Portraits in Oil

The first thing….I wouldn’t say acrylics are more forgiving. Yes, you can paint over quickly but you have time to adjust with oils. You can wipe off and leave a ghostly shape which you can build on again. It’s worth persevering, you’ll get there but trying oils for the first time with portraits ( where you are problem solving in many areas - not least a likeness) sounds a step too far to me. Bobbie, why not try a simple subject to paint in oils ( look up daily painting) and learn what oil can do. There are many You tube demos worth watching, as long as you limit the watching and get down to painting! I may be wrong but I wasn’t too keen when you said the tutor had corrected and you felt only a small part was down to you - not a good teaching process ( I’m a former teacher). Using a new medium takes time, I’ve been painting with oils for years and would still not claim to know all the answers. As I said earlier, paint something simple with your oils and then begin to branch out. It’s worth it!

Well Bobbie, one thing that really annoys me is to see a tutor pick up a brush and alter a student’s work! The tutor should advise and point things out where correction or suggestion is need, not take over the work. Trying out a new medium is never easy and can be a bit scary, but looking at your first attempt, I think you should persevere some more as you have made a good start.

Bobby don’t give up too soon , I don’t paint in oils but every medium takes time .  I do lead workshops and would never take over a person’s painting and alter it I would make suggestions or demonstrate on another piece of paper using the opportunity to show everyone how to correct something. I would ask your permission before leaping in and telling the group . As Marjorie  suggested try simple paintings first you will be surprised how soon you get the hang and move onto more complex work. By the way your portrait is far better than I could have done . 

Your charcoal sketches are excellent Bobbie .  Just  do what suits and makes you happy you are a good artist , you will get the portraits sorted in your way and in good time , I’m looking forward to seeing them . 

Many (many!) years ago, I took a painting to an artist and asked what was wrong with it.  She asked if I would mind if she added a touch - I didn't mind at all; and with one brush-stroke, she resolved the problem.  THAT is good teaching: not taking a brush and re-casting the whole picture - especially if you haven't even achieved an improvement.   As it fortuitously happens, I've been working on a series of portraits - in oil, acrylic, and watercolour.  So am well placed to think about your question - with all of them, the fundamental thing is the drawing - get that wrong and it doesn't matter what medium you're working in, the picture won't work.  Of the attempts above, I would say that the last two charcoal drawings are very good, but in all of the others the drawing is off - in particular, where you show both eyes, they aren't on the same plane, they're far too elliptical, and I think you would probably have corrected that if you'd finished the studies, but it is better to get it right at the drawing stage. Acrylic more forgiving than oil: um.... not in my experience it isn't!  It's true that you can go on and on adding layers to an acrylic, and you MIGHT get it right through sheer persistence: but again, if you're building on a wobbly foundation, failure is far more likely than success.  Oil paint on the other hand is a living medium which can be sculpted and shaped, blended and adjusted with just the smallest of touches: all painters in oil have their own techniques, especially in portraiture: but, repeating myself, all start with a sound drawing - "sound" doesn't mean detailed; it just means that you've established where things fit - you can measure by eye or with instruments, but the placement of features is hugely important.  The strength of oil, among many, is that if you've got those details wrong, you'll soon know it. I would guess that you find oil in portraiture difficult because you've been trying to work in thick paint and are producing mud.  This will be exacerbated if you're using Titanium White, which is very heavy in oil, and rather unsympathetic in rendering flesh tones, but more to the practical point, takes forever to dry.  You could try an alkyd white - or, if you can get it, you could try what I use, which is Flake White and its relatives (Cremnitz, Flemish, basic lead carbonate).  It's a lot better for portrait and figure work, but it is toxic, and it can be difficult to get.  However, it dries quickly, to a strong film, and can take a lot of layering and blending. You probably won't want to do that?  Then try the alkyd, and do use a very restricted palette, at least to start with; paint thinly, with as little medium as possible, without turpentine, don't rush at it - though some successfully do: those with decades of experience behind them - and above all don't go in with the white until you're ready: it's those opaque tones, obliterating all else, losing any original drawing, which are the start of most portrait problems.  Many of us stain the canvas before we start - I much prefer to leave the head area untouched with stain, meaning I don't have to start adding the lights, the opaque colours, before I have to.   I can't comment on Niel Bally's teaching methods, other than to say I'd never have approached a student's work without permission - for which perhaps he asked? - and would be very chary about making really big changes: because then, the painting is neither one thing nor the other, neither the student's work nor mine.  I have taught very few people, and those a long time ago - perhaps I should start again..........  If anything I have said contradicts what he said, well that doesn't make either of us right of itself: you'll have to try to work through what is going to be the most natural and comfortable way for you.   I certainly think it's worth your persisting in oil - try acrylic by all means, but it really doesn't have the same ability to be moulded and shaped; it has different qualities (I'm very fond of acrylic: I was one of the early adopters of acrylic paint 50 years ago, when it became readily available from Rowneys: and if you want to see portraits in acrylic, look for the work of John Bratby).

Michael Harding is a great paint-maker: I haven't tried his Warm White, though - provided it contains no Zinc, I must try it.  Oh dear, another PS: I can't seem to stop myself running on!  I've just thought though of the differences between oil and acrylic, and one of them is that acrylic seems to demand definite, precise strokes - I think of it as a linear medium, as opposed to the broadness that can be achieved with oil, where lost and found edges work so well (as they do in watercolour).  It's because of the blending issue - it's hard to blend in acrylic; not impossible, but blending a colour which dried hard minutes before you thought it needed a bit of a rub with the finger or blending with the brush can be very frustrating.  As I remember, Bratby worked a lot with the painting knife, giving him thicker paint to work with: might be worth trying if you do decide to go with acrylic. I'll shut up now!