If you try oil painting, you may learn to LOVE it!

When I first tried oil painting back in 1985, I wasn't sure that I would like this type of painting. I learned on my own from a book on Oil Painting. As I proceeded to paint with oils and learned how to do a painting, I really enjoyed doing it. I enjoyed it so much I would lose track of time!

I have talked to so many people about painting and specifically oil painting and many of those people actually preferred to paint in water-colors. Many of the people I talked to had never even TRIED to use oil paints. I asked some of these artist why they didn't want to use oil paint and there were several different reasons as follows:

* Too smelly with the chemicals for paint thinner.

* Too difficult to learn.

* Did not understand how to use the materials like paint and mediums.

So many people just went to painting with water color paints. Now there is nothing wrong with water color painting as I use this medium occasionally. but I would just like to say a few differences between oil painting and water color painting and to clear up the answers to the reasons listed above.

1. Today you can purchase water soluble oil paints that you use with water to thin with instead of turpentine. There are several brands on the market that offer these types of paints.

Also, there are paint thinners available today that are odorless. There are other products that take the "smell" out of your studio.

2. Once you try painting with oils you'll absolutely love the wonderful thick colors you can manipulate with your brush on your canvas. You can build up your paint into a texture you can feel with your fingers!

3. Oil painting is easy to learn and extremely "forgiving" medium! If you feel like you made a mistake - just paint over it! With the slow drying process of oils, you can do fantastic color blending on your canvas. You can take a break, and when you come back to the canvas to paint some more, your paint is still wet for more blending magic. There are oil paints with a faster drying time available.