It’s exactly two years since I embarked on this oil painting thing; untutored, ignorant, I set about making oil paintings. I made a few mistakes on the first painting, but I learned from them, and by the time I started the second (six months after I made the first) I was more confident and learning how to do it as I went.
I’ve tried different things and changed styles a few times, all the time guided by what worked and didn’t work on the previous picture…if only I could find out what I was supposed to be doing! Every so often I would search on-line for art classes, but they were either very expensive weekend courses or non-existent. Do local colleges offer non-vocational courses anymore?
Eventually I found a man who runs weekly afternoon oil and acrylic courses at a reasonable price, although quite a long drive away, so I joined. I went to my first class yesterday; it’s very simple, the teacher chooses a subject, demonstrates how to paint it and then distributes photos for the students to try for themselves. I love this because it makes me do a painting of something I wouldn’t otherwise choose; it makes me do it in a very limited time; and, best of all, I have the teacher to tell me what I’m doing wrong and how to correct it.
This is the partially-finished picture I painted, in water-soluble oils on oil painting paper, about A3 in size.
