I am certainly no expert, but I have work out a few things in the years I have been painting and if any tips can help any aspiring artist out there, well it's worth putting it to screen...
This will be a brief step by step demo, not really a proper tutorial, I may get to that in the future, but here goes Part 1:
If you will paint on canvas, choose good canvas and check they are not warped before buying them. Since most of my paintings now will be made for prints, I work on canvas boards which are less expensive and very easy to carry around (if you're painting on locations outside, or in my case different locations within my house!)
Canvas boards are primed already, so there isn't much need to prime them once more. So I just paint the board with an acrylic wash (acrylic paint and water, dilute to desired color). I find that vibrant colors work particularly well, they make the subsequent colors "pop-out" as it were. It can be reds, ocres, and for landscapes especially; purple tones will add to the finish piece.
This will not, or barely be seen, so very little attention need to be paid to the application, so long as all the canvas is covered.
I have used primer only before, but without a background color, you risk to have white canvas exposed in places once you've painted with oils, it can be hard to neatly cover the whole surface if you are not working a strictly build-up technique or layered technique*. In short, I like to paint more instinctively (and probably more quickly) than a layering technique allows, with the background covered, no need to worry.
I have also used an oil "wash" (diluted pigments with oil), but it just doesn't work as well and takes a longer drying time...
The acrylic wash will dry within a half hour, depending how much water is involved, so you are soon ready to sketch. I also like to have a couple of projects lined up, so I can paint a few backgrounds while I have the acrylics out!
I will then sketch, again with acrylics, inconspicuous colors, either in same tones as the background, or same tones as the picture to paint.
I only make a very basic sketch here, where the main elements will be located, etc.
It also helps to preview the composition, as I often work from several photos for the one painting, rather than one picture showing a satisfactory composition. If you are a beginner, I think composition is one of the hardest thing to get right, so my suggestion would be to use only the one photo which has great composition already...
Hopefully it'll not be weeks now until I get around to Part 2 :o)
*There are a lot of information online, including on youtube, about the different oil painting techniques, and the layering technique, if you are interested you may google it, or this site I found had some good info:
http://www.jessbates.com/pages_tutorials/oilPainting_notes.htm
