The challenge of taking up oils, from scratch.

Oil paint is described as 'the king of all mediums' for good reason. It is unlike any other paint in consistency and performance, and it takes perseverance and a touch of determination to keep going through the initial lessons. (er, and the later lessons...) Like many things which are new to us, we can get disheartened all too easisly, and while I regularly ask students not to judge their efforts, it is difficult to do that! Many people want everything to be perfect first time. A desire which is not helped by the fact that our expectations of ourselves rise as we improve, meaning we often don't quite achieve what we want even though we are improving. The notion of perfection itself is a dubious one anyway, but the creation of an oil painting requires several (imperfect) stages, many of which are unattractive, off balance (tonally) until completion, and would often beneift from an extra layer, or two or three. Once, even though I was experienced in oils, a portrait painting just wasn't going the way I wanted it to. I could have started again, but feared just reaching a similar-but-different state of disatisfaction, so I just kept layering the first one. It took seven layers - SEVEN! And that's ok. I think it would be good to remember that the joy of painting is in the PAINTING, not the finish. If we can work it that act of painting itself is the fulfillment we seek, rather than the finish, then we would recognise more regular 'success'. It doesn't mean that we have to endure the mediocre, or not critique our work or not get frustrated, but sometimes, jeez, GETTING to the DESK is an achievment! Here are some examples of studies and work in progress from the past term.

We have used various techniques. term started with observation drawing, then on to black and white painting so students can become familiar with the texture of oil paint without the extra concerns of working in colour.

We followed this by doing the same subject in colour - so the SUBJECT is familiar, and students get to grips with colour.

Another technique we used this past term was using the underpainting layer as a proper tonal 'support' for the second colour layer. We used Raw Umber to paint the underpainting in one session, and the next week painted over it with French ultramarine to get impactful results - a time-efficient method.

The following photos show more progress shots inlcuding a charcoal drawing study,the raw umber underpainting followed by a 'Grisaille' layer, followed by colour on top.

Finally, a lovley colour painting which took a couple of sessions.

All these lovely artworks were done by students who are new to oils - they have all made an excellent start! For info on all my classes, in drawing, water colour and oils, please email julie@juliedouglas.co.uk