Traditional painting.

[Jem'ennuie]

Hi,

what do you think about artists who don't do any heavy paint based work at all anymore and don't use oil, ever?

I know at my school we have a choice now to use oils or we can use what we like as a colouring medium.

We are forced to use graphite or charcoal as a base but then we are free to use pastels, inks, washes, acrylic, oils and digital.

Is there really still a point to use oils when it's so cumbersome compared to digital works? Or a combination of water based paint+digital?

[ALH]

Its down to the individual- though i do think you need to have some basis in traditional mediums to get your head around mark-making and colour mixing.

As for 'whats the point?'- Digital apps may be able to mimic traditional work pretty accurately now, but its not the same as getting in there with messy fingers and trying out things for yourself that you'd never be able to do with a PC. Plus, most importantly- real media doesnt have an 'undo', doesnt have a copy-paste- you have to figure out the solutions to any problems or mistakes by yourself instead of relying on layers and save states.

Thats not always a good thing of course- ruining something you spent hours on by smudging it or overworking is never fun- but there are more lessons to be learnt from that than an easy 'undo'.

Personally i'd love to have a go with oils, but i dont have the space- or money- to give it a try. I've all but given up on traditional work for the past few months tbh- pencils aside- because of my living arrangements, and it kinda sucks, because traditional work may not be as quick as digital, but it sure is FUN :D.

[Jem'ennuie]

Personally i'd love to have a go with oils, but i dont have the space- or money- to give it a try. I've all but given up on traditional work for the past few months tbh- pencils aside- because of my living arrangements, and it kinda sucks, because traditional work may not be as quick as digital, but it sure is FUN :D.

Well, I have a similar problem. It's quite costly to use oils, especially the thinners etc. And I always need to ventilate properly which means it pretty much sucks to do this in the winter without freezing. And I don't live alone so I need to make sure I don't annoy anyone by taking up too much space etc..

They're just problems I don't have with water based mediums or photoshop, you know.

[DavePalumbo]

Is there really still a point to use oils when it's so cumbersome compared to digital works?

if you want to have or enjoy making a physical painting

[pitabread]

Is there really still a point to use oils when it's so cumbersome compared to digital works?

Definitely.

Oils have one advantage over water based paints in that drying time is much longer. Therefore, you can blend much easier.

As for digital versus traditional, traditional still has advantages. For example, oil paint is a 3D medium (i.e. it has depth and texture on the canvas). I've seen some really impressive oil impasto paintings in local gallery. You just can't do that digitally.

Real mediums can also be worked in ways digital can't. For example, you couldn't create a Jackson Pollock-style drip painting digitally.

And it's also easier to work with larger sized paintings in traditional mediums. It wouldn't be terribly unreasonable for me to frame a 6x6 foot canvas and paint. But to do that digitally would require very large digital image; something very cumbersome to create on a desktop PC. Plus printing it would ultimately require specialized printing gear.

And finally, it's much easier to paint with traditional media during a blackout. ;)

[dose]

Real mediums can also be worked in ways digital can't. For example, you couldn't create a Jackson Pollock-style drip painting digitally.


http://www.jacksonpollock.org/

[HAJiME]

I don't honestly think anything comes close to oil painting. The problem I have is that it's messy, expensive and time consuming.

I bought a tablet to encourage me to draw more. Because, there is no running cost of buying paper, pencils, paint or any other medium. There is never the problem of "running out".

We don't use oil paint at uni, ever. I am doing an illustration course, though. But the reason why we don't is because there would be no where to store it whilst it dries and it simply takes too long.

I have every intention of using my shed to do more oil work this year, but whether or not that will actually happen is another thing entirely. I get a lot of pleasure from painting with oil... I dislike other mediums. I find acrylic too difficult to use because I'm quite slow and i loath watercolour for anything more than sketching because its simply ugly.

[k4pka]

I've never understood the "messy" argument. Nor the time consuming one.

Painting is hardly something you would strive to be efficient or rapid at is it? What else do you want to be doing so badly with your time that art becomes a burden to it? Hell, if I had more time, I'd just be using it to paint even more...

As for messy, thats not the paints fault. It has to have someone present for it to get anywhere it ought not be. Sargent would paint fully suited and keep clean...

[alesoun]

The best things in life are messy and time-consuming; why should art be different?

[Flake]

I've never understood the "messy" argument. Nor the time consuming one.


Or the "expensive" one, usually brought up by people typing on >£1000 worth of computer equipment via high speed cable internet.

I always find it kinda strange how people will buy Wacoms, Workstations, huge monitors, Cintiqs etc yet still regard a few tubes of colour, a couple of brushes and some board as prohibitively expensive..