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Tag: oil painting

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Monday Morning Art School: miscible oils

Ever-Changing Camden Harbor, 24X36, oil on canvas, $3188 includes shipping and handling in continental US. This is one of the places I’ll be teaching in next month’s workshop.

Last week in my Color of Light class, the conversation turned to water-miscible oils.  I havenā€™t used them in years, and only to test them to see if they were a reasonable alternative to conventional oils (yes, although I donā€™t like their hand-feel). Itā€™s your turn to teach me, and answer the question raised by my students: do miscible oils hold up over time?

Several of my students described problems with cracking, inner layers that didnā€™t cure, paint surfaces sticking to other things, or paint softening after varnishing with Krylon Kamar Varnish. ā€œBut the color is so much better when the painting is varnished,ā€ said the person whoā€™d used the Kamar.

Seafoam, 9X12, oil on archival canvasboard, $869 framed, includes shipping and handling in continental US.

Since Iā€™m a novice on the subject, Iā€™m hoping that those of you with extensive experience with water-miscible oils can share that, good or bad

Kamar is, according to its material safety data sheet (MSDS), full of solvent. At least two of theseā€”heptane and acetoneā€”can dissolve oil paint, so Iā€™m not shocked that Kamar could loosen up the surface of a painting. Iā€™m no chemist and Iā€™m not interested in reading MSDS for every spray varnish, but it makes sense that spray varnish needs plenty of solvent to be sprayable. On the other hand, Iā€™ve used spray damar varnish on conventional oil paintings with no softening of the surface.

Apple Blossom Time, oil on archival canvasboard, $869 framed includes shipping and handling in continental US. Or, go see it at the Red Barn Gallery in Port Clyde this month.

Winsor & Newton makes a line of brush-on varnishes for their water-miscible oils, in matte, satin and gloss. I recommend my student try one of those.

Miscible oils are oil paints that are engineered to allow them to be thinned and cleaned up with water. The idea is to avoid using volatile organic compounds like turpentine, which are harmful when inhaled. A disclaimer, however: we havenā€™t been using turpentine as a solvent in this country in this century; itā€™s been replaced with odorless mineral spirits, or OMS. In a sense, miscible oils are fixing an obsolete problem.

The typical way of making oil and water mix is to add a surfactant. Thatā€™s how detergent works to remove oils from your clothes and dishes. For water-miscible oils, the end of the oil medium molecule is rejiggered to help it bind loosely to water molecules. The key here is loosely; you want the water to evaporate.

Sea Fog, 9X12, oil on archival canvasboard, $696 unframed includes shipping and handling in continental US.

The top-tier oil paint manufacturers, such as Gamblin or Michael Harding, do not offer miscible oils. Rather, they have solvent-free systems for working with regular oils. To me that indicates that miscible oils cannot yet be made to the highest standards of oil paints. In fact, the biggest complaint I hear about miscible oils is that their pigment load is lower. I donā€™t have enough experience to answer this with authority. Do you?

The issue of paintings not setting up or cracking is far more serious. This may be a simple fat-over-lean question. (I think thatā€™s why my Kamar-using studentā€™s paintings were dull and lifeless in the first place.) Fat-over-lean is every bit as true for miscible oils as it is for conventional oils.

In addition, miscible oils can crack is too much water is used, for the same reason that acrylics degrade if excessively diluted. There must be enough medium present to form a bond.

Thatā€™s all I know about the subject, so Iā€™d love to hear from you painters with experience with miscible oils: do you like them? What problems have you had with them? Do you have paintings a decade or more old, and if so, how is the finish holding up?

My 2024 workshops:

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Drying sails at Camden harbor

Drying Sails, 9X12, oil on canvasboard, $869 framed includes shipping and handling in continental US.

I have paintings in Camden for the first time in several years. Theyā€™re at Lone Pine Real Estate at 19 Elm Street, which is a very good location indeed. Rachael Umstead, the owner, is one of my church buddies and the mother of two very entertaining boys. She and her staff have made a great success of the office. Itā€™s downright swank, something I could never manage in a million years.

Camden harbor is a terrific place to paint boats, and I love bringing students there. You can get a hot dog (or something fishy) and a soda at Harbor Dogs, which has been there for more than 50 years. Ambience? None, if what youā€™re looking for is fine dining. Iā€™m more inclined to sit in the sun and watch the schooners, the little kids fishing, and the ducks.

That painting under way.

Itā€™s always fun to paint at the harbor after a stiff rain. Sailors will be busy bailing out their dinghies and raising sails to dry. That creates a lovely geometry of docks, sail and other boats.

I painted Drying Sails with my pal Bjƶrn Runquist. We were practicing our chip shots for Camden on Canvas, although I no longer remember why we felt that was necessary. I do remember that I encouraged Bjƶrn to paint one of the schooners, who waited until he was well underway and then dropped her frills. Sorry, Bjƶrn.

Another day, another iteration of the same subject. (Private collection.)

Camden harbor is one of the must-paint places for my students at my July workshop, which is right around the corner. If youā€™re considering it, you want to register soon, since itā€™s both close and nearly filled up. My other workshops are listed below.) And if youā€™re coming from out of town, email me and Iā€™ll give you some suggestions about where to stayā€”the Maine coast fills up fast during the summer months.

My 2024 workshops:

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Come to Maine for the sea air

Home Port, 18X24,, $2318 includes shipping and handling in continental US.

I arrived at home, finally, at 5:43 yesterday evening. Iā€™ve been gone for a long time and been to a lot of placesā€”to Manchester, Liverpool, Lancashire, Yorkshire, Edinburgh, Fife, and then home through Reykjavik and Boston. From there I went to Albany, NY, where I saw my family and collected my dog.

ā€œWhy donā€™t you move to Vermont?ā€ my daughter asked me. (She knows I wonā€™t return to New York.) Iā€™m extremely touched that my kids want me nearby, but I love my life here in Rockport.

When I was in Fife, I could feel my sinuses open with the sea air; I felt as if I were home again, for at least a few hours.

It was unbearably hot and humid on Wednesday in the Hudson Valley, reminding me powerfully of one reason I left New York. Itā€™s just as cold in upstate New York as in Maine in the winter, but summers here are so much nicer. Itā€™s that sea air, which moderates temperatures.

Yesterday morning, however, I hiked to a waterfall along Hannacroix Creek, where I let the dogs romp in the stream while I swatted mosquitoes. That reminded me of just how beautiful New York is. Itā€™s a study in contrasts and always leaves me feeling conflicted.

Waterfall on Hannacroix Creek in Greene County, NY.

I arrived home to a beautiful thick fog and mizzle. It was 59Ā° F. and I could feel my dry skin relax and ease back into its usual healthy state. If you want to escape the heat of summer, I recommend Maine. (And if you paint, you can take one of my workshops.) If you have allergies, sea air is a balm.

I like Home Port for its view, but I also like its neighbor, a lovely lady whose house has figured in several of my paintings, including Forsythia at Three Chimneys. Sheā€™s what I aspire to be at her age: self-reliant and forthright.

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Am I getting a little homesick?

Downtown Rockport, 14X18, oil on archival canvasboard, framed, $1594 includes shipping and handling in continental US.

I treasure the time I get to spend with my friend Martha. Since she moved to Scotland it takes planning and effort to see her. And although we have great hiking trails in the US, there arenā€™t little pubs and hostelries along the way. Iā€™m too old to carry my world on my back. Until I get a burro, my long hikes are going to be in other countries.

As much fun as this trip has been, however, Iā€™m starting to feel a little homesick. This is the downtown block of my home village on the Maine coast.

I painted this with Ken DeWaard. Like everyone else, I can sometimes convince myself I can buy my way into better brushwork (or color, or texture, or whatever). This is, of course, a snare and a delusion.

I admire Kenā€™s brushwork, so I decided I decided Iā€™d see what he was using for brushes. Sadly, it was the same composite of new and old, pristine and slightly-sticky that was in my own kit. There are no silver bullets. (And nor is my brushwork so terrible; we just want what the other guy has.)

ā€œWhat is that arc in the water?ā€ my husband asked. Itā€™s the rooster-tail of a lobster boat coming in fast.  That pegs the time as early afternoon.

Iā€™ve been in Britain on another lovely, long, blister-inducing hike. Iā€™ve turned my phone off and while Iā€™m gone, Laura will be running the office. Just email me as usual if you have questions or problems registering for a class or workshop. (Who am I kidding? She fixes all that stuff anyway.)

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Monday Morning Art School: This is a post about watching paint dry

Chemistryā€”which I took fifty years agoā€”was my worst subject, and now I spend much of my time thinking about it. Life always gets the last laugh.

ā€œHow long does oil paint take to dry?ā€ is one of the most frequent questions Iā€™m asked. I made this video to answer the question. Itā€™s part of The Heart of the Painting, step six of Seven Protocols for Oil Painters.

For those of you playing along at home, I recorded the video for step seven (about final finishes and flourishes) before I left for Britain. Laura is editing it right now. When itā€™s done, youā€™ll be able to learn to paint step-by-step at your own pace and youā€™ll no longer need me.

I plan to edit this material into book form when Iā€™m done. No ā€˜how to paintā€™ book can possibly be as complete as these interactive courses, but a book is easier to curl up with.

Victoria Street, 16X20, oil on linen in a hard maple frame, $2029 includes shipping and handling in continental US.

So, how long does oil paint take to dry?

New painters want to know if they must let their paint dry between layers. Itā€™s not necessary if you adhere scrupulously to the ā€˜fat over leanā€™ rule. Keep those bottom layers thin and you can paint right into them.

Paint is a simple material, just pigment particles suspended in a binder. So why do some paintings break down? Much of that is down to experimenting with additives. Laying new materials in a pool of drying oils is a recipe for long-term decay. Our museums are full of 20th century paintings with premature cracking. In oil painting, conservative skepticism is sensible.

https://www.watch-me-paint.com/product/midnight-at-the-wood-lot/Midnight at the Wood Lot, oil on archival canvasboard, $1449.00 framed includes shipping and handling within continental US.

Ignoring the ā€˜fat over leanā€™ rule is another cause of failed, cracking paintings. The most common solvent today is odorless mineral spirits (OMS) which breaks down the oil and then evaporates. In the bottom layer, that can leave a touch-hard finish in as little as half an hour. That surface can easily be broken if you need to edit. However, in the squishy top layers, OMS can wreck your painting.

I wish someone had told me this when I was younger. I struggled with paintings that looked great when wet but grey when dry, and which aged terribly even in the short time I knew them.

Oil paints donā€™t dry, they absorb oxygen from the air to harden. Whatā€™s oxidizing isnā€™t the pigment but the oil between the pigment particles. Different pigments have different particle sizes, so some colors dry faster than others. Iā€™ve outlined the dry times in the video, but the most important one to remember is titanium white, which is a slow dryer. Thatā€™s one reason it doesnā€™t belong in your grisaille.

The ā€˜fatā€™ in paint is siccative oil, which in most cases is linseed oil. Itā€™s so harmless itā€™s edible. The downside of linseed oil is its tendency to yellow over time, so other oils, like walnut or safflower, have been substituted. They, sadly, are more prone to cracking. Itā€™s an imperfect world, isnā€™t it?

Alkyd paints and mediums are made from oil-modified resin treated with alcohol and acid. Their main advantage is their dry time. They can give you a touch-dry surface in 24 hours. You can use an alkyd medium with traditional oil paint. The granddaddy of these was Winsor & Newtonā€™s Liquin, developed in the 1960s. In general, alkyd resin doesnā€™t hold as much pigment as traditional oils do. I donā€™t use them because I generally seek a slower dry time, and Iā€™m put off by the smell.

Stone Wall, Salt Marshes, 14×18, $1594 framed includes shipping and handling in continental US.

How long does oil paint take to dry? It depends on many factors, but as long as you follow the ā€˜fat over leanā€™ rule, itā€™s not important.

Iā€™m in Britain on another lovely, long, blister-inducing hike. Iā€™ve turned my phone off and while Iā€™m gone, Laura will be running the office. Just email me as usual if you have questions or problems registering for a class or workshop. (Who am I kidding? She fixes all that stuff anyway.)

My 2024 workshops:

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Ravenous wolves

Ravenous Wolves, oil on canvas, 24X30, $3,478.00 framed includes shipping and handling in continental US.

I painted Ravenous Wolves, above, at a low point in my life. I was coming to grips with the clay feet of people I’d once respected. My mother had died after a long dance with Parkinson’s dementia. I was trying to find my place in a new church, after leaving another in disgust.

The image of ravening wolves is used in Matthew 7:15: “Beware of false prophets, who come to you in sheep’s clothing, but inwardly they are ravenous wolves.”

However, I based this picture on Ezekiel 34, which uses the vulnerability of scattered sheep as a symbol of our own exposure: “ā€¦because my flockā€¦ has been plundered and has become food for all the wild animals, and because my shepherds did not search for my flock but cared for themselves rather than for my flockā€¦”

The life of a shepherd during the Biblical era must have been rather taxing. The Bible mentions adders, asps, wild oxen, rhinoceros, bears, wild boars, crocodiles, jackals, hyenas, leopards, lions, scorpions, wild dogs, wolves and predatory birds. It’s no wonder that David was an ace with his slingshot.

I watched a pack of wolves lope across a meadow near the South Fork of the Shoshone River in Wyoming last week. They’re undeniably beautiful, but they’re also apex predators. They pose a danger to livestock and pets.

From the settlement of the Massachusetts Bay Colony to the modern era, there were wolf bounties in North America. That caused their near-extirpation. We’ve wisely stopped that, since it was both inhumane and foolish. However, to some degree the pendulum has swung hard toward romanticizing wolves. In 2010 a woman was attacked and killed by a wolf in Alaska, and wolves remain a real danger in Asia (which is why they’re a recurring motif in Russian art and literature.)

Of course, those numbers pale in comparison to attacks by domesticated dogs, which kill 30 to 50 people in the United States every year.

I don’t think you should take up wolf-hunting-for one thing, it’s illegal except in very limited areas. But we should recognize that wolves are not the furry, cute elder brother of the domesticated dog. They wouldn’t think twice about eating your baby if you were foolish enough to leave it outdoors. That’s why they are metaphors for danger in art and literature ranging from the Bible to Dr. Zhivago.

There was no reference material for this painting; it all came out of my mind. These are the paintings I love the best, although I’m sure there are all kinds of subconscious cues in them that would embarrass me if I understood them.

And, by the way, if you get past the wolves, you reach the sunny uplands where the flock are grazing. It’s almost like a video game, isn’t it?

My 2024 workshops:

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My love affair with tin-foil hats

Tin Foil Hat, 6X8, oil on archival canvasboard, $435 includes shipping in continental US.

I’ll be deleting any political comments. This was meant as a light-hearted reflection on the news media, not on any candidate.

My love affair with tin foil hats started 15 years ago when I went to Texas to see my buddy Laura. The Fundamentalist Latter-Day Saints and their pedophile cult leader Warren Jeffs were very much in the news. Their apologists, including Oprah Winfrey, were painting a sympathetic picture of them (it would eventually be shattered by the evidence collected at YFZ Ranch). My friends and I decided to make tin-foil hats in response to the FLDS’ daily protestations of innocence.

I tend towards simple clothing choices, so I went with the classic folded sailor hat. Laura’s looked more like my crystal candy dish, and there was one like the old Dutch Boy mascot’s hair. Another looked like the hats worn by Snow White’s Seven Dwarfs, and there was a tin-foil visor. There was a prize, which I didn’t win, even though my technique was as impeccable as always.

Tin-foil hats are especially useful during election season. I was at my friend Jane Chapin’s house last week when the results of the first Republican primary came in. You’d have had to have been completely insulated from reality to have thought it would end any way other than how it did. The results had been predicted for months.

I’m a TV tenderfoot but I thought it would be fun to scan the major news channels for analysis. (It was -34Ā° F., which meant our options for amusement were limited.) I suppose news anchors are trained to bloviate about anything, but the analysis generally ranged from the blindingly obvious to the out-and-out ridiculous.

Laura and her tin-foil hat that looks like my candy dish. That isn’t going to protect her from radio waves!

If that’s any sign of the tone of the upcoming election, we’ll all need tin-foil hats to make it through the next eleven months. I’d recommend buying this one. It’s more durable than the Reynolds Wrap model, so you can reuse it every election season.

I started this painting as an exercise in reflections, but each time a public figure says or does something preposterous, I make it my Facebook profile picture.

I think this is one of the best things I’ve ever painted, and that’s not just because of its enduring social relevance. The reflections and color structure are strong, as is the paint handling.

I’ll leave it to you to figure out what the compass in the bottom right corner means.

My 2024 workshops:

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Midsummer

Midsummer, 24X36, oil on canvas, $3,188 includes shipping and handling in continental US.

“I really like that painting you did of the flat houses.”

“What flat houses?” I asked, perplexed. I was envisioning the architectural equivalent of Flat Stanley, the children’s book series.

It turned out that she meant Midsummer, above, and she was referring to the paint handling, not the drafting.

I painted this during a residency through Parrsboro Creative. The view overlooks the general store at Port Greville, Nova Scotia. To access it, I drove up a side road and painted from the edge of the escarpment, just past a very nice lady’s lawn.

This escarpment roughly parallels the shore of the Bay of Fundy. In places it’s gradual, and in other places it’s a steep, raw scarp.

In Maine, our cliff edges are made of granite, so I was totally unprepared for the edge of crumbly red sand to drop out from under me. My fall was stopped by a thicket of alders growing on a ledge about ten feet down.

I landed upside down but unhurt. After I turned myself around, I gathered my tools and threw them back up over the brink. Then I figured out how to climb back up to my easel.

It’s all in the drawing, even in plein air.

Cumberland County, Nova Scota is full of this crumbly soft red sandstone-and-soil mixture. It’s unstable, which makes rock-climbing risky. At Cap d’Or, the cliffs are a few hundred feet tall, but you wouldn’t be long for this world even if you miraculously survived the fall; there’s a wicked riptide. Every major storm causes erosion, so it’s a constantly-shifting shoreline. That in turn reveals a new cache of fossils, minerals and gemstones after every weather event; the area is world-famous for fossils.

These are also the highest tides in the world. I visited Joggins Fossil Cliffs to walk on the beach and perhaps paint. I’d arrived at the wrong hour. There’s a narrow window of time where you can be at sea-level; the tide rises so fast that it will cut off your escape.

These double-bay houses, so typical in Britain and the Canadian Maritimes, are not common here in the US; however, there are some here in Maine. We also have old-fashioned general stores like Dad’s Country Market, towards the left in my painting.

This painting took two full days to complete. The first was spent in drawing out the architecture.

“Draw slow, paint fast,” a student once told me. It’s an excellent motto, because the more time one spends on the drawing, the less floundering one does in the painting.

My 2024 workshops:

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All Flesh is as Grass

All Flesh is as Grass, oil on linen, 30X40, $5072 framed, includes shipping and handling in continental US.

Of all the paintings I have hanging in my home, the one that gets the most comments is All Flesh is as Grass, above. It was part of a solo show called God + Man: Paintings by Carol L. Douglas at the Davison Gallery at Roberts Wesleyan College, and reprised at Aviva Gallery in Rochester, NY.

Harry Rogachefsky was an elderly man who lived across the street from us. He had a lovely apple tree curling over his driveway. He told us we were welcome to all the apples we wanted. They were not sprayed and thus organic, and they made great pies.

Mr. Rogachefsky’s house in happier times (2007) with his apple tree in flower.

The house was built in 1948, and the tree was planted around the same time. I thought of painting it many times, as I’m fascinated by the twisting branches of old apple trees. Alas, I never did it.

Mr. Rogachefsky eventually died at the venerable age of 95. His house sat vacant until Christmas, 2014, when a flurry of contractors descended. It had been purchased by house flippers. They yanked the mature foundation plantings and cut down that beautiful old tree.

I found its remains while walking with my dear friend Mary. Its trunk was shattered and its branches sawn into logs. Its fruit was crushed and frozen.

What Mary and I saw as we rounded the corner.

There must be a standard landscaping plan for house flippers. When they were done with Mr. Rogachefsky’s house, five little popsicle shrubs marched along the sidewalk. Luckily, I didn’t live there much longer. Although I’m now hundreds of miles away, when pie season starts, I think fondly of Mr. Rogachefsky and his apple tree.

All flesh is like grass and all its glory like the flower of grass.
The grass withers, and the flower falls, but the word of the Lord remains forever. (1 Peter 1:24-25)

We know that intellectually, but it’s still a shock when the chainsaw comes out.

No more pies, ever, from this tree.

A little while before the new owners moved in, I saw a boy knocking down icicles from the porch.

My next-door neighbor Aviva (may her memory be a blessing) had been seriously injured by a falling icicle a few years earlier. Icicles can weigh up to a thousand pounds and have a perilous pointy end. They’re especially lethal when they drop from any great height.

“Hey, kid, stop that!” I yelled from my stoop. “It’s dangerous!”

“Don’t worry!” he called back, and pulled off his hood to show me he was wearing a helmet underneath. It was Mary’s son Xoan, who was always prepared for any eventuality.

One knows it’s inevitable, but it’s still painful to see.

In the painting, I changed the setting to be an orchard of young trees; a chainsaw is in their unthinkably-distant future. The light is filtered and indirect; that’s the usual state of affairs along Lake Ontario in winter. There are warm lights and cool shadows, but they’re not as brilliant as in Maine. All Flesh is as Grass is a big painting, 36X48, but its delicate color structure means it’s not overwhelming. It’s in my own diminutive living room (about 14X12 feet) and looks lovely.

I recently pointed out to Naomi Aho that most painters’ paintings drop in price/square inch as they get larger. That makes a large painting like this a great deal, since it has the presence to compel as much or more than several smaller ones. Until the first of the year, you can use the discount code THANKYOUPAINTING10 to get 10% off it or any other painting on my website. And shipping and handling are always included within the continental US.

My 2024 workshops:

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Monday Morning Art School: why grisaille?

Sometimes you just need to push paint around in a dream state. A grisaille is the perfect place to do that.

A grisaille is a monochromatic painting. In oil painting, it forms the first step of underpainting. In watercolor, it’s a separate reference to check values.

There are a few painters I know who skip the grisaille step entirely. (I’m not one of them.) The only ones who are successful at it are so experienced that they can integrate hue, value and chroma simultaneously. Even then, they’re still working dark to light and being careful not to misstep and put gobs of white or light paint where it doesn’t belong.

Eric Jacobsen is one of these outliers, and he graciously offered to demo his underpainting technique for my newest online class, The Essential Grisaille. (Appearances by his dog Sugar and his chickens were completely unscripted – but cute.)

As we filmed, I kept thinking, “Kids, don’t try this at home!” Eric isn’t skipping the grisaille step so much as integrating it with his initial color notes. That’s very difficult for all but the most experienced painters.

Early in the grisaille process for the Scottish portrait I wrote about on Friday.

Why grisaille?

The human mind sees value before hue or chroma. The arrangement of rods and cones makes us more sensitive to value shifts when scanning a vista. We also have a wide dynamic range. Both were awfully convenient for our hunter-gatherer ancestors, and they influence how we see paintings.

In the brain, processing starts with low-level information like brightness and contrast. That’s processed more quickly and efficiently than higher-level color information, which requires additional signals from the eyes.

Sometimes my sketch for an oil painting will take the form of a watercolor grisaille.

In a nutshell, that means the viewer will see your value structure before he or she sees anything else. A painting that fails on its value structure will just fail, period. Arthur Wesley Dow, who wrote the definitive 20th century composition book, is the guy who gave us the notion of notan. He taught students to restrict the infinite range of tonal values to specific values. He wanted students to realize that all compositions are, underneath, a structure of light and dark shapes. That’s a critical insight that influences all modern painting.

A watercolor grisaille done as preparation for a watercolor painting.

What is grisaille?

Grisaille just means a monochromatic painting. I teach both oil and watercolor students to do this preparatory step. In watercolor, it’s a monochrome study on a separate page that guides the color choices for the finished painting. For oil painting it’s the underpainting step before we start adding color.

In oils, it’s done in a dark tone that relates to the overall color scheme of the planned painting-if the shadows are cool, the grisaille should be cool, and if the shadows are warm, the grisaille should be warm. That’s because the grisaille will be part of the finished painting, sometimes visible with no covering whatsoever.

The paint is thinned with odorless mineral spirits (OMS) and no white or light colors should be introduced. A brush and a rag are both used to get the full range of values.

Even for a QuickDraw, I do a grisaille. This is partly covered with color notes. The finished painting is here.

Simple, right?

Another watercolor grisaille. All examples are by me.

I’ve just spent about six weeks writing and filming The Essential Grisaille*, and thinking through all the ways it can go wrong. Julie Hunt, who is a very good student and painter, told me, “There were beginning things I fudged with little instruction that I remember.” She has now carefully worked through every step of The Essential Grisaille to really master the subject. I’m excited to see how her painting changes.

Julie has put her finger on the difficulty of all classes, online or in person. There’s so much to take in that nobody gets it all the first time they hear it. And we can fill in the gaps with inspired guesses or just wrong-headed mistakes. It all comes down to being ready to hear, grasshopper.

Which is why Seven Protocols for Successful Oil Painters is designed to be open-ended. You can go back and revisit themā€¦ as long as I pay my internet bill.šŸ˜Š

*I’m talking about both watercolor and oils in this post, but The Essential Grisaille is intended for oil painters.

My 2024 workshops: