The Painting Demo That Wasn´t

Contemporary Art

Oil Painting on Canvas by Beatriz Socorro
Male Nude 2 after "Orfeo" by Roberto Ferri

Remember in one of my previous blogs when I said this was going to be my next demo?

After I filled in the basic colors and blended the edges, I felt the colors were too vivid. I wanted something softer.

I waited for it to dry and painted over it.

I blended the colors with my fingers and then proceeded to add the darker shadows.

I didn´t like it at all!

Prussian Blue and Thalo Green are two colors which are very hard to remove. They love to cling. So...I just poured thinner over the whole thing and wiped it all off with paper towels and,  of course, it left streaks all over the figure and the background.

Well, what the heck! The painting was ruined. Might as well have some fun and experiment with it.

I liked the streaks...  :))

I was wondering what color I could use to allow the streaks to show through. The Light Gold that I have is pretty transparent. I wondered what that would look like....

I should have taken a picture of the streaks but at the time I didn´t feel like photographing the mess I made.


I wiped off the excess thinner and allowed it to dry.

Keeping in mind the fat-over-lean rule, I added linseed oil to the gold paint and covered the whole figure with it and then with some bronze added some shadows.

I used a flat brush to paint along the edges of the figure but used my fingers to fill it in.

For the background I used a brush to apply the paint.

Once I was done, you could barely see the streaks but here´s the result. Not so bad considering that I was ready to paint the whole canvas white to retrieve it and start again from the beginning.

Oil Painting on Canvas by Beatriz Socorro
Male Nude 2 after Orfeo by Roberto Ferri

This is what you call:  turning a negative into a positive.


So, if you ever make a mess...have fun and experiment.

Note: Male Nude 2 by Beatriz Socorro "after"  Orfeo by Roberto Ferri

God Bless!