On unfamiliar ground.

Thanks very much for your response.  In a way it's odd that I've largely avoided entering these shows, because whenever I see an art exhibition advertised I go to see it.  If everybody was like me there wouldn't be any.

Yes Tessa, the club has a lot of members, they don't all attend the weekly painting sessions.  I only know a few at  the moment.   I was just going through the catalogue to find that artist's name...the one I've seen on POL.  Andrew has beaten me to it.  Stephen Pannell.  It was great to see a couple of his original oils, always the best way to see art.  My son was particularly taken with the one from the 'Shining' movie...the one with the child on a scooter.   He also had a lot of prints for sale.  I didn't meet him, I wouldn't recognise him anyway, the preview show was pretty crowded.

Thanks for that Alan.  I have some oils that I haven't used...the result of family kind-heartedly buying me art gifts without asking me first.  A set of Rowney Georgian oils.  Cobalt blue, French ultramarine, cad yellow (hue), meridian (hue), cad red (hue), burnt sienna and titanium white.  Plus Linseed oil and turps.   I've also been given some oil boards and canvases.  Had I bought or chosen them myself I might have made other choices.  My first thought is have a bash with these, to get back into using oils. I've been re-reading some of the forum pieces on oils, and some of POL's 'how to's', there's a wealth of those including some by your good self... and I will get the Haidee-Jo Summers book. I need to find out if I can physically manage oils.  Lately I've been struggling with brushes, and so have resorted mostly to pencils, pens and watercolour pencils.  These provide a firm contact with the surface and with my hand firmly on the surface I just about manage to draw.  When I do use a brush it's held by the ferrule, far from ideal, no free flowing brush strokes from me.  I have what my doctor calls 'hand tremor', not uncommon as you get older.  It has a minimal effect on my life in general terms, but some things are made awkward...like painting. It's about 8 years or so since the last time I painted in oils, so I have some idea, I'm just out of practice...and my future 'practice' will have to be different.  I can certainly paint something...who knows, I may develop into a 'loose' painter...not by choice, but by default. So, initially I'll see how I manage pushing the paint around using what I have.   If I find I can cobble some pictures together, I'll happily fork out for better materials.

Thanks Robert, I'll get it.

Well, I've started an oil painting.  I have half a dozen boards and canvases that people have bought for me in the past that I'll use initially, together with a set of oils somebody gave me for Xmas some years back.  I'm not expecting to produce anything worthwhile with these, I'm just hoping to devise a way of painting in oils with my clumsy hands. I did purchase some liquin, a medium I used on my last oils some eight years ago.  It's chief benefit for me is that it quickens drying time.  Previously I'd used it mostly for glazing, and was unsure if it was a complete substitute for trad oil mediums.   That's not important for these first attempts at renewing my acquaintance with oils.  I've bought Robert's book (Oil paint basics).  The first thing I did was look up what he had to say about liquin...seems I'm OK.  I've only just got the book, and will read it before I start the next pic.  (The book has great reviews on Amazon by the way...I'm looking forward to getting stuck into it.) So, I drew my pic with oil paint mixed with Liquin.  I like to have some idea what my pic is about...the wannabe illustrator in me...so this is intended to be Sherlock Holmes in his first book 'A study in scarlet', before his illustrator gave him a deerstalker hat.  All this is unimportant, it's just how I do things.  Here's the drawing... The drawing was easy, because I was able to rest my hand on the board. Applying the paint (second pic)was a different matter.  I was all over the place, and felt I had no control whatever.  Very off-putting.  I have a bridge-support for my hand (to keep it off the wet paint), but it didn't help much.  Hopefully more practice will improve things. I left this to dry overnight, by the afternoon on the following day it was dry enough for me to continue (I'd painted fairly thinly).  So I worked a little on the face...too red...even though this is a study in scarlet. Then  I decided to block in the rest of the colours, plus a little fiddling on the face, and leave it to dry thoroughly.  A lot more to do, plenty wrong with it. The varied colour is down to pics being photographed in different conditions. The process suggests to me that it'll help to have 2 or 3 pics on the go at the same time.  That'll allow them to dry and enable me to crack on. So...I'll read Robert's book before I start a second pic, by which time this one will have dried sufficiently for me to work on it.

Thanks Alan.  Yes, the colours need adjusting, I'll have a go when it's dried...glazing maybe?  Or completely rework the face perhaps.   Don't know enough about oils.  I'll get, or make, a mahl stick, the bridge I have is a little high for me, a stick will allow more variation.  I'll try colouring the ground on the next one, the stark white of the board can be a distraction, that's why I've blocked it all in before any more work on it. Had a look at Tim Benson's work.  Interesting, a little extreme for me, but I get the point you're making, as you say, it can be adjusted to suit my purpose.