First attempt at oil painting. Some troubles.
I’ve painted on and off throughout my life for fun, but have never dedicated enough time to actually learn from a technical standpoint. I’ve only ever used acrylics. I have been interested in learning to oil paint. I picked up everything I need (I think), including paints, brushes, canvas, gesso, linseed oil, glass palette, and a jar with a wire bottom for brush cleaning.
I did a layer of gesso over the canvas and then acrylic red for a layer of underpainting (a few videos said this was a good base to get warmth to pull through).
When I was finally ready to use oils, I went in with too much linseed oil I think. The green was extremely transparent and hard to work with, it was almost gritty looking and feeling. It looked muddy over the red. I eventually gave up and went in with some of the lighter pinks, and the paint was much more smooth and opaque. I went back in with the greens and darker colors, using more paint and less medium, and was able to get a richer look, though there was so much oil from the first attempt (I think this was the problem?) it was really hard to work with and I had to use a very gentle touch.
Pictured is the current state. I’m waiting for it to dry before I attempt to continue, since I think I used too much oil. After some googling and thought, these are my main problems/questions:
- My paint tubes were expensive and are quite small. I thought a little went a long way, but it seems I may not be using enough paint. However, I don’t want to use too much. Anyone have any advice for finding that balance? How much oil do you usually mix in? Why would my paint get gritty/opaque?
- Could stiff brushes be the problem? I’m finding my brushes tend to just push paint around unless I am using an extremely gentle touch. It confuses me how people one-shot oil paintings, blending is SO hard! If I need softer brushes, are there any techniques to relax the bristles on my current brushes?
Any advice is much appreciated. I’m doing some googling and Reddit searching. I think I may need to watch some more video tutorials.
Excited to be here starting this journey, even if I did have a bit of a frustrating first go at it!