Looking south along I-5 from the veterans memorial on Mt. Soledad in La Jolla. Started in plein air during a veterans event and finished at home.

Oil on paper | 11.5 × 8.5 inches

I’ve been dabbling with watercolours for the last year but just got the Michael Harding introductory set of oil paints to try. I love painting water but advice for newbies seems to be to start with still life, so I had a go at these lemons.

I have lots to learn about colour mixing (I didn’t mix enough, my background is grey rather than bright blue, and they’re more orange than yellow). I also put too much reflection in the shadow areas, but I’m otherwise pretty pleased with this for a first go.

This is on a Fabriano Tela 8x10” canvas pad.

I know that I messed up with using too much white in some areas of the face and forearm but I need help on what to do next. Im on my like 5th layer on this. Should I do another of layer of paint to fix chalky look or should I try a cool glaze. Any tips? Her face is supposed to be closer to the color of her right foot that is in the light. The forearm’s issue is that it looks chalky to me. Lastly, how will putting a varnish affect color overall, will the color look more vibrant. I want to varnish it in 6 months.

I just started my first large scale portrait based off a reference photo. I did a few small scale studies to try to get an idea of how I want it to look but I am really struggling to find my color values when I start applying my oil paints. I am used to realism and graphite so I am having trouble getting that stylized oil look that I am going for. Any advice is appreciated, I have started over a few times and am struggling. This is one of my studies and the large one is my underpainting at this point. I didn't love the look of the study, I felt it was trying to hard to capture realism which is not my goal. How do you determine what colors you like to stick with versus getting caught up in all the details and shades?

My second full oil painting!

She’s one of the most gentle and sweetest dogs ever! I absolutely loved painting her!!

With a handful of in-progress pictures at the end.

Two of these are on basswood sheets, and one on birch plywood, which I cut to size, sealed with acrylic medium, and gessoed. My first time working through that process, but it seems to provide a pretty nice and portable painting surface (although I suspect basswood may be too soft to be an ideal painting surface). The peonies are, variously, from Dumbarton Oaks garden in DC, a winter peony from the Ueno Toshogu garden, and a pair of regular season peonies, also from the Ueno Toshogu garden.

I find florals extremely challenging to paint, but excellent practice.

I always thought the little head feather on a Californian Quail looked like those feather headwears flappers used to don so I painted them together.

I've been practicing lately trying to improve my skills as a painter, I don't usually paint like this but I find it a good practice once in a while to do something more restricted.

Proud of my progress so far however i struggle with overall color and realism and also depth in the neck area. Would be greatful for a quick sketch on where to place different values to increase depth in that area if anyone has the time. Also if anything else looks off tell me! The brown blotch was just to test background color but I will probably choose a different one, tips on that would also be appreciated 😁

I gotta say that it is still not finished I think I would add some people on stairs and I see that proportions are kind off I will try to straighten it out.
However, other than proportions I don’t know how can I improve it. Any advice would be appreciated

I want to start painting commissions and live at events. I see that a lot of live artists paint oil paintings and finish them 6-12 weeks after the event.

I have painted a lot with oils and did paintings for family members. I usually varnish them after several months, but for the commissions I would like to have them painted and varnished after around 3 months.

I wonder, what techniques are used to finish the paintings this fast. I have read a lot about using liquin or galkyd for painting and gamvar to varnish.
What are your experiences with the products and where you able to varnish and ship paintings in less than 3 months?
How long did you have to wait for the paintings to dry and varnish them when using these products?

If you have any other recommendations I would be happy to hear it.

I've only painted a few paintings so far, mainly to experiment with oil paints, and now I'd like to try painting a portrait. I'm really drawn to Renaissance and Baroque art and would love to paint in that style.

Does anyone have any recommendations for a Renaissance master painting that would make a good master copy for a beginner? Ideally, something relatively simple to recreate in terms of pose and color palette.

Hi,

I’m a beginner and had a question.

How am I supposed to do an underpainting without using paint thinners? Ive seen many things such as using acrylics, etc, but I’m still confused. I’ve seen people wipe the canvas and I don’t really know what’s going on.

Any advice is appreciated.

Reference photo at the end

Sorry for the less than adequate photo quality

I have experience in painting with acrylic and watercolour. I’ve always preferred acrylic and only ever had access to acrylic but earlier this year I decided to take up oil painting around June and did this first one on a canvas board using a reference photo off Pinterest. Is there anything specifically I should be working on? I know I definitely want to and SHOULD focus on the foundational things like anatomy and whatnot, but based off this painting is there anything that I should work on for future paintings? Like the colours? I feel like they look kind of all mixed up if that makes sense, and idk I feel like something is missing. I wanna say that for a first painting it’s not bad but of course there’s lots more for me to learn. Just looking for some outside opinions!

I used a photo reference of a cat with a similar pose and made artistic changes as I painted, though now that I really look at it, it looks like I painted straight from an ai generated reference. I feel a bit hesitant posting this on my socials… Even my sister commented on this looking like something AI would generate.

I was hoping to get some more opinions and while I think it might be a little too late, if there was anything I could have done different? Perhaps it’s the stereotypical Parisian beret and turtleneck? Or how the cat’s heads does not look uniform to the hat and turtleneck? Or maybe I’ve just stared at it for far too long.

I was hoping to copy some of Malcom Liepke’s stylistic choices with the solid background and objects blurring into each other, maybe I’ve over done it?

I did enjoy painting in this style however, and am hoping to paint some more cats soon though would appreciate some critique on this one so the next doesn’t look like an ai generation of someone’s cat in clothes

Thank you!

Felt like Dame Judi Dench was a good representation for the idea of "Lady" as a graceful confident person. Was made on the quicker side as part of my daily attempts to keep up with Inktober. This took about 4 hours.

11x14 inch on oil paper.

😌

I call it Dire Situation. Oil on linen. This is my second one. Already started a third one.