"Palm Silhouette", Oil on Canvas
18" X 24" Landscape Painting

The next step in this painting was to carefully develop an a sketch on the primed canvas. Carl has read a myriad of art teaching books and has found a common theme throughout: you need a good drawing or sketch to make a good painting. Often Carl's finished painting doesn't stick to the preliminary drawing, but he does perform periodic checks as he progresses to see where he's left the original reference and to define exactly where he's trying to go. Actually, as you may be able to see in the above image, the sketch is pretty rough - but it does establish the location, size, and relationship of the main items in the painting.

Carl says he plans to develop water first, particularly the variations in blue in the foreground of the painting. The wave lines will have to be added to the painting in full detail - then the rocks and boat. Finally, the palm trees will be painted over the top of the background (Carl might develop the tree trunks in acrylic or oil early on just to get a feel for the value contrasts). From previous oil paintings Carl has learned that while oil can be quite opaque it also has a tendency to show underlying brush strokes and texture. So either the background will not cross the tree trunks or Carl will use a knife to scrape the wet oil from the background away from the trunk lines when he gets to that point.

Carl is also figuring out a new routine for his painting sessions. Using acrylic, water color, or pen and ink, the image is dry when the session is done. Using oil paint is entirely a different matter. Some of Carl's previous oil paintings have taken several weeks to dry (actually oil takes 6 months or so to completely dry for presentation). A wet oil painting needs to breath and not be stored in darkness for long periods of time. It is also necessary to store it away from dust. And if you don't like the smell of linseed oil you'll need to dry your oil painting somewhere away from your living quarters. Nevertheless, Carl is excited to be working with oil again. It is a media he really likes even though he has never mastered its use.

The oil paints for this project are Winsor and Newton Artisan Water Mixable Oils. They are non-toxic and clean up with soap and water.

This project is an original painting Carl made based on a reference
photo of a morning silhouette of palm trees at the ocean.

Copyright(c) , 2004 Carl E. Gluck. All rights reserved.