I am taking oil painting lessons.  Finally, after wanting to learn to paint all my life, I have a semi-private instructor once a week for three hours.  He expects to teach me to finish a piece in one day.   After seeing my limited portfolio, he said I have proven that I can be tedious and precise.  This was my first class project.   A still life on a 9″ x 12″ panel.   It took about 8 hours and I definitely got confused.  I had taken a picture on my phone for reference before leaving so I could finish it at home.

I got lost while doing the initial sketch in class.  Drawing with paint is a whole new thing for me.  My rendering doesn’t even match what the bouquet looked like.  The flowers set up for the still life were varied and fairly dried up after sitting for three weeks. Dying blooms and stems and blobs of foliage are not my idea of a beginner’s first piece.  I expected to have an orange, an egg, and maybe a bowl to paint for my first project.

It turned out that the other students did not attend the day of my first class and the instructor thought that was a good way for me to start.  He patiently explained the medium, the methods, and the mindset.  He got excited about my serious interest and exclaimed, “I have so much to teach you!”  I felt a tingle of hope.  Maybe it’s not too late for me.  The other couple in the class are retired travelers.  I’m curious to know how well they paint.  I know absolutely nothing about oil painting.

Once home, it was hard for me to face my painting.  I have an easel in my room and a large work table to lay out my supplies. I could paint at any time with everything set up and ready.  Several days when I could have painted, I checked out.  I was too afraid.  I am so used to trying to make things look exactly as I see them that having the initial drawing wrong made me lose my place as I tried to work from my reference photo.

I learned quickly that you can’t go back and correct by painting over your mistakes like you can with acrylics.  Oil paint takes days to dry enough to repair a misguided stroke.  I kept reminding myself that pieces done in class are not “art” pieces, they are just practice sketches.  That alone is hard for me to process.  I want everything I do to be a “finished” piece.  I’ve lost the time one normally uses to practice.  If I am ever going to have my work in a real art show, then I have no time to waste.

I have two other paintings I am working on.  They are both with water-soluble oil paint that I began on my own before finding private instruction.  It’s a different experience, more like acrylic, but not as fast-drying.  The paint doesn’t act the same as true oil.  I will try to finish one before I go back to class Wednesday.  Hills and sky don’t seem so scary to me now…