This Is My Oil Painting Process, A Sneak Peek Inside My Working Mind

When I was a child, I started playing with oil paint at my weekly visits to my grandmother’s house. We spent many afternoons cutting images from magazines and building our own scenes from scraps. Animals met flowers, skies met borrowed oceans, and small stories appeared on the table. That habit of composing from found parts shaped how I still think about painting. I like to build a picture that tells a story. She would help me lay out the colors and tell me which to mix together. Her paints were very old, and she taught me to mix my own blacks with ultramarine blue and raw umber. After I got older, I didn’t work with oils for a long time.

My first painting class in art school was figure painting. I thought it was a mistake I was put into this class when I hadn’t picked up a brush in years. I was told to gesso some paper for the studies. I didn’t even know what that meant! I went to my professor and confessed my reservations. She explained what gesso was to me and next thing I knew, she put a nude model in front of me and a limited palette in my hand. I felt intimidated, but I dove right in and painted with a knife on an 18 x 24-inch gessoed paper. I thought it turned out okay, and it must have. Mounted on foam-core, that painting was accepted into a juried figure competition in Jacksonville a few weeks later. Brushes took more practice. I learned to squint and paint faster than I thought I should. When I stop fixating and let the image breathe, the result is stronger. This is my oil painting process. Think of it as a small open door into my head while I work.

Now I have been painting for years, and this is basically my process.

 

I begin with a concept I can feel in my chest and see in my mind. I always paint from reference, even if I know what it should look like. I prefer to take my own photographs because I’ll have more control over the composition, when I can. I sketch at the size I plan to paint. I keep an 18 x 24-inch sketchbook for this. If the painting is larger, I tape two big pages together and draw across the seam. Otherwise I will trace the panel on the paper and draw it to scale. To get my drawing onto the panel, I keep it simple. Sometimes I draw a light grid on both the sketch and the painting surface, then copy one square at a time so the proportions are accurate. Other times, I make my own transfer paper by shading the back of the sketch with a soft pencil, taping it to the panel, and tracing the lines so the outline appears beneath. Whatever I’m feeling. The sketch is not a contract. It is a map I can change as the painting finds its shape.

Before I touch a brush to the panel, I mix the colors I predict I will use. I keep it simple at first. One light. One dark. One cool. One warm. Then I push the hue a little in both directions so I have room to play. Premixing is not about perfection. It is about momentum. I reach for small adjustments as I go. A little red or Williamsburg Indian Yellow wakes a passage that wants warmth. A little blue or Payne’s Gray cools a mixture that is leaning too hot. I do not expect premixed colors to appear exactly how they should. Adding color while I paint brings a luminosity that pre-mixed colors alone can lack. Having a full spectrum of colors on my palette, along with my premixed colors, allows me to make these adjustments intuitively, without the interruption of having to grab another color out of my paintbox unexpectedly mid-process. Sometimes, I’ll just throw in a bit of pure Indian Yellow or scarlet onto the surface. Its a little trick that really makes the painting pop off.

 

I prefer to work on wooden panels. I always have. I never liked how stretch canvas moved beneath my brush. I want a study surface that can stand up to me pushing paint around. I used to just buy cheap gessoed panels from craft stores, but now of course I prefer acrylic primed linen mounted on hardwood panels. The linen gives me the right drag under the brush and the right bite under the knife. I like how a stroke can float without sinking. As much as I like oil primed for my glazed portrait works, I really love the versatility of the arcylic primed panels. Our acrylic primed panels are versatile enough to follow me into mixed media when I want the picture to carry its own history. I do live painting at a lot of local music events around Jacksonville, and I love to collage old sheet music that has been aged by time to an acrylic primed surface and seal it with clear gesso before the event. During the event, I paint in oil on top of that. The music shows through the color in places and the whole image feels like it has a heartbeat underneath.

When the drawing is transferred and the mixes are waiting, I begin with value. I thin the paint with a little Gamsol because Gamsol is better than the harsh solvents I used to know. It keeps my head clear and it lets the paint move without chewing the surface. I do not add mediums at this stage. Often I do not use mediums at all. If the painting is a longer project, I make space for drying and glazing between sessions. If I need to finish in one sitting, I treat the session like a live model. I place color where it belongs, push edges where the form turns, and keep my

eye on the whole.

There are days when I move fast. Whether I am at one of my figure study sessions I hold every Wednesday at my residency at Solune Coffee, or if I am live painting at a music event, I have learned to paint fast and intuitively. In this case, I turn off my logical mind and just try to put the right colors in the right spot. I am always happy with the result when I can get into this mode. No time for regrets, just keep moving forward. A single sitting can carry more truth than a week of corrections. I have had others tell me, I am too afraid to mess it up. I always say, you can always paint over it if you mess up, so be fearless.

There are other days when I choose the slow path. For most portraits, I enjoy building layers and letting them dry before I add a thin glaze. When I do reach for a medium, I keep it minimal. A small touch of Gamblin Linseed Oil is enough to give a passage a little glide. I like to feel the paint as paint. I like the surface to show me when to stop. I spend months tinkering with these paintings but the results are some of my favorite works. I really try to keep things minimal when it comes to mediums.

The knife was my first teacher. I still use a palette knife to cut a clean edge, to assert a plane, or to pull a small ridge that catches light. My first oil painting when I was a child was a palette knife painting. I cut my teeth on it. A knife mark can refresh an area that is losing its pulse. The brush is the other half of the sentence. It softens, persuades, and brings a kind of air the knife cannot. I sometimes switch between the two as the painting asks or if I am feeling stuck or it the image feels muddled. The duet is what gives the surface its voice.

I care more about vibrancy than technical correctness. A mentor once looked at a shadow I mixed and said it was accurate but not attractive. That line stays with me. I would rather let a blue sing next to a warm light than settle for a theoretically safe gray that has no life. Sometimes a tiny speck of pure color turns the entire painting on. It still reads as real because the rest of the painting supports the note. I like it when colors smooch at the edge and the seam looks almost photographic. It feels like a small magic trick that needs no explanation.

 

I keep the bones of this process no matter the subject. The details shift. Some paintings are sketched loosely. Some are fully mapped. Some call for a cooler range. Lately, I have been incorporating zentangle-style details into my paintings. I also use gold leaf in the details and acrylic primed surfaces are ideal for using with gold leaf. Like putting a scarlet red over a dark purple has been feeling really good to me. I love incorporating bits of bright pure color into my works.I want a painting that glows from the inside.

I keep my cart simple. Gamsol for a clean, spare wash when I need to move paint. Gamblin Linseed Oil for an occasional glaze or a small glide. A Silicoil brush cleaning tank because the coil wakes paint from the ferrule without scraping the bristles to death. A stainless or tempered steel palette knife that holds its shape. Rags that do not ask to be saved. Panels that do not argue. Paint that pulls its weight.

I like sharing what works for me. This is my barebones go to for the work that I use and th eprojects I mentioned in this post. If you want to try the same materials, these are the exact picks I use. Add your affiliate links where they belong. The disclosure is already in place on my site.