Process for painting large

I usually paint quite small because most of my work is alla prima (wet on wet) or as I like to call “in one standing”. This way of painting allows me to take full advantage of the creamy, mixability nature of oil paint. I can meld colors together and blend shades and values to create a delicious, rich painting surface. When painting really large, in this case a 5 foot by 4 foot canvas, it’s difficult to find the time to paint the entire project in one standing. I call it standing because I stand while painting.

By putting down layers, which allows me to cover the large canvas easier, I find that each layer dries out too fast before I can get to the next. There are mediums you can use to soften the dried paint but I prefer not to use them because the feel of the paint changes. The stages of the process shown here demonstrate how the layers go down but essentially I repaint the previous stage every time, just using the dry layer as a template. It’s cumbersome but I like the effect better than painting with thin washes and wet on dry.

In the end, I found about 8 hours that I could spend on the final paint when everything was wet again. Total time from the drawing to final was about 20 hours.