I found this little flower at a family reunion during March in central Texas, a few years ago. For the longest time I couldn't easily identify it, because it wasn't in the few books I have for Texas wildflowers. But after giving up on books and after poking around on the internet for a bit I realized that was because I was looking for a white flower, and Anemones are usually purple. This is a windflower, an
Anemone berlandieri, and they can be white, blue, purple, pink, or greenish. And those parts that look like petals are actually sepals. And its poisonous. Tricky little flowers. Almost as tricky as this painting turned out to be.
This is an oil painting on a 5x7 inch Claybord. I came across two issues with this painting:
1. Dull, sunken areas in the background
2. Places where the paint flat out wouldn't stick to the board. It never really dried, and just wiped right off.
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| Anemone, unfinished, first layer. |
Normally the first layer painted on a Claybord is a mess, you can't blend it because the board just sucks it right up as soon as it touches the board. I put up with that because you can scrape back to bright white without scraping through the gesso and ruining the painting, and that's pretty useful for some pictures.
Even after the first few layers of this one though the paint was dull and dry looking=Problem #1. But this wasn't too hard to deal with, it just needed an "oiling out". That means brushing on a good covering of Linseed oil (or whatever medium you're using), let it sit a minute or two, and then wipe off with a lint-free cloth. All the paint has to be totally dry before this, or else it will smear and make a mess. But after an oiling out the paint will be evenly shiny all over and your layers will adhere to each other better. And if an area of paint has enough oil, the stuff you brush on will just bead up on top, not soak in, and wipe right off. You can paint right after that if you want, or let it dry a few days.
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| Anemone, unfinished, second layer on background, flower untouched. |
The second problem was one that I hadn't run into before. I covered the flower petals in Titanium white and left it to dry a few days (or weeks, who knows, I wander off sometimes...) When I went to check if the paint was dry, it came off on my finger tip like powder.
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| Anemone, shiny white areas are where paint peeled off the panel. |
You can see the shiny areas where the paint rubbed right off and the panel shows through. It seems like the panel pulled all of the oil right out of the paint and the pigment was left sitting on top with no binder to hold it together. The Titanium White I use has walnut oil as the binder, because it yellows less than linseed oil. Maybe that combo reacted badly with the board, who knows. The solution to Problem #2 was the same as the solution to Problem #1= Oiling out. I saturated the flower area with linseed oil twice, then tried another layer of paint. (Probably should have used an oil that will yellow less, but I didn't feel like going to buy anything) That layer stuck, dried out, and seemed to work fine.
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| Anemone, finished, oil painting on a 5x7 Claybord. |
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Anemone, finished, with the paint from the last session on the palette.
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Definitely an annoying learning experience, but a nice painting at the end. I probably won't sell it for a few years, just to make sure the paint doesn't decide to fall off again. |
