The greatest passion for me has always been painting and today I am demonstrating the joy of painting with oils. Normally my work with oils is portrayed on a normal canvas, although occasionally I have been commissioned to paint a wall mural.

In the photographs you can see me in the process of painting ‘Inma’ the Angel of well-being together with the finished work which is in Oils, and is featured in Ambiente Beauty Health and Well-being centre in Pinoso, Spain.

However, the following step by step demonstration of painting is of a stunning sun set from a photograph taken as from my home here in Spain and is painted on a more modest 40 x 30 inch canvas.
The methods I use are simple and I will break them down and describe them in basic terms so if you are a total beginner you will be able to follow the steps alone and complete your own painting. I will also avoid lumbering you with the terminology aspects.
So, here we go:
1)  My first stage was to take a number of photos of the sunsets from different angles and camera settings.
2)  Then I chose my favourite and printed it from my computer.
3)  With the large flat brush I covered the canvas with black paint thinned a little with white spirit.
(Thinned only so that the paint flows on smoothly rather than sticky)
I gave it a few weeks to dry, as I didn’t want to work wet paint on top of the black wet paint as doing this would have resulted in the wet paints mixing and this would have meant losing the fresh bright colours of the sky.
4)  I laid out my working materials as follows:
- 2 brushes only: A ½ inch flat brush and a soft blending brush.
- Oil paints: Cadmium red, Cadmium yellow, Persian blue, Black and White.

5)  Using the half inch flat brush I dashed the brush across the canvas in loose rapid strokes with white paint thinned with a little white spirit and then touched on top of the white with a little cadmium yellow in a few places.

6)  I followed this by dashing cadmium red straight from the tube across the canvas.

7)  With the soft blending brush I began my favourite stage of blending the colours.
How to blend colours really needs to be demonstrated and is difficult to explain, however the best thing I can do at this point to help you is to say just have a go without worrying, after all it is oil paint, thus when dry , it can be repainted, as I have done many times.

So don’t be timid, go for it and enjoy, just softly pull the brush from the edge of the canvas, across to the other side until you feel content with the way it looks. Don’t try to copy mine just use it as a reference as I too would be unable to paint it exactly the same a second time. One thing though, please take care to stop blending before the colours are merged together so much that they appear as one colour only.

 I followed this by mixing Persian blue with a little white then placed this on with the half inch flat brush.
Once again, blending this colour but in discrete areas and not across the whole canvas. Be a little more careful here not to over blend the colours. I don’t want you to lose the blue into the red and thereby change it into a purple colour, although that may work well and still look good.
9)  Finally I added the foreground area by placing on thick black paint with the half inch brush making the shapes of the mountains and a very thin layer of cadmium red just to highlight them.

The finished painting called Sunset Passion. Easy when you know how and now you do! Enjoy your painting and I hope you enjoyed mine.

For painting holidays or commissions please make contact: linda@olivebranchretreats.com