My favorite painting style, oils, which I am now in the process of learning to
use properly, stems from my favorite artist, Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec.
I have a series of four, that is a depiction of the four Horsemen,
Famine, Pestilence, War, and my favorite, Death.
I painted these in acrylic, a medium very similar to oils, and all I
could use in the limits of my high school art program, which, though well
funded and supplied, has very few resources for oil paints. Oil paints
and the mixing and cleaning solutions are potentially volitile or
dangerous liquids, and proper care must be taken when storing them. I
would have had to carry them everywhere with me, or provide a lockable
case.
In my inexperience though, I didn't use proper acrylics, I actually used
the thinner airbrush acrylics. I just pretended they were watercolors,
which is my best, and my second favorite medium. I think it shows
fairly well in my Horsemen series.
Recently I finished two more pieces as part of my learning, and I think I
pulled it off pretty well. I can't show you those either, as they are
too big to scan well. Also, I put on the paint (real oil paints this
time) Really, _really_ thick, just the way it should be. (IMHO)
One is a still life: a greenish bowl, with three pears and an
orange in it, plus one orange off to the side. These are sitting
on a table, which has a white cloth draping off the side like a
waterfall. The second is my favorite: I combined two pictures to
make it: one is a sunset seen from my bedroom window at home, and the
other is of the White Cliffs of Dover, taken from a beach below the
cliffs, which is a very special place for me. The paint on this
one is especially thick!
Update: I took another class, and this time, though I only painted one,
the subject was entirely up to me, (well, it had to be narrative, telling
a story of some sort, but that's the only requirement) and I painted
Death, standing on a large stone, upon a red and black sand beach, looking
out into a brilliant sunset, representing infinity.
Now some art on the web that I really like...
Here is "A Montrouge" (1886-87) with Rosa La Rouge, my absolute favorite
Toulouse-Lautrec subject. This is of course oil on canvas.
I actually saw the original, in a museum in Washington D.C. a couple years
ago! It has been my favorite piece ever since.
Here is a painting of Christine from The Phantom of the Opera, leaning
out towards the Phantom's mask.
