“Do I Have to Paint With Oils?”

I had just started taking my upper-division art classes in college. I’d mastered acrylic painting and thought I was pretty hot stuff. I went into my painting class, feeling like I was an expert. The instructor told us we were no longer going to be working with acrylics, that to continue with our path to receiving art degrees we would be moving on to the higher methods of painting, meaning oils. I was offended. I thought it was stupid. Then she put a mask up on the wall, draped it with some cloth, lit it with a lamp and told us to get painting.

Acrylic was so simple. You’d just get it on your brush, paint it, it would dry fast and then you’d move on. I was really upset and confused with oil painting. It felt like I was pushing vaseline around on the canvas with a stick! It didn’t dry, either. Such a frustration! This picture is of that same painting. I eventually swallowed my pride. I realized acrylic painting looked flat and when it dried it went darker than when it was applied. Oil painting, however, has a beautiful luminosity and keeps it’s color. There is such a beauty that oil painting has and acrylic does not. I’m strictly an oil painter now.