Painting in Oils

Introduction. Good painting is the record of its own genesis. So is this book. It is the result of many years of teaching, looking specifically at some of the problems that arise frequently, not only among beginners, but also in the work of highly skilled professional artists. Some of these problems could be referred to as technical, others as aesthetic, and others as philosophical. In this book they are dealt with as they arise in the context of an actual class in progress. The main thrust of the book is to set out in a logical way, the sequence of techniques that go into the crafting of an oil painting. Within this framework, however, questions arise about the nature and the joy of painting, creating little detours and wanderings into the ways in which we experience and express this wonderful mystery called nature. Where these explorations occur within these notes, they have been left without explanation, to work their own magic, to strike their own sympathetic chords in the consciousness of the viewer/reader. In the development of a painting, each new procedure is dependent on the ones before. So, the success of a glaze depends on the impasto which preceded it. It is therefore logical that the initial stages, on which each new step, individually, and all the other steps, collectively, depend, have an importance much greater than just to work in themselves. In this way, if your composition is weak, your impasto, too, is condemned to weakness, no matter how well it may be executed. Working your way through this book, you may find it useful to set it up in such a way that the book serves as a kind of display, exactly as the notes themselves would be displayed on a classroom wall. It remains for me to wish you many absorbing hours in front of your easel, and a deeper and deeper communion with that most subtle and beautiful of works, nature. Ryno Swart Simon’s Town. 7 August 2012.