Striking oil

Determined to sample painting in a medium other than watercolour I began to look at acrylics and oils. Cost convinced me to give acrylics a try first but I wasn't too happy with my initial attempts largely due to my own ignorance and impatience. I found it difficult to come to terms with the way that they dried. I wasn't seeing that flexibility that I had seen with the users on the life course in summer.

So oils were next on the agenda. Luckily I spotted an advert for a course in oils where all the materials would be provided and the web site of the provider convinced me that the artist teaching the course was someone from whom I could learn a lot. His landscapes are stunning. The worst I could look forward to would be first hand access to his work and his methods as well as some initial experience of using a medium that was totally unfamiliar.

October arrived and I headed off to Norfolk. The course was a revelation. Beautiful facilities, wonderful hospitality and first rate tuition from a man who really understands the technique and subtleties of fine oil painting. His name, Martin Kinnear and his atelier is called Norfolk Painting School. Martin produces his work building layers of glazed colour that are luminous in their intensity and his aim is to share those methods with his students. Each student left the course with a 40" x 30" canvas on which they had had the opportunity to realise some of the techniques that they had been taught.

The painting below is the canvas that I produced on this course. I left Norfolk decided upon the investment in all of the paraphernalia to commence working in oil in the landscape.

Martin also made the suggestion that a web site called Wet Canvas was worth visiting and could be a good source of feedback on any paintings that we made. So the next steps were mapped out, a move to oils and a search for developmental criticism.