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Tag: Seven Protocols for Successful Oil Painters

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The value of system

In Control (Grace and her Unicorn), 24X30, $3,478 framed, oil on canvas, includes shipping in continental United States.

Recently, someone called me ‘formulaic.’ I laughed because all experienced painters have systems; some just let beginners flail around because it cuts down on the competition. Systematic painting is no different from my carpenter friend Dave knowing how to get professional results with minimal struggle. Professionals know where it pays to bear down, and where bearing down is useless.

Systematic painting gets the mechanics out of the way and makes room for true creativity to emerge. It also helps when time and pressure threaten to derail you.

Fog over Whiteface Mountain, 11×14, $1087 includes shipping in continental US.

You can overcome your nerves

I was a mess at my very first plein air event. I started using opaque colors way too soon, with too much mineral spirits. Daisy de Puthod, bless her, lectured me. “Carol, what are you doing? You know better than that!” It snapped me out of my momentary insanity.

I have several decades of systematic painting under my belt since then. Although I still get nervy at times, I no longer panic. When I’m stressed, I just fall back on what I know, a simple system that always works.

Portrait of Dr. Martha Vail Barker, Edinburgh, Scotland (Private collection)

You can work in a tight time window

In 2018, I traveled to Edinburgh, Scotland, to do a portrait. This was no open-ended affair where I could putz around and deliver when I felt like it. I had exactly eight days from conception to completion, including a trip to Greyfriars Art Shop to get supplies.

That wouldn’t have worked had I not stuck to my protocol. I had it planned almost to the hour, and there were no snafus. In fact, I had enough time left to go see the delightfully weird Rosslyn Chapel.

“Ravening Wolves,” oil on canvas, 24X30, $3,478.00 framed includes shipping in continental US.

You can overcome your emotions

There are paintings with an emotional wallop that can threaten to derail you. I’m working on one right now (with a short hiatus to go teach a few workshops). It’s a picture of my grandmother and her cronies in her South Buffalo backyard, and includes me as a toddler on a swing. I have no good reference materials, and I’m frequently finding myself thwacked upside the head by memories, not all of them pleasant. But I can continue because I’m working to a system.

It helps when you have the attention span of a rabbit

This week the turnscrew on my pochade box decided to strip itself. Painting is no fun when your box keeps falling down, but I stand it back up and get on with it. I’m the poster child for ADHD, so it’s only system that keeps me on track in situations like these.

Why do I mention this?

I’ve spent the last seven months doing steps 1-4 of a systematic painting instruction system called Seven Protocols for Successful Oil Painters. This is what I’d intended to write as a ‘how to paint’ book but realized that an interactive instructional system comprised of lectures, exercises, and quizzes would teach far more thoroughly.

By the time you read this, my beta testers will be done and The Essential Grisaille will be live. That means four segments are finished:

The Perfect Palette-what paints should you buy and why?

The Value Drawing-where you work out the thorny questions of light and dark.

The Correct Composition-the ‘secret sauce’ that makes some paintings transcendent.

The Essential Grisaille–moving that composition onto the canvas without losing what makes it great.

As I told a reader recently, if you start at the beginning and faithfully do the exercises, you’ll probably be ready for the next section about the time I finish it. I intend to have this done by the end of the year, and I do believe it’s the most important work I’ve ever done.

Reserve your spot now for a workshop in 2025:

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More art supplies won’t make you a better painter

Breaking storm, 48X30, oil on canvas, $5,579 framed includes shipping in the continental US.

I had an entertaining text exchange with an emerging painter yesterday. “We spend too much money on better paper, fancy brushes, and teaching videos,” he mused. “We think we can buy our way into good results. But it all comes down to spending time painting. One must actually apply paint to paper to understand the lessons, to get them into one’s head.”

A few moments passed and he added, “Of course, that’s very dangerous if you’re painting with other people with all the same bad habits as you.”

Therein lies the conundrum. Yes, you need to paint — lots, fast and furious — to improve. But you also need to understand the fundamentals, and it helps to have good materials. It’s like playing the piano. Both practice and instruction are critical, but you’ll enjoy it a lot more if your piano holds a tune.

Bunker Hill overlook, watercolor on Yupo, approx. 24X36, $3985 framed includes shipping in continental US.

I have two sets of watercolor brushes. The first are high-end, large brushes that I use for ‘important’ work. The others are mid-range Princeton Neptunes. These days, most of my watercolor painting is pootling around in my sketchbook, so of course I grab the Neptunes. It figures that I’ve gotten better with them than with my fancier brushes.

I once told my Zoom class that one could paint in oils with a stick, and that my ratty, half-hardened brushes proved it. Instead of taking that lesson to heart, they bought me new brushes (which moves me every time I think of it). While it’s quite possible to paint in oils with a stick, or even a palette knife, it is lovelier to paint with my treasured new brushes.

Palomino Blackwing pencils are going around my students like COVID right now. “Are you made of money?” I ask them, tongue in cheek. I’d order them too if my business partner didn’t have a death grip on our checkbook. Sometimes it’s just fun to have lovely things.

Wreck of the SS Ethie, oil on canvas, 18X24, $2318 framed includes shipping in continental US.

More fun, I’m afraid, than buckling down and doing the hard slog. But, of course, the hard slog pays off in ways that shopping never can.

Last month I introduced The Value Drawing, an interactive class that discusses how to make an effective value drawing. Today I’m introducing The Correct Composition, an even weightier tome. The Perfect Palette came out earlier this year.

Laura and I have been releasing them as we finish them, with the idea that we’d market them as a set when the whole Seven Protocols for Successful Oil Painters is finished. Today I realized that was unfair to my followers. If you buy the whole series at one time, you’re going to rush through it, whereas if you have it episode by episode, you’ll take the time to do the exercises and quizzes, and above all, “actually apply paint to paper to understand the lessons, to get them into one’s head,” as my correspondent wrote.

Sunset Sail, oil on linen, 14X18, $1594 includes shipping in continental US.

The Value Drawing is closely related to The Correct Composition, so if you haven’t done that one, you might want to do them both now. Meanwhile, I’ll continue to work on the next step, which is The Essential Grisaille.

To put it in perspective, one of these classes is the discount price of a 9/12 Arches Watercolor block. The three I have done so far total the same amount as an 18/24 Arches Watercolor block. I’d never dis the value of a fancy new watercolor block; I adore them. However, I know that knowledge will improve your painting far faster than better paper, or brushes, or even those luscious pencils.

Reserve your spot now for a workshop in 2025: