Persimmon in Spoon Holder

Ink & Watercolor in Large Moleskine Watercolor Notebook
(To enlarge, click image, select “All Sizes”)

It felt like time to get back to some color tonight and this persimmon was a willing victim for a quick little study.

I stopped at the art store on the way home from work tonight and ended up spending too long (and too much money), gathering oil painting supplies and learning from a knowledgeable employee about improvements in oil painting materials since I last used them 20 years ago, and how to work with the new safer mediums and solvents–no more turpentine. I remember being in an oil painting class at SF City College in a room without special ventilation, with 30 students all having open containers of turpentine and paint thinner. By the end of class I’d feel like I was drunk–just one of the many reasons I seem to have so few functioning brain cells these days, I’m sure!

It felt weird buying white paint, since in watercolor one tries to save the white of the paper for areas that are to remain white. With oils you can add a highlight or a light area at the end of the painting, which rarely is successful with watercolor, unless you don’t mind opaque paint on top of a transparent watercolor.

My plan is to try to use the oils like watercolors, glazing in layers. I’m certainly not planning to give up watercolor, but every now and then there’s something I’m painting that seems to want to be more opaque and have greater depth.