A bit of a rocky start on this painting, but I did figure out something not to do.
I did a bit of oiling out on this painting before I started today. “oiling out” is a process where you add a very thin coat of linseed oil over the dry paint to bring back its true color while painting over it or next to it.
Now Oiling out works great when your painting color over color as it give a nice transparency to the paint that I like. You can build up some good layers this way as long as you keep it real thin.
But if you add oil to the blank canvas it is another story. I found out that it is terrible. I was trying to put paint on the canvas and cover the blank areas but I couldn’t, it was way too thin and transparent, terrible to work with. I had to end up wiping that section of paint off, it is the chest of the model. Then I moved to her hand and eventually to the left.
So from now on if I’m working on primed canvas I’m going to try and leave it as dry as a bone.
