Success with Oil Painting!

'Summer Days'            6x8         oil on panel       ©Karen Margulis  sold

 What a great birthday!  I decided to schedule a workshop on my birthday because painting and teaching are my two favorite things to do. So what better way to celebrate than have a group of artists come to my studio to paint!  I was a little bit apprehensive though about the subject....oil painting!
But what a great time we had and best of all everyone left with a nice painting and excited to do more!

So why was I apprehensive?  I am primarily a pastelist. I dabble in oils. I had been asked by several students to teach an oil workshop but I put it off since I didn't feel I knew enough to offer anything  of value. But then I had a thought.  I had a very challenging introduction to oils. I actually gave up and thought I couldn't do it. But then some things happened and I started having more success.

What if I could share what I learned to help other artists have success with oils and not be intimidated? After all it was all very fresh in my mind. I planned a four hour workshop geared towards pastel artists who wanted to try oils.  All but one student had any oil experience.  Look at the wonderful paintings they did!

Paintings done by the class

We covered a lot of information in the four hours but I will summarize the two principles that guide me when I paint with oils.

• KEEP IT SIMPLE. From working with a limited palette to using a minimum amount of supplies, I try to keep my oil set up simple. Now I have my 5x7 pocket box painting practice will be even easier.
• THINK LIKE A PASTELIST. I find it helps me get out of trouble with an oil painting if I ask myself "What would I do if this was a pastel painting?"  I usually then can figure out what to try.

'Desert Oasis'    5x7    oil     demo
click here to purchase $100

I will be scheduling another Oil workshop in the Fall so email me if you are interested!

****Some of my readers opened up their daily email today/yesterday and saw a post saying that they were unsubscribed from my blog. I didn't post this!  Somehow my newsletter provider Mailchimp put the post there and it was sent out in my feed. My subscriber list is from Feedburner so you should still be subscribed and if you got this post then you are!  I want to apologize for this. I was hacked somehow and I am still trying to find out how it happened. I appreciate my readers and would never unsubscribe anyone! And to reassure you if you did resubscribe it was actually to my newsletter which I only send a couple of times each year.Thank you for your understanding.