My New Hobby...Oil Painting

I've been interested in drawing/sketching since Jr High when I took the required art class, but I never pursued a career in the arts.  Let alone an education in that field.  In 2000, I picked up watercolor painting.  I took a local class that got me off to the wrong start.  One, my paintings were miserable looking and two, my instructor wasn't that good.  That was a short lived hobby.  In 2002, I decided to get back into watercolors and took an 8 week course at an Old Town shop.  I studied with a wonderful lady, Karyn, who painted beautiful and lively scenes.  I wanted to paint like her.  My painting skills improved immensely as she introduced me to artist/professional paints and brushes.  That made a huge difference.  I continued painting for another year or so.

Since then, I have taken on additional hobbies like sewing and knitting garments and accessories.  I really enjoyed spending time in my fiber arts.  My short lived painting experiences helped me see a gamut of colors, hues and textures.

Now, I've taken up oil painting.  I looked around for classes, but decided to learn this new hobby on my own.  The money I would have spent for the lessons, was instead used for my new supplies (paints, palette, and brushes).

My first oil painting called 'Values'

After playing around with the oils, I can honestly say that I enjoy it more than watercolors.  I did a wet-on-wet or single layer technique and it only took two hours to complete this painting.  

My painting area.  One of my watercolor paintings is hanging on the wall (upper right)

I got the hang of holding the palette in my hand and didn't feel any fatigue.  It felt natural.  I also managed to hold additional brushes and a paper towel in the same hand.  I do need to get a larger palette once I start painting with additional colors and do more mixing.  

I love my clear acrylic palette

I found this inexpensive table top easel on the Internet.  The easel itself is adjustable to different angles.    It can also hold large size canvases.  For this painting, I used Canvas Paper and taped it to a board.  This is a cheap alternative to canvas.  Once I progress further along...I have canvases waiting for action.

My portable table top easel with a storage drawer

I am using water miscible oils called Artisan from Winsor and Newton.  It supposedly feels like the real oil paints, but I can use soap and water to clean up my tools.  I decided to go this route as I didn't want to deal with irritants and vapors in the house.

Photography is stil my number one hobby.  As you can see, I still end up taking pictures of my other hobbies.