About Oil Painting

Now here's one topic dear to my heart that I haven't yet touched upon.

As mentioned in my profile, I am into oil painting, and since my retirement I have turned out well over a hundred paintings, large and small.  They're mostly landscapes and cityscapes, with a number of still lifes and portraits thrown in. Tried abstractions, but they did not turn out well.  Mostly I do studio, as opposed to plein air, work.  I work from photos, not copying them, mind, but using them for composition or to round out an idea.  On occasion I have copied the Old Masters just for fun.

My original paintings have been exhibited in several of our local public buildings over the years: the City Hall, the Public Library, the County Court House.  When I started exhibiting, I was excited about it, and sent out announcements to my friends and former co-workers.  The exhibitions attracted the attention of a local newspaper reporter, who gave me a bigger headline than I might have deserved, and some twenty or thirty sales eventually resulted.  My collectors are loyal folks, and several of them have come back to acquire more of my works.

I've given away dozens of paintings to relatives and friends as gifts on their birthdays, anniversaries, and such.  Also donated several to be used as prizes at functions of the social club to which I belong.

I used to stretch my own canvases, and prime them with acrylic gesso — usually three coats — to give them the right 'tooth' for the application of the paint.  Nowadays it's less convenient to make my own canvases, so I buy them ready-made, but I still give them a couple of extra coats of gesso, with the required drying time between coats.  

I have tried using acrylic paints, but oil is really my medium.  I like the feel of it, its covering power, the brilliance of the glazes you can achieve with it, the heavy impastos when needed.  Oil is more forgiving of mistakes — you just scrape the paint off of the canvas and do it over.  You just can't do that with watercolors.

My granddaughter has been trying her hand at oil painting also.  A senior in high school, she has excellent hand-eye coordination, and a definite feel for the medium. She is still learning, just as I am.  One never stops learning. There's always something new you can find.  That's the fun of it.