Sometimes when I oil paint, I try to finish in one layer. It seldom works, and requires another layer of better detailing.

Other times, I plan on finishing in two layers.

Still others, I expect to keep repainting the scene, over and over and over. In ArtSpeak, this is called “glazing”, and it is the method taught when I endured 1/2 a semester at the localish junior college in 2008.

On this particular painting day, the method of layering over and over and over held some appeal. I haven’t evaluated why I approach each painting differently, but knew this current batch of paintings wouldn’t be good enough if I tried the 2-layer approach.

By the way, finishing in one session is called “ala prima” in ArtSpeak. Yes, it is probably Italian, not what I term ArtSpeak.

I digress.

This was a bit of a mess with barely a single layer.

So, I began again, putting in the beginning layers of background.

I’m hoping that the original layers are either not going to show through or that they will so I don’t have to figure it all out from scratch again. (You can tell that I am still a bit discombobulated with trying to choose the best method to paint.)

Moving right along. . . see the larger square? Let’s tackle that one next.

Are you beginning to doubt either my artistic judgement or my abilities? Fret not.

I spent a bit of time on the laptop trying to find something among my 37,000 photos and stumbled across this forgotten plein air painting (ArtSpeak for “painted on location”, probably French)

If I put a bit more effort into this, I bet it would sell. It is called Airport Bridge, because just across the North Fork of the Kaweah River here in Three Rivers, there used to be a little airstrip. My dad used to land there, and then we’d walk to his uncle’s house.

When it is dry again, I’ll rescan it with the new scanner and then possibly put it in a frame, because it is on that canvas wrapped board, which isn’t suitable on its own.

While I was digging around for that painting after seeing it on the laptop, I found another one, this one clearly incomplete. I began painting it to help one of my drawing students who wanted to learn oil. As I explained and demonstrated each step, she followed along. After a couple of hours, we were only this far and she was fed up. I put it on a shelf and forgot about it until now.

One pomegranate by itself left too much background for my tastes, so I proceeded to dig through my photos and come up with something believable to add.

This was so fun that I forgot to take any more pictures until it was done.

This will need a frame. Phooey. I’ll scan it first. Maybe even decide to put another layer on it. It was fun to paint something in a rarely used color, something that both had specific shapes (unlike scenery) but was forgiving (unlike portraiture.)

Painting differently keeps my interest up. (So do sales, but that’s not what we’re talking about here unless you’d like to make an offer on any of these works in progress.(*>*)