Some time in 2024, I decided on the spur of a moment to sign up for a "Certificate in Oil Painting (Basic)". As always, learning about art is an always a process of learning about life. Largely because failure is inevitable. It reminded me of lessons from similar blog posts from years ago - they are summed up and with links in the <2024 post here>.
After taking a break from oil painting in 2025, this year I signed up for the "Certificate in Oil Painting (Intermediate)". It essentially means I've moved from painting still life objects, to painting landscapes, albeit from photographs.
Below are a series of posts from IG that I have put together here about my lessons in oil painting.... Hopefully you get to see some progress in my actual oil painting skills too!
8 October, 2024
"Keep the background in the background... and then move towards the light."
A friend last night asked why I have not given any updates lately on my oil painting course. Ever since September, it’s been busy in work and life. And honestly, if you look at this photo, you’ll see I have nothing pleasing to be proud of.
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| The set up of actual objects in class |
In another conversation with friends, we were saying how there are so many “life lessons” in art. Because a lot of failure is experienced! Ceramics in particular, ah how clay mirrors the toughest lessons in life! I have also shared many “art lessons” on the Ampulets blog, and this first actual oil painting exercise has these three new lessons for me:
1. Don’t give so much room to the background! I regretted making the main subjects too small relative to the canvas, which left me lots of red curtain to paint in the background. It’s the same in life. You got to make sure that the things in life that ought to be in the background do not become things that suck up all your time and energy. There’s a good reason why they are in the background and if we don’t right size our priorities, you’ll be left dealing with a lot of background noise and distractions!
2. I have not done well with this composition at all. The main subjects are right smack in the middle. It’s so obvious it is utterly boring. The same is true in life. Don’t make your core concerns too obvious - it makes you a boring person. Or perhaps it just makes for boring conversations.
3. This third lesson is one that is counter intuitive, and I am still struggling with it in my second oil painting exercise. Always start with the darker areas or colours and move towards the lighter ones. If not, you risk getting really muddy colours and surfaces. As if light should not be darkened. And so in life, don’t put the dark difficult bits aside. Stare at it in the eye and start with it. But the most important lesson is this - always move towards the light.
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| The only thing I was satisfied with were the blueberries, which I painted most freely. |
7 November, 2024
"Missing the forest for the tree."
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| The actual objects set up in class |
What’s the big big problem or failure in my painting?
This is the final still life assignment for my “ basic oil painting course”. So despite this assembly of random objects that you won’t ever find in real life, I thought I was expected to represent the objects as realistically as possible. The thing is this: you are not replicating “real life” in any way….you are making a painting - and paradoxically, everything somehow look more “real” when it is most painterly! I learnt this….only AFTER I finished the painting.
I was completely focused on every detail of each object. I thought if I could get every aspect of these objects in as “accurate” and “precise” a way, the painting and I would be ”right”. But sometimes in a painting, you got to simply make a suggestion of a shape or tone, and your eye actually fills in the rest of the details. When we look at a painting, our eye is making its own interpretation, filling in the blanks with our own knowledge from when we have actually seen or experienced that reality before.
You know the saying “missing the forest for the trees”?
Say you have all the “data”, actually you still may not know anything truly useful or important. We may see all the trees, in fact we may even see how they all add up to become a forest, yet we still may not know the forest - its beauty, its value, the smell of the earth, the light through the leaves, the darkness deep within, the fear and the awe when you stand in its midst.
Making a painting perhaps is like walking into the forest. And life is walking into the forest.
I was completely focused on every detail of each object. I thought if I could get every aspect of these objects in as “accurate” and “precise” a way, the painting and I would be ”right”. But sometimes in a painting, you got to simply make a suggestion of a shape or tone, and your eye actually fills in the rest of the details. When we look at a painting, our eye is making its own interpretation, filling in the blanks with our own knowledge from when we have actually seen or experienced that reality before.
You know the saying “missing the forest for the trees”?
Say you have all the “data”, actually you still may not know anything truly useful or important. We may see all the trees, in fact we may even see how they all add up to become a forest, yet we still may not know the forest - its beauty, its value, the smell of the earth, the light through the leaves, the darkness deep within, the fear and the awe when you stand in its midst.
Making a painting perhaps is like walking into the forest. And life is walking into the forest.
May 15, 2026
"Brown is a foundation of things."
The imprimatura is a thinned paint that turns the white canvas into another base colour. And for still life and landscapes, it is common to use shades of brown for the imprimatura and under painting - typically Sienna and/or Umber. Hence it is known as "Brunaile".
After almost 2 years, I picked up my oil painting journey again: "intermediate", which means I have graduated from apples and bottles to landscapes!
In both still life and landscapes, "brunaile" is typical. In portraiture, green is more typically used instead for under painting!
This may not seem Intuitive. Why not just apply the actual colours? Why bother covering up a white canvas in browns, and then go over yet again in completely different colours?
I tried to understand it like this. Brown is a foundation of things. It is a foundation in 2 ways.
First, it is light. The Sienna, when thinned, becomes a pale orange for the background. It is the warm sun that surrounds us. So it is the light and reflection against the surface of things that reveal actual colours. The blue of a lake is a reflection of the blue of the sky. Observe a dark glass bottle against a red tablecloth and you may find shades of pink. And so, I think of this orangey imprimatura as the foundation of light which surrounds and reveals a still life or landscape.
Second, it is the colour that all life eventually becomes. Just as the warmth of light surrounds and bathes the world around us, when most natural things decay - we return to earth as mulch or dust or ash. Brown or grey (there are underpaintings that are in grey). Strip away that green luminosity of new life (leaves, veins), and the stuff of life thereafter becomes brown. Earth. Dried leaves. Compost. Poop ("burnt sienna"). Dried blood ("burnt umber").
So for 3 hours on Wednesday evening, I sat by the easel in a classroom at Nafa, breathed in some thinner, made a picture in browns, and contemplated the stuff of light and decay.
June 6, 2026
"You can (try to) do everything right and it still feels wrong."
That's my life lesson from this first landscape exercise from my "intermediate oil painting" class.
I painted as "accurately" as I could in relation to the photo reference given as our assignment. As much as possible, I did what was "orthodox" - and I understood why it had to be so. When I broke the rules I recognise how it affected the painting.
But.
Accuracy is actually not the real goal. There is a stiffness in my painting, a deadness, a sterility indeed.
It is not the same when I draw with Chinese inks. There is a freedom and laissez-faire energy that feels - to me - right. Of course this comes from just years of using the medium, and thinking in black and white. I have made it my own. But not yet with oil painting.
When you look at the painting done by my instructor (image 2), you will understand what I mean. He didn't seek to achieve "accuracy" against the photo but he achieved a painting that felt a lot more alive! It had wind, sun and the smell of grass He knew what he wanted to suggest, and in suggesting what is there, he allowed the viewer's eye to fill in the blanks.
Another way of putting it is this: you can have all the right words but if you don't really understand the message, forming perfectly grammatical sentences with the words won't actually convey any meaning! And your listener may not need all the information...in fact sometimes you may need to say less for someone to listen more.
There.
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| My teacher's painting (top) vs Mine (bottom) |
It's the same in life. Sometimes you can try hard to do all the right things - be it for yourself, at work, your health or for the people in your life or the people not yet fully in your life. But it may be better to first understand what you truly mean to say and live, and allow yourself, others and life to present the heartache, disappointments, failures, empty gaps, the unknowns, the pleasant surprises. If you have a faith, you know this already. Even so, I need reminders - that I have little control, however precise my intentions.
June 23, 2026
"There are many ways to fall in love."
This is the second landscape assignment that I am still working through (at least one more week of work!) but I am starting to realise that.. Oil painting for me is like a relationship that isn't quite love at first sight but you know what, it's growing on me!
While I was struggling still with this assignment (see images 2 and 3 from last week), I did two things tonight that really helped move the relationship forward.
First, I paused and tried to recall what had worked on that first assignment that I enjoyed. Even though that assignment was a failure, there were elements I liked. So I tried to recall specifically the methods and spirit, and brought them to this session (aha, knowledge acquired and applied!). When I could repeat that process to my satisfaction, it started to feel like my own. There was, in there, a language that I understood and wanted to speak.
Second, I took a step back, laid my frustrations aside, and simply looked at the source image. Imagine a clean slate and remove the pressure of the failures of the previous attempt, and in fact, forget those failures even though they are blatantly there on the canvas. Not a blank canvas, but I could still keep building.
Then I began to relax and the process took over.
So while this medium wasn't love at first sight, I think the more I work at it, the more enjoyable it is. And there is more now that I know about it, there is also more that I know about my own approach and preference with it.
I still don't know what I will create with oil, but I did think I will continue exploring it. You can say therefore that this is the beginning of some kind of love haha.
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| I need one more session to finish up the board and clouds. |
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