Great Gift for the Holidays!

OK, I can hear you saying it "COME ON...Summer isn't even over and you're talking about the holiday season already!? You're crazy!" Here's the thing, while I may be a little crazy here and there, I'm actually not on this one.

I looked at the calendar and just about died! How do I figure? 2 weeks for holiday shipping + 4-6 weeks for drying time (most portraits are painted in oils and they take a long time to dry) + time to work on the painting (they each require several steps with drying time in between) and WOW! Here we are!

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Riley Staring Off into the Wild Blue Yonder - Oil - WIP 1 & 2

Here's the underpainting for the painting I'm working on from the sketch I did last week. I did the underpainting in acrylic (this time I used water as a thinner LOL) because I wasn't feeling patient enough to wait for an oil underpainting to dry.

Here's the first stage of the oils. 

You're Kidding Right? I Didn't Seriously Do this Did I?

Last night i decided to do a quick background for a painting I want to do. I know I want it mostly red and since the gesso I used was white I thought I'd just slap on some red acrylic paint as a foundation so that I could paint over it tonight in oils. 

I thought I was being SOOOO smart! HAH! I have three jars of solvent, one is water which I rarely use, one is baby oil which I use to clean my brushes, and the third is linseed oil which I use for thinning. I've thought of labeling these jars but decided that I'm smart, I can tell the difference between them...apparently not. I'll put that on the list of mistakes not to repeat, "never think you're smart". You may be able to tell where I'm going with this one...

Yup! You guessed it! I used baby oil to thin the acrylics instead of water. One might also think that I'd have copped on by the fact that the large quantities of paint I was putting on my brush kept sliding off and slopping back down on the palette. Oh no! I didn't cop on then! I just chalked what I thought was weird paint behavior up to the fact that I'd gotten used to oils and didn't remember this from my acrylic painting days. I just put my hand under the brush like you might a spoon full of liquid and slapped in on the board. It wasn't until I got all done and noticed that the first corner I painted was kind of shiny and slick that it finally dawned on me and I smelled the "water" and realized what happened. I will definitely be labeling those jars! 

Here's what I found this morning. A slick and shiny painting with baby oil oozing out. :S

Here's a close up of the drips. Nice ehh?

Well, I guess if anyone was wondering what would happen if you mix baby oil and acrylic paint, I've solved the mystery! To continue the experiment, next up is to see how the oil paints go on over the top. I'm holding my breath!