This week, we're delighted to feature artist, Eco Artist team member, and guest blog contributor Jess Currier!
I’m halfway through the most ambitious painting of my career so far. I need materials I can rely on.
Eco-Solve has been a staple in my studio since the first time I used it. As an oil painter who has asthma and long-covid, I used to take extra measures to protect my health around solvents. Even with the “safest” conventional products and good ventilation, I still dealt with headaches after working in my studio. Since switching to Eco-Solve, this has never been an issue. And importantly, I didn’t have to compromise on quality.
Aside from using it as a brush cleaner, I rely heavily on Eco-Solve in the early stages of my painting process. I always lay down an Imprimatura, a layer of thinned translucent color to provide a unified mid-tone base before I go in with pure paint. I then use a slightly thicker mix of Eco-Solve and paint to sketch out my composition to scale.
I laid down those first layers on this five foot figurative piece nearly a year ago (yes, this idea has been chasing me for a long time!). So when it was finally time to work on her again, I used Eco-Solve and Walnut Oil to refresh the canvas, brushing on the mixture and wiping off any excess with a towel before starting with paint the following day. This process of “oiling out” evens out the surface porosity so that my oils lay down smoothly and blend beautifully when I start painting.
When it comes to paint, I used to be intimidated to mix my own. But since working so large, I knew that this was the perfect time to dive in and create large batches of the colors I’d need for the next few months. Spoilers, it was way easier than a run to the art supply store! Blending these pigments with walnut oil and seeing them transform into luscious oils was so much fun. Plus, these colors perform on par with my nicest tubes of paint.
I’ve been chipping away at this piece day by day, working Alla Prima, painting wet-into-wet one section at a time. I mock up my composition digitally, layering floral patterns over my figure model to create a “double exposure” effect. I then create the illusion of those transparent layers by mixing the colors I see in my reference. Each day is a bit of a brain teaser puzzle, but the big picture is slowly coming together.
You can follow along on my journey with this painting on instagram and see the finished piece in my debut solo show at Thinkspace Gallery in Los Angeles in January 2027.
