Fun with Water Mixable Oils (Sketchbook Sunday)

Hi friends! I had a hankering to paint with oils today. Often oils seem like “a big ordeal” because I have to open tubes, squeeze out paint and then clean up afterward. If you have been on an art journey with me for any length of time you know how lazy I am and I just like to open a palette and go hence watercolor and gouache are my go to paints (and I did think quite hard about painting this is gouache which would be totally suitable) but in the end I wanted the smooth buttery consistency of oil under my brush and you just gotta do what feel right!

I used an 11″x14″ cotton canvas painting panel but you can use a stretched canvas, hard board panel of whatever you like. I chose a panel because they are thin to store and easy to frame if I want to later. I really don’t have much of  a preference between non paper surfaces, I just choose one that has the tooth I want for a particular subject. Watch the video to see the process. The painting took just under an hour. It was a  ton of fun to paint! Let me know if you would like any real-time oil painting tutorials. I have plans to paint more in oils but I am not sure if I will record them, I will if there is interest tho.

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• Berlin water mixable oil paint (10 color set)  Colors used: White, Viridian Hue, Cerulean, Ultramarine, Lemon, Yellow Ochre, Aliz. Crimson Hue, Burnt Umber
• 11″x14″ canvas panel *feel free to use a stretched canvas or wood panel if preferred.
• Creative mark mimik synthetic hog brushes (for the majority of the painting)
• Creative Mark Black Swan brushes (for details)
• reference photo
• *Another tutorial (real-time) done using that photo

Keep in mind you can use traditional oils, there really is no difference in the working aspects of the paint or the drying time. For that matter you can use acrylics with a slow drying medium if you prefer. The big advantage of the watermixable oils in the clean up as you don’t need solvents. Honestly I don’t mind using traditional oils and solvents but with my wintertime painting area being right off my kitchen I really don’t want the fumes. And to be honest I get a bit panicky about solvent soaked paper towels. My old studio that I used to rent downtown used to be a bank and so I would store solvents and cans of oily rags in the old bank vault until trash day in case they combusted LOL! Since I taught two oil painting classes a week there were always solvent soaked paper towels about. I think it’s a good idea to be cautious when you use these products at home and I am glad that watermixible oils exist and now rival the traditional ones.  That’s all for today, thanks for stopping by and til next time happy crafting!