I haven’t painted with oils for a while - well not at my own pleasure anyway, so that’s what i’m going to do with this portrait.

I selected a board with some acrylic underpainting on it (I keep a stack of these ready to go with random bits of colour on them which i’ve offloaded from my pallet at the end of painting sessions, and or painted with gesso.

The board I selected is painted with a dark indigo, then with some green grey gesso marks on top of that. I want to use a limited pallet so I’ll choose some colours with this underpainted board in mind.

Before I make a start I mix a full pallet of colours. This is the main advantage oils has over acrylics so may as well take full advantage of this feature. I never do this with acrylic paints, never ever EVER!!

I kind of forget what I’m doing for a sec…I’m so use to acrylics.

Ive painted a monster!

Oh yeah, that’s right…I want some paint down so I can paint wet on wet - I break a few rules and don’t use any medium to thin the paint, so it’s straight paint on straight paint, nice and creamy.

yep, loving the process… it’s about now I need to chop in from the background and push the subject forward, so I decide to mix a grey using what’s on my pallet with a little Paynes grey to add some blue to the mix. I figure that subtle difference will barely be noticed, but will be different enough to do what I want. So…

I’m happy with that.

The end.