I’ve wanted to learn to work with oil paints for a long time. I love the colors, the look of the finished paintings – but I was always intimidated by them. My understanding was they smelled funny and never dried, and would thus get everywhere and ruin all my possessions. Also possibly kill me when the turpentine inevitably caught fire.
To get around this, I learned to work with water-soluble oils a little over a year ago. This felt like a great intermediate step, but I was still intrigued by working with the real thing. So earlier this year, I dove in and took a class with full-on, legit-artist oil paints.
Thankfully, I survived, though I did briefly fear for my life when I shattered a glass jar filled with solvent. And it is true that I got paint everywhere. Mostly on myself. Pro tip: red and blue oil paint that you can’t quite wash off of your arm makes for a very convincing fake bruise.
I present to you my early efforts, in rough order of completion. And I would strongly urge anyone who has also wanted to learn to paint to go forth and embrace the mess. It’s absolutely worth it.
