I LOVE GLAZING USING OILS.
I used to use this technique when I painted exclusively in acrylics, but I love it even more using oils. (I've returned to oils after a 30 year hiatus.) It was just easier to use water-based acrylics and the drying time was better. But after being talked into returning to oils by a fellow artist I have discovered the new resin based mediums to be better than acrylics for this technique. I use Liquin Fine Detail (it has a smooth, slippery quality) and Gamblin Galyd Lite (it gives a crystal clarity to the layer). These in combination with transparent colors create beautiful glazes. This is especially useful in my current painting "Tampa Bay Tarpon". I want to create the luminosity and reflection of the fish scales, and by layering various glazes it's is working beautifully. In this photo I just covered the pinfish with another glaze of Ultramarine Blue/Paynes Gray and Galyd Lite. I also glazed over the pinfish that are in shadow adding black to this mixture. Yes, I did add white highlights in the previous step. But I painted over them again. First there were too many whites. It takes away from the effect with too many white reflections and does not have enough contrast. In the next painting session I will add the highlights back in, but I will be more selective in their placement. TIP: When layering glazes I don't apply more then one per day. Much like working in acrylics, each layer needs to be dry so that they do not mix together. And the painting always looks different the next day when the colors are set.

WORKING THE BACKGROUND
Back in my studio and hating the background of this Tarpon painting!!!! The first layer was so easy, but now I wanted to deepen the lower part of the canvas and it's not working. I thought I could just add a deeper glaze (turquoise/cobalt blue/Liquin) but it wouldn't blend correctly so I had to cover the middle section also. I'm happy with the color range of the upper water, but I changed the direction of some of the swirls and sun reflection and it now leads the viewers eye across the painting incorrectly. The section above the tarpon, upper right is good, but the upper left section doesn't frame the school of pinfish and leads you out of the painting. I also glazed over the tarpon again and love how the glazes make him more realistic. But the more I capture the tarpon correctly the worse the pinfish look. While at the beach last weekend I caught a pinfish and tried to cement images in my head of it's coloring and reflection of light on the scales. The colors are more defined viewed under water, for instance the small blue stripes are almost neon. Photos of the fish out of water don't capture what I'm depicting in this painting. I'll work on them in the next few days after correcting the background.

PAINTING AT THE BEACH
It's a summer weekend and my family and I are at our favorite place in the world, Anna Maria Island, FL. Our beach house has the best light and I always take my painting with me. The tarpon is nearing completion. I was very apprehensive to add the background. First, as I mentioned before I wasn't sure whether to add the bay bottom to anchor the painting, but my son loves the look of the fish floating so I'm leaning that way. Second, the size of this canvas is 15" x 47", that's a lot of surface to cover. And finally, this is the first time I have done a painting in this progression; first doing the major objects then adding the background. Well....so far the first layer has gone very well. I love the movement of the oil paint. I used to paint exclusively in acrylic and you definitely cannot blend such a large area in the same manner. I painted in this first layer using a cross-hatch stroke and love the surface it creates. This photo shows the first paint I applied, starting with the middle depth color. I then added the surface color, with some swirls to define the surface of the water. I thinned the surface color a lot with medium to make it more tranparent, the green base painting really shows through. I'll go back over to lighten it with the next color hopefully capturing the luminousity I'm looking for. Lastly, I added a dark shade at the base of the canvas as the water gets darker near the bottom. I need to let this dry thoroughly so that I can add the next colors in glaze form. You can see more steps in the process on my website.