5July 2007
2.1 The fundamentals of oil painting
There is only one rule to being an oil painter: use oil paint anyway you can, as all other variables are irrelevant and inconsequential. There are tried techniques to the application of oil paint, but those also are a variable. That is not to say don’t learn what has worked before you, simply do not be confined by another’s personal preferences. I say that the single most important fundamental is that the student of painting, the artist, and the master painter, use oil pigments and only oil pigments.
In chapter 2, I will discuss the fundamentals of oil painting as I see and have practiced them. It is my hope that an artist reading this in the future will find value within a disciplined study of oil painting, just as this future will generate new and innovative ideas in said artists generation.