Freezing Fog, 2014 – Michaela Harlow – 24″ x 24″, oil on panel
This year’s thirty-in-thirty studio challenge has begun with an alla prima oil painting. The challenge is thirty straight days of studio work, with accompanying online journal posts. Usually, I begin January’s thirty-in-thirty with a pastel painting or drawing, but this year, I felt like leaping straight into the oils.
If you are unfamiliar with the alla prima method (Italian for ‘at first attempt’), it is simply a direct form of painting where the work is created in one session; layer upon layer of wet paint. I start early in the day with an oil bar sketch, and then build layers of oil paint on top of this drawing, throughout the day. Colors are kept ‘clean’ by using many brushes and wiping them between brushstrokes.
 (preliminary sketch for Freezing Fog, completed early this morning)