Photos of Plein Air Painting at Silvan

Silvan is always a lovely place to paint, especially in autumn. I’m still sticking to my little 6×8 oil paintings and love working with the palette knife. The big advantage is that I don’t have to clean brushes, which means that I don’t have to use solvents or wash my brushes at the end of day with soap and water. This little painting was finished in one go (alla prima) and wet-on-wet, since the oil paint doesn’t dry until the following days.

I was asked how I can keep my colours clean and not smudge seeing that I’m working with wet oil paints. The difficult part is that your palette knife will pick up paint from your painting each time you apply paint. For example if you apply blue paint in the sky and have to touch the edge of a green tree, you palette knife will pick up green. The only way of avoiding that green moves into the sky is to wipe your palette knife clean before applying the next stroke. In some areas it means that I have to clean my palette knife with every stroke. It’s a bit tedious but actually not that bad because I am now so used to it that I do it automatically.

Tip: Alkyd Titanium white is a valuable colour if you do not want to carry a drying medium with you, such as Winsor & Newton Liquin or Gamblin’s NeoMegilb. Since the alkyd white is mixed into almost every colour in your painting it will speed up the drying time significantly.