Art by Erika Taguchi-Newton

Sunday, October 10, 2010

Halloween at Howley's and Water-soluble Oils

(UPDATE: Illustration Friday Submission - "Spooky")

Too busy with commissions and shows, I didn't get a chance to enter a piece for Bear & Bird's annual Halloween group art show. I got to check it out last week and it's fantastic, making me more upset at myself. But I managed to crank out some neat pieces for Howley's monthly art show.

Poison

Dagger

Are these creepy girls ghosts of murdered victims? Or are they lunatics posing with their choice of deadly weapons? These 4x4 paintings are my first attempt with water-soluble oils. I think I like! Not as yummy as normal oils, they are quite fun to play with. Because they are a bit costly, I used acrylics for underpainting. It also made it faster to dry. I didn't use any medium with these, just water. I'm sure that also contributed to faster drying time. Without the medium, it had an almost matted, gouache-like look to them.

I read that I can varnish with regular varnish intended for oils, so I used Re-touchable Varnish. That did the trick of making it look like real oil painting. I made a mistake of being too impatient of the second one and varnished too early, and it started streaking. I should have let it dry overnight like the first one which took the varnish beautifully.

Next experiment I'll be using the medium - linseed oil.

Opening night for Howley's show is this Tuesday. Come by and say "Boo!"

Howley's HalloweenShow-Front

7 comments:

Vilt og vakkert said...

Heisann!

This looks very interesting ... I like to try it myself.
Wonderful girls made by a tallented artist.

Erika (Raven Girl) said...

Thanks, V! In case you do try it, the brand I used is Holbein Duo Aqua Oil. They are hard to find in my neck of the woods (Florida, US), so I ended up ordering online.

Dear Fireflies said...

Hello Erika! Well, these girls spooked me out instantly! I love how your drew their eyes... such a depth to the story.

Juan said...

Fantastic! Love your style!

MrBibleHead said...

Nice one Erika! Wow!... these girls are spooky! Love the eyes!!!

ArtQwerks said...

These girls are truly spooky, yet somehow lovely...

Nancy Bea Miller said...

What's especially creepy is the resemblance to the big eyed kid paintings popular during my youth (1970s.) Cute cartoony figures with enormous realistically rendered "spaniel eyes". These are similar enough that you get a jar at the DIS-similarity, if you know what I mean?
Also, been meaning to try the water soluble oils again myself...I tried them when they first came out (15 years ago?) and found them kind of bleh. Maybe I'll try again.