Learning to Paint: Copying Bob Ross#9
May 2019.
I had a lot of fun with this painting. I learned to keep the value of the sky brighter by using less of the blue color. The cabin’s details such as the old wood siding and windows were done with the knife.
I was back to pressing too hard when trying to put highlights on the tree leaves, however, which had the effect of killing the dark shaded leaves and creating a mashed leaf effect with little sky holes.
A heads up about oil painting drying time: it takes at least 5-7 days for these paintings to start drying. Some took longer (up to 2 weeks) if they had a lot of thicker paint areas. Make sure you have a place for the paintings to dry that is protected from pet hair, dust/dirt, and accidentally bumping into them. All of these can put unwanted marks into the final painting. There are unexpected hazards too.
The apartment building we were living in back then had drain flies in a number of the units. These flies were very attracted to oil paint and many mornings I would wake up and check on my drying work to find a fly had flown into the oil paint, rolled around, and been trapped on the canvas. Bad for the fly and bad for the look of the final painting.