# The next phase



## dickhutchings

So after taking up pencil drawing in September I think, and moving through colored pencils and acrylic painting it's time to amp it up and go traditional! Following @TerryCurley 's advice on buying paint, I'm now eagerly awaiting my M. Graham paint and mediums to come in the mail. I also ordered some Bob Ross liquid white which I don't think Terry uses. I'm looking forward to making perfect clouds with this stuff! We'll see. Anyway, watch for my latest trials and tribulations in this post. It should be fun.:biggrin: The paints are arriving on Tuesday!


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## TerryCurley

Oh Cool! I'm betting you are going to like using oils, at least I hope so after I've been raving about them. Be sure to keep an old rag or something to wipe your brushes while painting. There is little need to be cleaning the brushes while painting, just wiping it off on the rag is usually all that is needed. Remember to put very little blobs of paint on your pallet. A little Oil paint goes a lot further than acrylic, and you don't want to waste considering the cost.

As for Liquid White...I've used it.....but not much. I still have the original bottle I bought Jan. 2015. I find that the Liquid white (I'm using Wilson Bickford brand instead of Bob Ross) prolongs the drying time to the point of frustration...sometimes taking 4 or 5 days before I can add the next layer. Instead what I do is take the Walnut Alkyd Medium and mix it with Titanium White making it very loose.. the consistency of liquid white and use that. Then when you paint the sky to blend it works as well as the liquid white but your sky will dry in a day so you can add trees without making mud. I believe that liquid white is Lindseed Oil mixed with Titanium white. I would suggest since you have the Liquid White you add a few drops of the Alkyd Medium to speed up the drying.

Another technique that I really like to do is to first seal the whole canvas with a very light coat of the Alkyd Medium. I spread it on with a brush then wipe it with a paper towel so only a light coating is on the canvas. This helps a lot with the blending and it also keeps the canvas from sucking up the paint.


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## dickhutchings

How do you maintain your palette at the end of the day?


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## dickhutchings

My first experience with it this morning, about a half hour. It wasn't until I put a few drops of walnut oil or alkyd, I really don't remember which, that I found the paint spread like a dream. For some reason I was painting over an ocean scene and got a really purple color going, eeek, what was I thinking! So I tried to change it back to blue with no luck. Guess I'll have to wait for it to dry before I can change it.


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## TerryCurley

dickhutchings said:


> How do you maintain your palette at the end of the day?


I usually don't save it. I start fresh the next day.



dickhutchings said:


> My first experience with it this morning, about a half hour. It wasn't until I put a few drops of walnut oil or alkyd, I really don't remember which, that I found the paint spread like a dream. For some reason I was painting over an ocean scene and got a really purple color going, eeek, what was I thinking! So I tried to change it back to blue with no luck. Guess I'll have to wait for it to dry before I can change it.


Wait...No...all you have to do is take a paper towel and wipe it off. I've done it a million times. After you wipe you can go over it with a paper towel with a little mineral spirits on it. Good Luck, looking forward to seeing it.


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## dickhutchings

Awesome Terry! I'll see if I can do that when I get home from work. I I have a lot to learn.


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## dickhutchings

I'm slowly working my way through a painting of my girls sitting on a bench facing away and out towards the bay. One of them is wearing a wedding dress. So I don't have to worry about too much detail but the proportions must be right and easily recognizable, for my family at least. I have it all kind of blocked in and I decided one of the heads was too fat so I started trying to erase the edges. What a mess I made. I'll definitely have to repaint the surroundings after I fix the head.

How do I erase without making a mess.


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## dickhutchings

I took a few minutes to experiment with tracing. I made my own paper using a charcoal stick. I already know that if I take my time and do it free hand, I can get pretty close but it takes much longer than I want to spend. I want to get to the painting, period. This is the boat that I originally wanted to paint in the weekly art thing we had a while back. I switched to a much easier boat for drawing sake and never got it done. The whole thing was crap. I needed this boat to make it right. I also need to paint some prototypes before getting to the actual painting to work out the bugs and tracing will make this much easier. 

This is not going to be my next painting but just an example of how easy it is to start with a tracing. This took all of 10 minutes including rubbing the back of the paper with charcoal.


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## dickhutchings

I'm totally new to oils after painting with acrylics for the last 10 months. I'm used to having a a couple of large jars of water to regularly clean my brushes. I recently bought M. Grahm oil paints that come with a small jar of walnut oil and walnut alkyd. Do I just slosh my brush in the jar until it's so polluted it's no longer useful? I don't think so.


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## TerryCurley

dickhutchings said:


> I'm slowly working my way through a painting of my girls sitting on a bench facing away and out towards the bay. One of them is wearing a wedding dress. So I don't have to worry about too much detail but the proportions must be right and easily recognizable, for my family at least. I have it all kind of blocked in and I decided one of the heads was too fat so I started trying to erase the edges. What a mess I made. I'll definitely have to repaint the surroundings after I fix the head.
> 
> How do I erase without making a mess.


I use Q-tip swabs


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## TerryCurley

dickhutchings said:


> I'm totally new to oils after painting with acrylics for the last 10 months. I'm used to having a a couple of large jars of water to regularly clean my brushes. I recently bought M. Grahm oil paints that come with a small jar of walnut oil and walnut alkyd. Do I just slosh my brush in the jar until it's so polluted it's no longer useful? I don't think so.


I would use neither walnut oil nor walnut alkyd as a solvent. They are mediums. I use Odorless mineral spirits. I have a couple of jars. I put some mineral spirits in one jar and use it....when I'm done I let it sit over night...the solvent will separate from the paint....the paint will be on the bottom...I pour the clear solvent from the jar to the other jar and wipe out the paint from the jar with a paper towel. That way your mineral spirits will last a very long time. They also sell medal containers specifically to hold your solvent if you are incline to spend the money.


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## dickhutchings

Thanks Terry. That clears things up for me.


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## dickhutchings

Oil painting is giving trouble, it's like starting over. I think it's my own fault for starting with a difficult subject. My daughters paInting looks like a cartoon. Ugh. I think I need some grey or black to dull down the colors.

I decided to rework some of my acrylics that I wasn't totally satisfied or finished with. What a joy it is to paint clouds and rocks and other non linear things.

PaInting Inside the lines doesn't work for me with oil. I'm constantly dragging unwanted paint. Guess I have to learn to let it dry.


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## dickhutchings

I decided to update my wine and paint night acrylic using oils. What do you think? Old followed by new.

I plan to continue painting this so any advice you guys have would be appreciated. I wan to put a little sailboat somewhere but I'm afraid of screwing it up. That's a terrible way to think don't you think?


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## TerryCurley

dickhutchings said:


> Oil painting is giving trouble, it's like starting over. I think it's my own fault for starting with a difficult subject. My daughters paInting looks like a cartoon. Ugh. I think I need some grey or black to dull down the colors.
> 
> I decided to rework some of my acrylics that I wasn't totally satisfied or finished with. What a joy it is to paint clouds and rocks and other non linear things.
> 
> PaInting Inside the lines doesn't work for me with oil. I'm constantly dragging unwanted paint. Guess I have to learn to let it dry.


Yeah I never do wet on wet any more unless I want to blend colors.



dickhutchings said:


> I decided to update my wine and paint night acrylic using oils. What do you think? Old followed by new.
> 
> I plan to continue painting this so any advice you guys have would be appreciated. I wan to put a little sailboat somewhere but I'm afraid of screwing it up. That's a terrible way to think don't you think?


I think the do-over of your landscape looks a lot better. The waves are better, and the rocks are better, the tree is better and the sky is better, and I like that it is lighter. 

I understand the fear of ruining it while adding something to it. If you wait until it is completely dry you can paint on the sail boat and if you don't like it you can wipe it off.


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## dickhutchings

Thanks Terry. That's what I'll do, wait a week or so before trying the dreaded boat.


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## Susan Mulno

Judging from what I see here, you are going to feel right at home with oils very soon!


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## dickhutchings

Don't know if I really like oil painting. I'm so used to acrylics and dryIng with a hair dryer to move along. I will have to make a decision before buying any more that's for sure. Anyway, I'll keep trying for a while. An awful lot of people like them.

Here's another layer of paint. It's pretty thick so ill have to give it a couple of days before adding another layer. What do you think, improvement?


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## Desdichado

Hi Dick. Your painting is really good although I'm not too sure about those clouds. The point I'd like to comment on is distance. Your sea is great inshore, but it needs to be less rolling as it goes away towards the horizon. Hope this very rough sketch shows what I mean. The water would be smoother and lighter coloured in the bright sunlight on the horizon becoming darker as it hits the shoreline. The reflections of the sun would also be small in the distance becoming more widespread as they approach the viewer. I really hope this isn't confusing and you don't mind the comment. 

PS. Your second version almost had it right...

Jim.


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## dickhutchings

I appreciate your comments very much. Can't believe I got the reflection backwards but that just shows what a newbie I am. I'm not sure where I'm going with this at all but I am having fun. Ill keep adding paint until I like it.


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## TerryCurley

dickhutchings said:


> Don't know if I really like oil painting. I'm so used to acrylics and dryIng with a hair dryer to move along. I will have to make a decision before buying any more that's for sure. Anyway, I'll keep trying for a while. An awful lot of people like them.
> 
> Here's another layer of paint. It's pretty thick so ill have to give it a couple of days before adding another layer. What do you think, improvement?


I think more people like acrylics over oil than the other way around. But at least you are trying them, if it doesn't work for you, then at least you know. I do think if you are waiting for more than a day for your oil to dry enough to add a layer you are not mixing enough alkyd or liquin to your paint. That's why I use "Walnut Alkyd Medium" it is premixed and I don't have to worry about the ratio of Walnut Oil and Alkyd in my paints. If you are using just Walnut Oil without Alkyd you are extending the drying time of the oil paint.


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