3 Mistakes Oil Painting Students Make
The three most common mistakes I see from oil painting students are: using too little paint, painting with no procedure, and using the wrong materials. Each one keeps a student’s work from looking like the paintings they admire in museums — and each one is fixable.
1. Not using enough paint
A painting is made with paint. You scoop it off the palette and put it on the canvas — and you go back for more, constantly. That simple sentence is a fundamental principle that escapes most beginners. Half the battle is in it.
Have you looked at a Van Gogh up close? A late Rembrandt? The paint stands off the canvas, applied incredibly thick — and time flattens a painting somewhat, so Rembrandt’s were thicker still when he finished them. You don’t have to paint that thick. But looking at their work shifts your mindset about how much paint to use.
Two exercises I give students: paint an object the way Van Gogh would, to get used to more paint; and make a painting where you take no more than three brushstrokes before going back to the palette for more.
Some masters did use thin paint in places — Rubens did — but with mediums that still gave it body, so it didn’t drown or look weak. Weak, drowned paint is a sure sign of a beginner.
2. Having no procedure
Paintings used to be made to a procedure. Every painter learned it, then adjusted it to their own style. Today students too often set a canvas on the easel with no plan and hope for the best.
The great painters filling commissions for royalty and churches were businessmen with a product to deliver. Commissions kept coming; they needed a procedure so assistants could help produce the work. It was like a building contractor.
When a housing development goes up, every house is built to the same procedure. Many people work at once, each knowing which step comes next. One house gets brick on the outside, another stone — but every house has its wall frames up before the roof frame goes on. Every single one. A student with a house-builder’s mindset has far less frustration making a painting.
3. Using the wrong materials
The simplest example is canvas. Plenty of students have never prepared their own — they buy a pre-stretched canvas, tear open the packaging, and start. Then they wonder why their work doesn’t look like the museum paintings they admire.
Next time you’re at a museum, look closely at the canvas of a painting you love. Then look at the canvas of one of your own. Yours probably looks like a painting in a sponge — note “in,” not “on,” which loops back to mistake number one.
Canvas is just the example. The same applies to brushes, mediums, and colors.
There are more mistakes, of course, but these three are among the most common.
A good place to start fixing them is learning your supplies — paints, brushes, canvas, mediums — and the techniques and procedures that tie them together. Both are covered in the school.
Common questions
- Why do beginner oil paintings look thin and weak?
- Usually because not enough paint is being used. A painting is made by scooping paint off the palette and putting it on the canvas — and going back for more, constantly. Look closely at a Van Gogh or a late Rembrandt: the paint stands up off the surface. You don't need to go that thick, but seeing it resets your sense of how much paint is normal.
- Why do I feel lost every time I start a painting?
- Because you have no procedure. The old masters worked to a procedure — everyone learned it, then adapted it. Think like a house builder: every house in a development is built to the same sequence of steps even if the finishes differ. A procedure removes the 'set up the canvas and hope' feeling.
- How much does the canvas matter?
- A lot. Many students never prepare their own — they buy a pre-stretched canvas, open the wrapper, and paint. Compare your canvas to one on a museum painting up close and yours will look like a painting *in* a sponge rather than *on* a surface. The same goes for brushes, mediums, and colors.