This little gem is a sneak peak at the Giant Project, known hereon as GP. Why am I teasing you with this? Because I have had a victory and want to share it! I have been fighting my paint and brushes, trying like crazy to get them to do what I want. I struggle along, wondering if I will ever learn to paint properly, wondering why I can’t get anything to do what I request, wondering why no matter how many hours spent it still looks like a dog’s breakfast. On Sunday a.m. a bottle of linseed oil appeared on my front porch with a note from my 6th grade teacher. (He signed it “Tom S.” and I thought it was from someone I know here in town because I always think of my 6th grade teacher’s first name as “Mr.”, not “Tom”, for goodness sake!) Like the good girl that I try to be, I wrote him a thank you note and wondered if I would ever have a use for linseed oil in painting because my earlier attempts at using it have been crap less than satisfactory. It left random shiny spots on the painting which I tried to ignore, and then a well meaning friend said, “I like this painting but it has shiny spots on it”. Then I learned about some special recipe from the teacher at the junior college where I soldiered through half a semester of a painting class 2 years ago. (I sort of knew he and I weren’t a good teacher-student match when he said to me “The trouble is, you don’t know how to draw!” Okay, thanks for that helpful tidbit Mister, but I am about to have an opening of a solo show of my drawings so your opinion of my abilities is crap less than satisfactory.) Anyway, this special recipe also made random shiny spots and was weird to use, sort of sticky and it made the color too weak, and I could see no point to using it. Maybe if I had stayed the entire semester I would have learned how to solve this problem, but it seemed that staying home to paint was a better use of my time than driving 80 minutes round trip for each class that was mostly just easel time with bad light and bad rap “music”. Meanwhile back at the ranch, I bravely went out to the easel, determined to master this problem of misbehaving paint and WHAM! into my brain came the idea of linseed oil from Mr. S. (the good teacher who taught me how to draw but denies it saying I already knew. . . go figure! I knew how to draw in 6th grade but somehow forgot through my career of drawing?) Knowing things on the easel couldn’t possibly get any worse, I tried the linseed oil mixed with the paint and it was MAGICAL! It was fabulous! All I can say is THANK YOU GOD for sending Mr. S by with that linseed oil, even before I knew it was needed so desperately! The upper right corner of the little gem is a sample of how it all looked before the magical linseed. . . I’m sure you can see it is less than satisfactory.
5 Comments
Aw shucks, Steven! Thank you so much for telling me this. You were my very first student and I knew nothing about teaching so I just started showing you stuff and helping you. You were very receptive, worked diligently and learned well. It has always been a pleasure to spend time with you and I am So Impressed and Proud of you for getting through architecture, particularly since I tried it myself and quit!
Jana! How are you? My mom phoned me today about your new project so I jumped on here to check it out. Congratulations on taking on this awesome project! It should be a wonderful experience. I can’t wait to come check it out. 🙂 As I was reading through your blogs I saw this one and couldn’t help but write a little comment. The way you think about Uncle Tom is the same way I think about you. I was 9-10 years old when I first started taking lessons from you and I wouldn’t be where I am now without your help, encouragement, and inspiration. I may not be doing art, but with the skills and love for drawing that you taught me I have managed to get myself within 3 months of graduating from architecture school. I want to thank you very much for all that you have done for me and also thank my Uncle Tom, for it seems that with out him I may not have had a drawing teacher. Thanks again!
Hi EF – the linseed oil is too old to have a label but it is clearly for painting. The first stuff I used was from a hardware store, so that might be the difference! Ken, you are so right about Mr. Stroben! Remember Karen Forcum leading rolling desk chair race escapades when he was out of the classroom? Yikes, he was brave! I will tell him hi for you when I see him again. And thanks for the compliment on the painting – “awesome” is a bit over the top, but I will enjoy the fact that you think so!
Mr. Tom Stroben??? Don’t know if I spelled it correctly or even got close. Tell him I said hi anyways… and that after teaching as a sub for 6th graders a few times myself, I now think of him as one of the bravest human beings in the world along with all of my other elementary school teachers. Keep painting, you are awesome!
Kenny
Yikes! So what made the difference? Is it the brand of linseed oil? Or the brand of paints? Is it a secret? I enjoyed your story of your drawing & painting journey–I’m still smiling.
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