Shaking Bird

Riddle: What's cheap, easy, versatile, healthy, and ultimately delicious?

Let me share with you the glory of this morning,

It's enormously exciting, that first time someone says "I want your art and I'll pay you for it." Oh the thrills, the honor, the validation of every painstaking hour spent in study and blood and tears and oh, so much practice! Finally, you've arrived. You're an artist. And people want to buy your work!

So you're beginning to paint in oils. Yay! You're embarking on a marvelous adventure with one of the most forgiving, versatile, and historic mediums available. So far so good. But you're probably reading a bunch of those how-to books by now, which all give different advice on the supply page, and use different terms for them, and different brands, and different price points...

As a teenager, I struggled to teach myself how to paint with oils. Its various quirks and complexities outwitted my stubbornness and eventually overwhelmed me to the point where I swore them off completely, and I did not return the the medium for several years.

Wouldn't it be bliss if creating a masterpiece was as easy as picking up a brush and laying down paint? No cleanup, no mismatched eyes, no losing bristles, no losing patience. There was a time when I thought oil painting in particular was too much trouble to bother with. I didn't realize that having the right tools was half the battle!