😂. Oh well! I feel happier about it, so I guess that’s what’s important.

P.S. “Oiling out” and reworking are generally not advisable to do over a final varnish unless you can completely remove the varnish layer due to possible problems with cracking that can ensue. I always use retouch varnish though, both for this reason and because personally I don’t find final varnish necessary.

From winter to summer, in one post!

It is good to be back to painting again. It has felt like such a long time since I have been able to stand at the easel and wipe all the cares away and just focus on art. Maybe for this reason, this painting came together fairly fluidly. This piece was inspired by a challenge from Gallery Flux, to create works for their upcoming show all about SNOW! So I thought I would experiment with a few different compositions in this theme in hopes that I'd have some good candidates to offer up for the show, and oh what fun it was! I painted from reference photos I took last winter in my neighborhood, which has its share of beautiful stately and Victorian homes.

"Victorian Winter", Oil on linen, 20x24" ©Jennifer E. Young

And now that I have you hankering for some hot chocolate, I carry you back to summer again, with a new online auction. This plein air painting is a little larger than my prior auction listings; it's an 8x10" piece on linen-mounted MDF panel, with an opening bid of just $200. I painted this little gazebo on the dunes just in front of the beach house where my family has been staying the last several summers in Kill Devil Hills on the Outer Banks of North Carolina. I love the way the light hits the dunes right around dinner time, when the sun gets lower and the shadows get nice and long.

"Dune Shadows" Oil on linen, 8x10". SOLD!

Outer Banks love affair

Though I don't get there often enough,  I have long maintained a love affair with North Carolina's Outer Banks. Last week we again made our annual sojourn there, and what a week it was! The weather was near perfect, the water a crystal clear turquoise blue. There were dolphin sightings, beautiful sunrises, and pelicans, sandpipers, and seagulls presiding over it all. 

This was the first year in a long time that I was able to get out and paint so often. I kind of made it my mission to do so, especially since the weather was so cooperative all week (my fabulous husband and daughter were pretty darn cooperative too.) My fair skin suffers from too much sun and heat, so I took to painting mostly in the early morning or early evening to salvage it as best I could. Here's a little slideshow of the plein air paintings I completed there. I plan to use these as jumping off points for developing larger pieces in the studio since I will likely have to curtail much of my plein air painting during the unforgivably hot month of August. 

All of these paintings are done in Gamblin traditional oils on linen mounted canvas board. I used my new favorite plein air medium, Gamblin's Solvent Free Gel as well as a small dropper bottle of Gamsol for laying in my design at the beginning stages of the painting. This really keeps the transport and setup of my plein air gear lighter and more streamlined. Hover your mouse over each of the enlarged images to read more about each piece. 

"Dune Shadows, 6 PM", Oil on linen, 8x10"

This was "our" little gazebo that let to the beach. I enjoyed the shadow play across the dunes and sway of the sea oats. 

"Parting Gaze", Oil on linen, 9x12"

This was painted in the late afternoon/early evening beneath the Avalon Fishing Pier in Kill Devil Hills. That man stood there gazing at the ocean long enough for me to capture him. There were a lot of people camped out under the pier, and kids running everywhere. I presume they were doing what I was doing,  seeking refuge from the July sun. The scene I painted doesn't belie the chaos that was immediately surrounding me. But even amidst the hubbub, the ocean still evoked a relaxing effect. 

"Morning at Avalon Pier", Oil on linen, 9x12"

This was painted in the early morning. I took walks down to the pier several mornings from our beach house, and really got a lot of pleasure out of this approaching view, so I thought I'd better paint it. 

"Basking", Oil on linen, 8x10"

This was just a fun little midday piece I did from underneath a large beach canopy that my brother-in-law graciously set up. I later added the little umbrellas in the distance because it seemed to call for something up there. This lady was the only person that wanted to sit still for me while I painted her!

"Anchored at Sunrise", Oil on linen, 9x12"

No sunrise at the beach is ever like the last, but this sunrise had the added bonus of an anchored Navy ship sitting on the horizon. I didn't pack any Permanent Rose, so I struggled a bit to get the color intensity I wanted so the overall effect is very high key. The value relationships though were good, so I decided not to try and make any adjustments after the fact. I had to do this very quickly and loosely, as the entire light and color scheme changed extremely quickly.