Outstanding! Love it! Especially "Stay Zef Yolandi".
I've been painting in acrylics the past six years, but I'm guessing you're far more practiced than me. I've done fewer than 30 canvases during that time. How often do you paint? What do you like best about oils?
I like the vibrancy you get from oil paint, in addition to that, the time in a way that it takes to dry also gives you more time to work with. This is my career now and I have sold about 40 pieces in the past 4 years. I also have painted almost 500 paintings in the 5 ish years since I have started painting. Before I started painting full time with oil, I did do a little work in acrylic, about 80 or so paintings in about 2 years. I average about 75 paintings a year now and double that if I work on small canvases. last year I made only 61 pieces but I worked on mainly 100 x 80 to 120 x 150 cm pieces ( 3 x 4 ft to 4.5 x 5.5 ft). And I paint almost every single day. for about 6 hours or so. But if I get in the zone it can be maybe 12 hours, I don't know what time is when I work anyways, I blast me some metal music and try to paint what I'm feeling.
It really depends on what style I use to how long a painting takes to complete, like my avatar here is a friend of mine that due to the layering took 3 months to complete and it was only a 60 x 90 cm piece but both the Yolandi and Ninja pieces above are double the size but since they are but one layer of paint I did both in a week. Time is determined by technique alone. But after it's complete? I hate oil, cause i can't add the work to my website for nearly half a year while I wait for it to cure and then varnish and cure again. So while I enjoy the time oil gives me to work I despise the time it takes to be "truly complete."
Although this year I am trying some new stuff, like cutting canvases and using the light filtering through as maybe a nice touch to the piece above it, or stacking a few and cutting into each layer to create a scene. I dunno, the first piece I did was both a success and a failure and there are a helluva a lot of obstacles to jump over till I get this technique down. I mean my first "grand experiment" was painting in oil with syringes, boy that was an expensive endeavor, but at least I know not so many people will copy me since it is so retarded expensive to paint in that fashion. I live in SE Asia currently and there is no level some folks will sink to to copy other's work if they think they can make a quick buck. Some of my early stuff been copied already, but in a way it is a compliment and an insult folded into one package. I try to shift my focus around enough that when I do have a show the friends that show up don't know what to expect at the show.
But I think that is important to try to remain uncomfortable and keep trying things that you are unfamiliar with, like I may* try natural color this year, but brown is such a sheisty color, its hard to get just right and costs a lot of color to make but since I currently have a ridiculous over abundance of yellow at the moment perhaps the time is right to try. Yellow and white of all the colors goes the fastes if you make all of your color. And if you want to be good I guess being able to make the color you so or envision is extremely important. So starting with acrylic and getting that knowledge into your head is your best bet because I'll tell you it doesn't get any cheaper buddy, not by a long shot. Of the money I make out of this craft I dump at least 75% back into it for material. But at least the canvas and spans(stretcher bars) are dirt cheap where I live. 30 x 1.75m per 180usd.
But if you wanna talk color or whatever I'm down. it muh life.