Yellow Mountain. 12×12″. Oil on canvas (for sale online now)

It’s become a ritual, every year I dedicate 1 month to painting. In that month, I paint 40 paintings. 30 days, 40 paintings, no excuses. And everyday, I check in with you, to show off my progress or lack thereof.

It’s a mountain to climb. The abstract painting I ended up with today, is not the painting I set out to paint. Here’s a play-by-play, on how i screwed up a painting, and salvaged the wreck..

After picking 6 colours (8 including lamp black and titanium white) I applied a few glazes of colour, everything was going well. I took a picture.

My main goal in this painting was to achieve a strong atmospheric depth using glazes without the painting becoming too opaque. Something like in the picture above.. At this stage I should have switched to a small brush, and quickly painted in a few of the final details and I’m done. But I got greedy..

This is where everything goes wrong. I used dirty brushes, my palette was all muddied, I used too much oil, and I applied the green to sloppily. When I tried to ‘paint the fog’ using white it all went wrong. How doest this become an abstract piece? The next step is that missing link.

I like the effect in the bottom left corner, the rest is a mess! So I dip a big brush in turpentine, and try to ‘scrub’ away the mess. Uncovering a nice yellow. I use that as the thrust of an abstract. Yellow Mountain.

Tomorrow I’ll try again. I’ll improve somethings in my approach, I will conquer these yellow mountains!

Hi my name is Ming. I’m painting in my studio in the Sunny tropical city state of Penang, Malaysia. A long way way from any yellow mountains. I’m painting a body of work, with the working title “From the pages of glossy Magazines”

Posted by ming in Sept 2007 |