New here From UK

Hi James...welcome.   That is a super painting, if you have got so far I think you have answered most of your own questions. I haven't used Oils in a long  while so techniques etc I am sure someone more knowledgeable than me could help. I use acrylics these days but do remember how beautifully oil mixed on the canvas.  Why not have a play with colour and wet or dry , I would be tempted to add some greens..Several of us here are quite ancient ( sorry all you yoingsrters)   Plus the physical junk that comes with age.  I am fighting sight problems which is a bummer...I have no central vision .  So I have probably misspelt a lot of this.  Enjoy the forum, we are a funny bunch  ,odd not ha ha.

Oh Welcome  to the website James, great to have you onboard! Do join in on the forum if you need any help or advice, or just to express your opinion on art related subjects! Right then… first and foremost, I don’t particularly like the idea of copying someone else’s painting… a view held by many of us on here. I’m assuming that you haven’t painted the seascape yourself… or have you? Maybe I’m confused here, because Sylvia obviously thinks that this is your painting! I would suggest that you work from a royalty free photo as an alternative, there are plenty to choose from online. As for your ground colour, I generally opt for neutral greys, either warm or cool. Or, you can be more adventurous and wash your canvas over with say raw sienna, even burnt sienna works well. Most of it will eventually be covered up of course, but I do like to see a degree of the original ground colour showing through to the finished work, to give a certain continuity running through the painting. Yes, preferably let it dry before you start painting, or reasonably dry anyway! But… try and keep any ground wash fairly thin, you need a degree of transparency here, not a solid opaque mass! Hope this helps a little… other members will join in with their opinions I’m sure…

Just to add, if you’re starting out with oils, treat yourself to a good book to get you started. I recommend Vibrant Oils by Haidee-Jo Summers. It has all the information needed regarding oils for the relative beginner.

Nice easel… I’ve got a similar Daler-Rowney H-frame easel! They’re the most stable of all the designs!

Welcome James. It seems like you are setting yourself up well. I also have the Vibrant Oils book Alan has recommended, and found it very useful and an easy and pleasant read. I look forward to seeing your work. 

You’ll find it invaluable James, it will, or should, answer every question that you may have regarding oil painting!

I have this book, and endorse Alan's comment - it's not only informative, it's also inspirational.  I've bought a lot of art books over many years - the ones that annoy me are those with cramped commentary, poor colour, and tiny illustrations - the Search Press books (as you'll know having bought this one) are full of BIG, clear, colourful illustrations.   In years past, because of the very high cost of colour printing, books were published with a small selection of colour prints - and not always very good ones - and a majority in greyscale or sepia; they would teach you a lot about tone, but you itched for real colour.  Printing costs have come down, technology has improved - the difference is wonderful. I have an e-book on the Amazon Kindle store which is heavy on text and light on illustration - it needs a serious edit, and one day I'll stir myself to attend to that.  In the meantime, Oil Paint Basics, my chef oeuvre, does contain a lot of information many (they've told me) have found useful.  The trouble with a lot of the old books, before Haidee-Jo (and Ron Ranson and Alwyn Crawshaw) hove into view, was that they didn't deal with those things the total beginner really needs to know: they took a lot for granted.  By the time you read them, you'd have worked out a lot of the basics for yourself, the hard way; there was very little that took you by the hand and led you through the basic stuff, then took you a little further so you'd have some idea what to do with it; hence my effort to fill that need. One of my favourite books, though I don't have it any more, was by S Alleyn Shaeffer (other versions of that name are most probably available, I'm typing from memory, and my memory is a little on the frail and wobbly side): a lovely book, I think the title was Light on the Landscape, but not for the painter at the foothills of oil painting: that's a big gap - as I say, I tried to fill it, but Haidee-Jo and others have written about it, and shown how to do it - and that's invaluable.   I don't know if the Walter T Foster company still produces their how-to books - big format publications, bound in fairly sturdy card covers, and again with big illustrations - you find these in second-hand bookshops now and then; and if they're still being published, so much the better.  Walter Foster was a slightly eccentric US publisher in Laguna Beach, California, a populist, the leisure painter's friend, and I bet the purists hated him - but his books were a great teaching aid, and his methods were, for the day, sound; he was no Bob Ross (Inc), and all the better for it.  If you see those books anywhere, snap 'em up.  

https://walterfoster.com/ They DO still exist!  I know nothing about their current activities  yet, I've signed up for their newsletter just a minute ago.  Their old books did contain the odd rather amusing misprint - I spent quite a while looking for "arridian green", before realizing they meant "viridian" - but for their very low price, back in the '70s at least, they were amazing value.