This is an invitation for you to be the fly on the wall in my tiny little art studio/office. I’m posting all of my Open Studio visits at my Skool community, which is free to join.
Subject: Barred Owl
Medium: handmade oil paint from soot
Matrix: gesso board, 1/4″
I don’t consider myself and expert painter, nor am I sure that I am doing anything ‘correctly’ in regards to technique. As a self-taught artist, this is how I do it and sometimes it results in a painting I’m proud of, and sometimes not so much.
No Brick & Mortar Studio
If I did have a physical studio location, it would be open studio all of the time. But since I don’t, I decided to start making video recordings of my painting process in my home office/studio. For most people, this is probably very boring footage, lol.
For this first recorded session, I didn’t think to start recording my process until I had already made some marks on the canvas, so it’s not blank canvas beginning.
On this painting, I’m doing an underpainting in grayscale. I’m using some of my handmade soot black oil paint on a white gessoed board 1/4″ panel.
Self-taught Artist – NOT a teacher
I don’t feel qualified to call myself a teacher – but I’m happy to share with others how I go from a blank canvas to a painting. Now, whether I used proper technique to get there is a different story.
If I have to describe what I’m doing at this stage of the painting in the video, it’s all about moving color around to create the forms that will be the structure of my painting. I start out with a rough sketch using my larger paintbrush and then move the paint around.
It’s not so much ‘painting’ as it is ‘moving the paint around’, as you’ll see.
Open Studio at SKOOL
Join me at SKOOL to learn how to make watercolor and oil paints from your local earth pigment sources. I use rocks, clay, soot, bones and antlers. I’m also making classes for all of the other various projects I’ve enjoyed in the past like Forest Folk and Fairy Swing Mushrooms.
My Skool community is free to join, and the Open Studio videos are always free to all. Individual courses for my nature crafts will have individual charges. https://www.skool.com/nature-crafts
Contact & About
email: madison@wildozark.com
phone: (479) 409-3429
The newsletter is monthly. My blog is sporadic, so if you want the posts to go to your inbox, put your email address below. Blog posts and newsletters aren’t always the same (very rarely are the same), so it won’t hurt to subscribe to both 🙂
I’m a nature-lover, real estate agent & artist. Sometimes, I also write things. I began using local pigments to paint scenes from nature in the Ozarks in 2018.
If you’re interested in buying or selling in rural northwest AR, get in touch with me by phone, text, or email. I’m happy to help! I have a separate website for my real estate blogging and information at WildOzarkLand.com.
All of my artwork is available in prints, and where originals are available, they are for sale. You can find all of that over at shop.WildOzark.com.
Call me “Roxann” or “Madison”, either one works.
For pretty much everything online, I go by Madison Woods, a pen name I adopted when I first began writing and then later with my art. For real estate, I use my real name, Roxann Riedel. And for my fiction, there’s yet another pen name: Ima Erthwitch.
- Do you want to learn how to use your local rocks, soil, or clay to make paints?
- Learn to make my Fairy Swing Mushrooms
- Make your own Forest Folks
Interested in forming a partnership with nature to create art?