Oil paint has many unique qualities, including variations in texture, from light, watercolor-like washes, to impasto strokes of full body oil. Lately, I’ve been exploring the latter, painting with a fully loaded brush that creates bold strokes of color (called “impasto”, the technique of laying on paint thickly so that it stands out from a surface).

I’ve found this technique to have many benefits: it gives painting a sculptural “presence” that reminds the viewer this isn’t a photograph, it’s made by a hand with passion; it allows for richer color and interesting edges, as the loads of adjacent paint strokes combine at the edges, creating a marbleized co-mingling of color; using impasto for foreground elements makes them move forward in the picture plain, especially if you paint the distance in a thinner wash; and finally, there’s something more about it that’s difficult to describe….I think it’s perhaps the fact that the painting’s fluid surface gives it an organic quality.

Here are a few recent seascapes painted in this vein:



Lifeguard Station


Lifeguard Station

8×10 inches
Unframed
$325 *



Cove, Maui


Cove, Maui

8×10 inches
Unframed
$250 *



Juicy Rocks & Surf

8×8 inches
Unframed
$250 *



Shell Beach Bluffs


Shell Beach Bluffs

8×10 inches
Unframed
$225 *



Sea Cliff Bluffs (San Francisco)


Sea Cliff Bluffs (San Francisco)

10×8 inches
Unframed
$225 *

Juicy Rocks & Surf
Juicy Rocks & Surf


Juicy Rocks & Surf

8×8 inches
Unframed
$250 *

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3 thoughts on “Pushing Paint

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