This is the fourth in a series about painting with oils, sharing what I have learned so far. You can read the first, second, and third posts here.

Applying Paint

In this post I want to write about the best part of painting – applying the paint! I usually don’t start with a white canvas, instead, I mix a background color (usually in the pinkish family) and dip my brush in mineral spirits to get it nice and thin. Then I brush this all over the canvas. Sometimes I mix a warm and cooler color and apply one for land and one for sky, it just depends. Drips happen sometimes, and I really like that, but I usually take a tissue and wipe everything fairly dry so my actual paint doesn’t mix with the mineral spirity paint.

This is the third in a series on painting with oil, what I have learned so far. You can read the first post here, and the second one here.

Choosing Your Surface

Stretched canvas or canvas panels have been my go to painting surface for most of my painting time with oil. I like this option because both are affordable and easy to find at Hobby Lobby or wherever.

I love this painting by Edward Seago. The grays are so delicate. There is a variety between cool and warm. And the horizon line with the buildings is beautifully painted in such close values. I love the contrast of light and dark - the standing water against the dark buildings. The sky is at once warm and cool and full of lively clouds. I just like the feel of this painting - it takes me there. These are the reasons I chose this painting to study. I have others from Edward Seago that I want to paint in the coming days. There is something about his style that I really like.

This is the second post in a series I am working on about oil painting. Here is the link to the first post.

Mixing Colors and Using Medium

This post is about mixing colors and using medium in your oil paint.

Nebraska artist Patty Scarborough had some great advice about mixing paint on her blog, she said (and I agree) the best way to learn how to mix colors is hands on experimentation – in other words - trial and error. There really is no substitute.

This is the first in a series of articles I want to write about painting with oils. Before I started painting with oils I was pretty intimidated. Tales of trash cans bursting into flame and toxic materials with strict handling rules kept me tiptoeing around them for sure.

But as I have continued to study master artists and great paintings that I really like, most of them are done in oil. So, a few years ago, I started learning more about the process of oil painting and while I certainly don’t know it all, I am happy to share what I have learned.

Frits Thaulow was a Norwegian impressionist painter. I learned of him through the book Landscape Painting by Asher Durand and Birge Harrison. He was praised by Harrison for the way he painted water, and I agree, what a master he is!

I just finished reading Landscape Painting by Asher B. Durand and Birge Harrison. Great read. It is a combination of letters written by both artists to their students, Durand's originally published in 1855, and Harrison's originally published in 1909. 

Happiest new year to you dear reader!

This piece, Prairie Marsh, started a few days ago in the wee hours of the morning when I couldn't sleep, you know how that is. I think it was 4:00 in the morning. Those morning hours are good to me. 

Here is another master painting study, a work by John Frederick Kensett titled Mountain Lake.

Kensett was a member of the second generation of the Hudson River School of artists. His work is associated with the American Art style of Luminism. I love this style of painting (along with Tonalism) and I look forward to painting more and applying what I am learning to my new pieces for 2017. 

This is a second piece I have studied by one of my favorite master artists, Alexei Savrasov. You can see more of his work here.  

Wow, this portrait was a real challenge and I am happy to have time to study and practice the work of Robert Henri. Look at his masterful brush strokes, especially the important details of the eyes. Amazing. 

I am continuing my practice and study of painting pieces by master artists (here are others in the series, Gifford, Inness, and Savrasov).

Here is another piece in the paintings of the masters on which I have been spending time lately and loving every minute of (others are Inness and Gifford).

This is a beautiful work, Home At Montclair, by master artist George Inness, the second in a series of painting with the masters I am sharing on the blog. Here is a link to the first one by Sanford Robinson Gifford. 

I have been wanting to take time with some of the master artists I really admire, perusing their paintings, choosing some favorites, and spending time painting them as a learning experiment.