My father was asking me some questions about my process when starting from scratch. For each painting this may vary but usually this is the way it goes…
Basically I like to start out with a lot of paint on the canvas with as little thinner or liquin as possible. It’ll wear you out on big paintings for sure, but I’m not saying to use no thinner. I’m saying use only enough to get the paint to move. The reason is so that I can continue to paint (and have it stick while adding a little thinner or liquin) which greatly speeds up an oil painting. I think the technical term is wet on wet painting. Bob Ross was pretty fast using this method. Also, the background color will blend into the elements I add afterword. So the blue sky will blend into the distant trees and give me that hazy distant feel (see Aerial perspective.) For near-ground objects it can be used for reflection or specular highlights. I find the end result will take that original color as a theme and sorta bring it all together.
I just finished this painting called “On the Fence” and using the method above I used this brown/green color as my background. Also keep in mind that this is an iPhone shot. I promise it looks better in person!
Enjoy
That was an awesome painting to watch come to life! I love how you did that so when we click on the image we can see the changes.