Solo Impasto

[Valo]

5th Fall 512AV Evening Valo's home There is a painting technique which had been taught to Valo ah a very young age, but he had not painted like that since. Perhaps it was this pretentious realism within his own work that stopped him from doing so. Or it may have simply been the matter of finding the right subject matter. However he decided it was about time to try it again. To explore a beloved side of painting he had not yet substantially experimented with. In order to produce a greater commissioned painting, Valo had produced a number of sketches and colour studies of Zeltiva's docs. Perhaps more than just one work could be pulled from them? After all, a tremendous amount effort had been plowed into the sketches alone, it would be a shame to just abandon them. To add them to the growing collection of stuff he deemed unworthy of selling. Mockingly, the unfinished canvas of the doc had stared upon the red haired artist, as he sorted though his materials. He didn't quite understand why this discontentment and pure hate towards the commissioned painting had overtaken him. Perhaps it was purely boredom? He had worked tirelessly upon it until his mind had been numbed with the effort. The same repetitive ritual. And each time he'd apply a new coat of paint it was equally as stressful. He couldn't mess it up. Not enough time and not enough money to allow him self such a failure. Artists were suppose to be proud of their work, but Valo's own pride was tinged with scepticism. He wasn't proud of the object which meant little to him, but of the fact he could quickly sell it and therefore survive. His mind digressed. A mind as scattered as his cottage. The name of the technique was impasto. The process of laying on paint or pigment thickly so that it stands out from a surface creating a range of flamboyant textures. It was mainly an abstract technique, but what Valo found truly admirable was when it was used to portray natural subjects. It was only when the equilibrium of marks and colour worked together to suggest easily recognisable shapes, that he could safely say that real art has been created. And despite the true boredom that the doc sparked within Valo's soul, he thought it a challenge to create something truly worth looking at though technique, rather than subject matter. And just like that, the Inarta abandoned all notion of photorealism. He'd no longer create flat, dull paintings for the time being. The notion of impasto was much more exciting. Oil paint thankfully was the perfect medium for working in such a way. He could not however use other mixing mediums such as white spirit or linseed oil within the work, for it would defeat the whole objective. Therefore, setting up an easel, Valo prepared a small canvas, only about the length and width of his forearm and imagined how the finished piece would look like. only boats in the water. that was all he wished to focus on within this painting. He had generous amounts of each colour paint upon his palette. This was no time to be sparse. Diving fully and completely into the ocean of his work, him mind not solely focused upon it, banishing all other thoughts. Both the negative and the positive. It wasn't often that he could do so with such ease; but when it was the case, there was a certain blissful freedom about the condition he had willed him self into. Funny how human beings have so much control over their own emotion without even realising it. Or perhaps it was just the prospect of something next and exciting that wiped down his mind into a clean slate, washed it with turpentine. The very colour he had mixed was a dull grey-blue. He had in fact dedicated quite a bit of work to form this particular shade. The first mixing was his favourite combination; ultramarine blue and cadmium red light, which resulted in a purple tinted grey, when the quantity of ultramarine prevailed over the red. He then added this very colour - which he named the lack of colour for it was such a unique shade - to some phthalo blue which had just a dot of black within it. The resultant mixture was still however heavily towards the blue side of the colour spectrum, so Valo added just a little yellow ochre pigment which took the edge of the colour. If he had added too much the result would be a muddy mint, but just a little was enough to bring out the grey undertones within the hue. Then mixing his with an abundance of white, the end product was a mid tone, which in turn lay flat upon the upper half of the canvas. Subtle brush marks lingered within the surface, but essentially the paint became a block colour. Some may have wondered what the artist was doing, for he had self righteously claimed to work with texture. But he had an acute plan by now. An abundance of texture to his eyes was meaningless, for only contract could truly proclaim the magnitude of the effect of this technique. A more monochromatic approach to the idea of texture. A chiaroscuro of physical values of paint. The next colour was a cadmium red, taken straight out of the bottle. With a soft bristled brush, he applied the paint in great excess onto the canvas, so it created sharp edges against the previous colour, without mixing with it. Soon this red became the underbelly of a boat, the surface smooth, emanating from the painting as if by some magical means. A third dimension had appeared. A scraffitoed line created by brush bristles, run the length of the boat. To be perfectly honest, Valo wasn't quite sure why anyone would take the effort to paint the underneath of a boat red, but it didn't matter. The point was that he wanted to add sharp flashes of colour to the painting. Soon wooden pasts and other embellishments began appearing as the boat took shape. It swarmed with marks, some tiny and some great long imposing ones. Each merely describing the shape of the boat without properly blending into the others. Many colour weren't properly mixed and so the primary smudges would loom from their obscurity. He had even gone so far as to scratch into the paint with the blunt end of his brush, revealing some of the ambient blue beneath. The boat was not a flash of crude shape, colour and texture upon a flat background. Similarly a second boat soon took shape by the hand and paintbrush of the artist. yes, he did frequently use his fingers to manipulate the paint. sometimes he even used scraps of card, in absence of a palette knife, only to apply paint more thickly. This boat however had great gashed of vibrant cobalt blue running across it and lamp black lines and ropes snaked upon it's masts. He had created them in quite an entraining way; by picking up way too much black paint on his brush and then dragging the very tip of the paint across the canvas so that it would settle in thin but three dimensional shapes. The very final step was to paint in the sea. For this Valo had chosen a much harder brush and loading it with various shades of blue, stippled them in great quantity upon the canvas. A weave of all tints and tones of blue imaginable. In various places he crudely mixed white in with the blue to create highlights of sea spray. And just like that the painting was complete. Valo had produced several little canvases like this one, for the time had escaped him. In fact when tiredness finally overcame him and became almost crippling, it was way past midnight. A total of five painting now lingered on the table in his front room -all created by very similar processes, all bearing exquisite textures and marks and all were paintings of the doc from the same viewing point, but different aspects of it - taking their time to dry. Presumably the drying time would take twice or even tree times as long for the sheer quantity of paint that had been applied. But when that was over, he'd sell these works too, knowing that he enjoyed working on them. There was a certain freedom in the technique of impasto. A sense that despite perhaps the subject matter, not being quite what he wanted to be, the very texture and elaborate technique would prove more than interesting to a viewer. The sharp lines where one colour pushed against the other. The convoluted conglomerations where colours did not properly mix, therefore rendering the area crowded by components. the technique was quick and effective and meant he didn't have to bother with his obsessive perfectionism. Even if he had made a mistake or two, it would be disguised. this was a truly fast and stress free method of creating a lot of Mizas fast.

[Cloud]

XP Reward!

From the sky falls your reward!

PC Name:

Experience

Skill	XP Earned
Painting	+2

Lores

•	Lore Earned
•	Impasto

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