My First Oil Painting Lesson

On Tuesday I the first of two oil painting lessons. I've had a set of Daler-Rowney Georgian oil paints in my loft for 20+ years, and never really known what to do with them. Amazingly they are still in good nick, and all I needed to buy was a pad of paper - I went for Daler-Rowney Georgian.

The technique we used was surprisingly similar to watercolour - a medium I am very familiar and happy with.

The first thing to do was tape the paper to a board and get out my Burnt Umber paint and a rag.

First we applied a wash of oil to the paper. Dipping the rag in white spirit and then a dab of paint, we used a sweeping side to side motion from top to bottom. If you've ever applied a watercolour wash this was just the same, using a finger in a rag instead of a brush.

Then we lifted out the areas we wanted to stay white, using either a hog hair brush or a finger inside rag. We were working from a very poor photocopy of a painting by Mona H....(the photocopy was too bad to read the name) - however working from a poor photocopy does stop you from slavishly following the original.

Next was simply to add the paint, using it exactly as watercolour paint but instead of water we used white spirit. Simple!

Here is my work in progress. I need to do more, but since husband and son both have asthma, I have to wait for a sunny day and work outside!

Thanks so much for dropping by, I do hope you enjoy reading my blog. Why not leave a comment to say hello so that I know you called? Feel free to link back to your own blog too.

Stephie