That's Better...

...though you may not see the difference.  My sister kindly gave me some water based oil paints, some time ago, having heard me talk about them.  I finally tried them out.  I hadn't realised quite how big a difference there is between acrylics and oils, but this confirmed it.

Reader, I painted.

Boxed In I and II...and there's a lot to explore in this, for me, at least.  It's how I feel about ME: locked into a tiny space, unable to move much, or do a great deal.  The observant quilters among you might notice a resemblance to a log cabin block in the structure of the painting...that was certainly going through my mind as I was painting. 

I've never used water soluble oils before, so I tried monoprinting.  Okay, maybe not.  Each of these was made on paper that had been underpainted in acrylic.  The first one then had additional marks added, the other two were left as they were.  Don't think I'll be doing that again, though.  Not fussed about the red one, but rather like the other two, especially the second one.

The upside...I love painting with oil paint, it's thick, buttery, easy to work with, and this watercolour version is incredibly easy to clean up.  The downside, though, other than the oil smell, is the length of time they take to dry.  This is day three, and we're still not quite there...I don't really have enough room to have work lying around drying for days on end.  So the jury's out on what to do about it.  I suppose the simplest thing would be to stop painting, but I get a good deal of pleasure from it.  So I think I'm going to reserve judgement, and perhaps play with some more of my toys...I have both printing inks and a lot of pastels, soft and oil.  Maybe there's something I can do that will be easier to do and not take as much energy.  I'll let you know.