My first painting was a failure...

[steevdeadman]

...but it succeeded in making me want to do more... anyone have any tips for me? I got cheap brushes, I feel that I skimped in the wrong place, what do people recommend brush wise for oil paints?

[steevdeadman]

Pictures or it's a messy sneeze.

That's exactly what it looks like... but, I'll embarass myself on the interwebz...



Let the comments commence...

[steevdeadman]

1) Glad you aren't discouraged and are going to continue to paint.
2) If I hear you call your artwork a failure again... I will do bad things to you.
3) Keep up the good work! I'm excited to see where this evolves.

1. If I got discouraged with everything, I'd get nothing creative done... creativity is all about doing.
2. I use the term failure in the light that I just didn't accomplish what I thought I wanted to do... It just didn't turn into a "happy accident"
3. I am gonna get some different brushes and try again... I feel that the brushes are what were giving me the problem. I couldn't translate what was in my head to the canvas correctly.

Thanks Devi... hopefully one day I'll put up a great painting!

[Nychthemeron]

Pull a Bob Ross and paint over the painting with another painting to keep on practicing, especially when canvases are so expensive these days. That or just goof around with different texturing and stroke styles. For a first attempt it ain't all bad, there's been much more professional work out there worse than that.

[less_cunning]

i think it's cool. looks like a Basquiat-inspired rorschach test to me.

[Wizard]

i like the colour scheme.

looks cool.

MOAR

[steevdeadman]

Thanks for all your comments everyone... I promise the next painting you see will wreak of awesomeness!

[less_cunning]

u r a tru artist. & i hope you do not get weirded out by me saying that.

[steevdeadman]

I'm only an artist because I don't give up...

[less_cunning]

[josh27]

One recommendation that I have for oils is that you use the paint more liberally. It looks to me like not much paint was used. My oil paintings always have layers on layers of paint. The huge advantage of painting with oil paints is that anything can be modified. If part of the painting is not how you imagined it to be, you can go back in and fix it up. Not sure what medium (if any?) you used with the paint, but oil paint is slow drying and generally easy to manipulate.

As for brushes, I recommend having a few on hand. Start by blocking in large objects and work down to the details, using smaller brushes as required.

On a more personal level I would recommend that you do not have white space. Even if you use a mix of white with just a bit of a color, having a hint of that color adds so much. White space generally looks, well, empty (though that may have been your intent).

Lastly, you don't fail from a painting. You learn from your mistakes. And you can go back to it and try again if you choose.

[eti]

When I took painting at college, it took me about 10 tries to get something I felt good about.


So...1 down, 9 more to go!

Brushes: Filberts are the standard for oil. Some go cheap and buy chip brushes off ebay. Try everything and keep at it.