Oil Sketch

I decided to venture outside today and paint a quick oil sketch before it starts raining. I haven't used oil paints in over 6 months. This is a terrible photo of the trees I sketched in my front yard. Oils don't photograph well when they are wet and this is very wet! It takes days to dry and they are not completely dry for at least 6 months! This sketch is 8x6 on a canvas panel and I only worked on it for about 30 minutes. I haven't mixed colors since I started working with pastels...last night I was reminding myself how to mix. I only used ultramarine blue, cadmium red light, alizarin crimson, cadmium yellow light, cadmium lemon and white, so I had to remind myself how to mix green, purple and orange and then the rest just fell into place. The only thing I don't like about oils is the setting up and cleaning up!

Here is a picture of my set up that I use for painting outside with oils...all of my equipment fits in my art cart and I just roll it back in my closet when I'm finished and it's ready for my next outing! As you can see, we have a lot of trees...behind my set up is a berm and then the creek.

I'm hoping to get out at least once a week and paint an oil study and I also want to go to a public place at least once a week and do some quick sketches of people in my sketchbook. I'm planning on going to Starbucks tomorrow to sketch. I'm still working on my pastel figure study...I'll post my progress in a few days.