Tracey Costescu Fine Art

Rough Oil Sketch by Student - 8x10" So proud of my student this morning who attempted her first oil sketch in preparation for her landscape painting...and she hit it out of the park!  We did a rough sketch using Burnt Sienna thinned down with Gamsol odorless mineral spirits. I love this stage of a painting as things fall into place so quickly and it is just so satisfying to see everything come together so quickly. Look at that focus and how she is holding the brush way, way back....makes me very happy :)

I often get asked what paints, brushes & supplies I use so I thought I would create a post with images for all us visual learners to make sharing the info easier. These are the supplies that I use when I teach my workshops and art classes.  My next class starts in March, please visit http://register.asapconnected.com/EventDetail.aspx?pk=343461 if you would like more information. Brushes   Silver Bristalon Synthetic Round s - Absolutely LOVE these brushes! They allow you to scrub to your hearts content yet the bristles stay together nicely and do not splay.  They may break down over time, but they always retain their shape and you don't get that annoying odd stray hair sticking out the side as you usually do with scrubbing brushes.   Silver Ruby Satin Synthetic - Again love this brush.  Excellent snap, soft yet able to achieve fine control.  Very resilient brush. Rosemary & Co Ivory Long Flat - Love, love these brushes for a...

Grisaille - Oil on Panel - 8x10"  This is the first oil pass of the grisaille for a piece I am working on.  The original drawing can be viewed at http://tcostescu.blogspot.ca/2014/07/shell-leaf-pitcher-study-graphite-on.html   For this painting I transferred the drawing onto the panel using an oil transfer (I will blog about how to do this in the near future). Once the transfer was dry, I did a light burnt umber layer to workout the main values, unfortunately I forgot to take a photo of this step. Next time ;) When the burnt umber layer was completely dry, I used my pre-mixed oil paints from a value of 2 to 9 (2 darkest value, 9 near white value)  At this stage I focused on trying to really correctly record the tilts and angles of my subjects from my still life set up.  Working from life is more challenging than working from a photo but so much more fulfilling as there is just so much more information about the form to work from. The paint is app...

Quick Oil Sketches on Paper For these sketches I was experimenting with different surfaces to paint on for my practice sketches & color studies.  The painting on the far left was done drawn first with charcoal and then painted using a monochromatic values on Arches Oil Paper, the painting in the middle was done with a quick burnt umber sketch with the brush directly on the paper and then overpainted with the monochromatic values (a copy of a painting by John Singer Sargent that does not really look like the original but I loved her look so kept her as is :)) done on gessoed Arches watercolor paper and the painting on the right was painted in the same manner as the Sargent copy but on canvas paper.  My favorite surface by far was the gessoed Arches watercolor paper, although the Arches Oil paper was a close second and I think with a coat of gesso it would be my fav...other than price.  The canvas paper was my least favorite as it is very slipp...

Oil Sketch - Around the Bend $95 Framed This is another quick little oil sketch I did during the summer when I was trying to get ready for an upcoming Plein Air workshop that I signed up for.  I worked from my imagination for this one and was experimenting with mixing various greens as I do not paint greenery...at all.  I was quite happy with how the distant mountains turned out. Working from imagination it turns out is much harder than working from real life, at least for me it is!  When I finally did get to go to the Plein Air Workshop I was pleasantly surprised with how my practice of mixing and trying different brush work paid off and I could just focus on what was in front of me and enjoy the day.  I am definitely hooked on plein air painting and hope to do some over the winter as well...when it is not raining that is.

Ocean View - Oil Sketch $95 Framed This is a little oil sketch I did during the summer when I was trying to get ready for an upcoming Plein Air workshop that I signed up for.  I do not usually paint landscapes in oil so it was definitely a challenge but fun to do.  I painted this one in a couple of hours and learned a lot. Plein air painting is really fun because you are trying to figure everything, color, composition, paint handling, in one go in a very short time so it forces you to make faster decisions than you would normally make.  So much fun!