Oil Painting - November 16, 2023

At Tuesday's painting class, I decided to try to do an oil painting.

Thirty years ago, I dabbled in oil in classes at this same shop (with the same instructor) with a few others who were painting the same scene - a mountain sunset picture.  It was not spectacular.  I also tried to paint The Husband from a photograph.  It was not spectacular, either.  I have not done anything in oils since then.

Before Tuesday's class, I dug around in the craft closet and found eight tubes of oil paints.  Their tops were stuck tight with dried paint, but I finally got them off with pliers.  I rounded up all the paint brushes that might do for oil paints, printed a reference picture (an old rusty tractor beside a shed), and went to class.  On the way, it occurred to me that I probably should have chosen a simpler subject for what amounts to my first oil painting.

This is not my photograph.  I found it on the internet and have no clue who took it.

The instructor agreed with that assessment, but I dived in, anyway.

The shed behind the tractor is built of corrugated tin.  The first challenge was getting the paint colors correct.  The next was painting all those parallel lines with my feeble, shaky, arthritic hands.  I managed to get the shed mostly done before the 2-hour class was over, and managed to get thumb prints in the wet paint as I was taking my supplies to the car.  At home, I fixed the thumb prints and did a little bit of the foreground.  Yesterday was office day, so the paint had dried by this morning, and I had the idea to work on the foreground a little more.  It seemed like a good idea to try it on my own.  It wasn't.  

Oil paints are very different from watercolors.  They go down differently, and oil paints take a long time to dry.  The foreground in my reference picture is mostly dead sticks and plant debris.  I tried thinning the paint and applying it with a small brush, which proved to be a nightmare.  The thinned paint was too transparent, but thicker paint won't make fine strokes.  While the paint was still wet, I smeared it over the already-dry base color and achieved a mottled foreground.  

Maybe the instructor can help me fix it next Tuesday.

* * * * * * * * 

I got a new assignment at the office yesterday.  The New Boss wants me to read over some contracts and summarize them for him.  I told him I would give it a go and tell him if the job is over my head.  He didn't have time to even show me the contracts yesterday.  It might be next week before I see them.