First, Gratitude

A couple of my friends asked me why I was writing these blurbs about inspiration. I had to think about that for awhile since I am a mostly self-taught painter and my “teachers” have been mostly impersonal art instruction book authors. The answer boils down to wanting to express my deepest thanks to them for the electric spark they generated to get me started down my particular artistic road. I was never able to actually meet any of the people mentioned so far, but I want to thank them anyway, along with the three artists I mention next.

A New Medium For Me

For over 30 years I almost completely avoided painting in oil. I think in total over the entire time I have been painting I had, maybe, completed three oils. I had always run into trouble because of impatience with the slow drying time of oil paint and generally wound up with something that looked like finger-painting with greenish-brownish-gray mud.

One day about five years ago I was going through a lot of stored work, both finished and unfinished, and tossing out really bad stuff. I pulled out one of the three, what I considered an unfinished oil on a Masonite panel, Still Life With Pitcher and Apples (below). I really can’t remember when I did it, but it must have been before they stopped making hardboard panels with the rough, deeply embossed “woven” pattern on the back.

My wife saw it and remarked how much she liked it and I kind of agreed with her (it was given to her as a Christmas gift and hangs over our couch). Based on this I decided to give oil paint another try. However, I needed to get a supply of paint, brushes, mediums and other oil-paint-specific items, so onto the Internet I went to do a little research.

I was happy to discover that there is now a water-miscible oil paint that uses a type of linseed oil that is modified to be thin-able with either water or solvent. This allows the paint to be thinned and cleaned up with plain water or mixed with traditional oils and thinned and cleaned up with solvents like mineral spirits. These paints were also touted to be much quicker drying than traditional oils, a vey attractive feature to me.

Oil Painting Inspirations

Having been away from oil paints for so long and not having much experience with them in the first place, I started looking online for some oil painting tutorials. That is one of the really great things about the internet, especially for artists — the incredible amount of instructional material available at the mere typing of a few keys on your computer keyboard. It was on Youtube that I discovered three wonderful oil painters, each of whom have free start-to-finish painting tutorials, offering great tips and techniques. I will introduce the three without images of their work since I have not sought permission to post them but the links provided will let you see the work and especially the video series of each one.

The first painter I found was Michael James Smith based in England. Currently, he has posted 171 free painting tutorials ranging from around 15 minutes to almost an hour each detailing his almost-photorealistic painting techniques. One of the main techniques I have gotten from watching his videos is that it is perfectly acceptable to do the underpainting for an oil using acrylic paint that dries quickly and allows you to get into the oil painting part much faster. He is also a master at introducing natural “randomness” — uneven spacing, varied shapes, angles, etc. — to features of his landscapes. Here is his Youtube channel: https://www.youtube.com/user/MichaelJamesSmithArt/

Another non-US painter that I think is wonderful is Andrew Tischler from New Zealand. He has a somewhat more limited series in terms of numbers of video tutorials than Michael James Smith, but he offers more information about palettes (range of colors as well as the physical palette), studio setup, a couple of plein air roadtrip videos and much more. His most important influence on me has been his emphasis of the importance of value and composition before even applying any paint to the canvas.

Tischler’s huge painting of New Zealand’s Milford Sound is absolutely spectacular. Here is his Youtube channel: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCg4eQuX8UoZkpZNno-eyYoQ

Finally, I recently discovered the Texas artist, Mark Carder. Previously well known as a portrait painter, he now seems to be more interested in realistic “alla-prima” (wet-into-wet) still life and occasional landscape as well as teaching. His painting method advocates for a very limited palette that, despite its few colors, can be mixed to produce almost any color and value. His website, http://www.drawmixpaint.com/, has a free complete oil painting course as well as 40 to 50 shorter specific topic videos. Some of these are wonderful “ask the artist” type sessions, with questions from his website visitors, that are really interesting.

I have a browser folder with a couple of dozen more great painters of various, mostly realistic styles that are inspiring to me, but the three above are notable for a couple of reasons. First, despite their obvious need and desire to make a living as working artists they have collectively worked thousands of hours to produce literally hundreds of video tutorials that can be freely watched by anyone. Second, their equally obvious passion for their work along with their generosity in sharing their passion is an inspiration in itself. Hopefully sometime in whatever number of years I’ve got left I hope I might meet them and thank them in person.

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