Shooting blanks

This morning at 10 I left the house and drove to Silverdale to pick up my new canvases at the Michaels store there. Like many stores now, they have curbside pickup, so you drive up to the front door, call, give them your name, and they bring out your order.

I did put my mask on and open the windows when she came out; she, too, was masked, and was also wearing gloves to handle my canvases, so it was all very easy and safe.

I only brought one in when I came home, though: I ripped off the plastic and hung the canvas on my painting wall, then washed my hands for 20 seconds and washed the door handles as well. I do wonder if these habits will become so thoroughly ingrained we won't be able to shake them... possibly not a bad thing, I suppose.

But oh, wow -- so exciting to have a blank canvas! And this time I started with black marks, turned on the fan and left them to dry, then returned to add gray marks and left THEM to dry. By the time I was done with lunch, things were looking really good, and I was quite excited.

The problem came when I went to add the orange: it was way too bright, and way too thick, obscuring the black instead of drifting over it. I tried adding yellow oxide to tone it down, but that didn't really help. Fortunately the black had dried quite well, because I ended up scrubbing off the orange with sponge and paper towels (I used up a LOT of paper towels).

In the end I still wasn't happy with the color so I watered down some Paynes gray (which is really a dull navy; I've never understood why they call it gray) and sort of framed the whole thing in that to calm it down.

I'm not totally happy with it yet, and will probably be adding white tomorrow to brighten it up, maybe some tiny streaks of color to give it some juice? Not sure yet; this is all new to me, so I'm still learning what works and what doesn't. You'd think I'd have a better understanding of color by now, but just because I get the theory doesn't mean I have mastered it in practice: it's all a bit of a crap shoot, to be honest -- I just keep trying till I find a combination I like.

I do know that for the next canvas I try this technique on I'm going to work on developing a wash of blue and go from there: I think, when experimenting (and haven't I talked about this before?) it's good to reduce the number of variables you're working with. If I'm trying a new composition, new markmaking, and a new technique, perhaps it'll be simpler to stick to familiar colors.