Daily Oil Painting 12th Feb '26

Carrying on with getting back into oils. I have a couple of challenges - one is that the underdrawing shows through the paint, especially if it is white or yellow. Secondly, working out which brushes work best for various situations.

I got a bit fed up cleaning my brush all the time when mixing, and then remembered the mixing part is a lot easier with a palette knife, as it is dead easy to clean with a single swiupe of kitchen towel. So I started to us this for the mixing, and then thought I would have a bash at using the pallete knife to apply the paint to the canvas, something which I have never tried before. The image to the left shows the result of going a bit crazy with the knife for the background.

Then I smothed thabackground outand used a normal brush to work on the bird.

Reflections

The background drawing was ok in the end. At least, it didn't show through the paint too much. I did it using very diluted burnt umber. I diluted it with water, to such an extent it was like watery watercolour paint. Afterwards I dried it with a hairdryer, although I don't know whether that was necessary or not.

I don't like Phalo Blue! It is great as a colour, but almost impossible to get out of the brush.

Must remember to use the palette knife for mixing colours, it saves so much time and kitchen roll.