I always thought it looked like the most intuitive way of painting, but school never had the funds for expensive paints and as a result I never really gave it a shot.

Fast-forward 20 years and I bought some paints on a whim and have had a crack today. I’m enjoying it, but there’s a definite shortfall between expectations and ability. Short of enrolling on a Fine Art course, any ideas what I could be doing to reduce that shortfall?

Things I’m finding difficult:
1 – I’m attempting alla prima, but can I eckers like seem to get wet paint on top of wet paint without it becoming a smudged mess
2 – I bought some primed canvas, but brushes on this canvas feels a bit “scratchy”. Is there any way of reducing this feeling?
3 – I cannot get any paint to transfer from palette knife to canves at all
4 – lots of paint seems to pick up from the canvas onto the brush, so that messes up the next colour/brush stroke

For completeness, here’s my first ever oil painting. Still very much a work in progress – the buildings in the centre are all wrong (as are the silhouetted ones for that matter), the beach needs straightening up and a lot of work to convey sand ripples and reflections of the sky accurately, and I think the composition is a bit lame: too square/central, maybe less beach, more sky?

Bonus points if you know where it is.

St Andrews?

You are asking a lot to complete a painting in a single sitting. Oil paint’s versatility is also it’s hardship. Slow drying paint allows you to manipulate its surface at any point in its drying cycle, I will even blow lamp dry paint to get more interesting surfaces.

Preprimed canvas is pretty awful. Try and reprime it with an oil based undercoat. That is getting hard to find these days. It provides a slightly more absorbent surface which sucks some of the linseed oil out of the paint.

I can’t use bristle brushes, try nylon softer ones, Prolene are a good balance between cost and durability.

Mixing oil paint with something like Damar varnish speeds up its drying rate, it will give a glossy surface which you can later overwork. You can make your own if you like it using crystals and genuine turps.

Working with a knife you really need drying or dryish paint to pull against.

Don’t get hooked up on technique. Focus on composition, colour and life through your paint.

Work on studies don’t – don’t try and run before walking. I studied oils rather intensely (two terms) and half the study time was looking at and learning about painters. We used PVA coated cardboard (cereal boxes) for supports for quick alla prima studies (taught me not to be precious and to focus on tonal values, unity and method (fat over lean) – try photocopying a black and white full page photo out of a magazine. Rub willow charcoal on back of page then use it like a carbon copy page taled lightly onto yr support, then with pencil trace the outlines of major shapes, lines, highlights, shadow areas etc. remove then useoriginal page as reference and mix a range of greys using lamp or mars black and mixing white. Work bigger brush at first, fill yr image with the correct patches of tone, go all over dont fuss in one place, then refine with clean brush using light blending strokes.

The nature of oils alla prima is ideally more about neighbouring patches of tone and colour rather than layers (glazes) – learn to fill your painting with dabs and daubs not swathes of layered paint. Blending comes later, u til confidence and experience grows then you may have 5 brushes in one hand on rotation, dab, daub, blend. Study knife painting also. But do check out study tutorials on youtube there are loads. +1 don’t get hung up on style, that will come. Study painters/painting, great excuse to use local library or evening classes if available. Awesome to see your first painting! Braver than I 😉

*Edit – forgot to say, may sound daft but learn to be free and have expressive fun, copy great painters, play with two colours and some scrunched up kitchen paper, wipe-out technique etc. Learn about underpainting, coloured grounds, etc. again, tutorials all over you tube. I mostly turned my nose up at still lifes yet found actually painting them to be immensely rewarding. Nice pear? Paint it! Mouldy grapes? This too… but learn to paint a sphere study first 😉

I use a brush to put diesel (quite oily) on to my drivetrain, does that count ?

Good stuff. Thanks for the input so far. I think I’m definitely trying to run before I can walk.

I had a look at a couple of tutorials on YouTube this evening and everything seems to make sense, but I can’t help thinking there’s some little secret I’m not being let in on. My paint simply doesn’t go on the canvas the same as theirs. I’m using Daler-Rowney Graduate, if that helps. Is that any good? I’m guessing it’s something to do with “medium”. I’ve got a jar of Talens 083 if that helps. The lady in the shop said it helps make the paints more “workable” if a little thinner.

I think I might sign up for a local class…

4 – lots of paint seems to pick up from the canvas onto the brush, so that messes up the next colour/brush stroke

You keep a sizeable rag always in your hand (I hold palette,brushes and rag all in one hand) and clean the brush whenever needed.

As for the paint/surface problem – I imagine you are painting like you’re painting a wall? Wet into wet Bob Ross style isn’t my forté but looking at yr sample pic you might be simply using too much paint for that technique. I use 50/50 refined linseed oil/thinner (Sansodor, turps etc ) and mix into the oil paint a little until it’s something like soft butter, mixing with yr cranked palette knife. Then load your brush more sparingly. When you blend use a dry cleaned brush, not a loaded one. Keep things simple and methodical at first, like learning to play an instrument/music. * Edit -yeah classes! Fun and learn faster,

and I think the composition is a bit lame: too square/central, maybe less beach, more sky?

No literal ‘rules’ but splitting the composition neatly in half/near-half with the horizon is usually unsuccesful. Look at rule of thirds and the golden mean. More beach? More sky? At the outset you must decide what is the key focal element or feature of the scene. You may feel more comfortable/confident painting the sky so will give the sky prominence – whereas the actual star of fhe show may well have been the beach…

In my usual kick against the grain way I loathe painting with oils. Much prefer acrylic/gouache/watercolour/ink/anything but oil. I don’t find oil ‘immediate’ enough if that makes sense? Caveat is that in my degree days I’d paint landscapes with whatever came to hand – I still have a painting on my lounge wall that has cow dung all over it.

Also, I have a bit of a thing for central/symmetrical compositions regardless of the golden section/rule of thirds conventions – I’d actually move the horizon up to sit pretty much dead on halfway and shift the tallest building across into the centre of the canvas.