Eye of Horus

 

Eye is watching you

I've been having some work and health troubles and so no real painting of late, but I did manage to get out the oils again and paint up the Eye of Horus, symbol for the Sons of Horus.

Oil painting has some applications to miniature painting, at least in the style I'm adopting. I don't really paint oils in one go, but instead plan them and paint in stages. Taking this example the first steps were to paint in the background (a green or turquoise for Sons of Horus) and then the central eye insignia. Black would be overlaid on top later and it's generally better to paint from background to foreground. Even the eye itself was first a mix of red and orange, then when that was fully dry (cured) I went back and added blended in the highlights up to yellow in the middle.

The black was actually a mixture of black, burnt sienna, white, even cadmium red. I wanted some depth to the surrounding shape, which black alone wouldn't give, and what you see is purely playing around for 15 minutes in the one spare moment I had. I'm not happy with the result, I know I can do better, but I'm not entirely unhappy either. It's not just greys, it's not plain black, and I figured how to mix on the fly better.

Working with acrylics I get used to layering a lot. Here it's different to a degree because the layers take a very long time to dry. It's better to mix the base colours and apply them with a rough outline and then later go back in and blend things together.

When working with acrylics I tend to mix colours on the palette first and then glaze and layer them up on the model. Here I was mixing white into the "black" on the palette but then when applied it would mix with the wet paint and be barely noticeable. Of course. So I mixed it directly on the painting itself. Oils are brilliant with blending, but therein lies the trick: figuring out when, where, and what to blend. It's also great to lean into that to work with the colours and move them around while there's time.

The long curing time of oil paints is something I am very much appreciating. Yes it means I generally can't sit and paint from start to finish in one go (possible with oils for someone more experienced than I), but also it's possible to simply have multiple paintings on the go, switching between them each day.

Oils for miniature painting isn't really my thing, but oils on canvas most certainly is. It helps me to think of the colours in a new way which is applicable to any sort of artistic endeavour.

-- silly painter.