In the Fall of 2005 I took an oil painting class.  I had seen an advertisement posted in Hobby Lobby.  The ad gave the name and phone number of an instructor that taught the painting techniques of the “old masters”.  

Old Masters?   Wow.   I signed up.

I would never have  guessed what was in store for me.

My lessons were one on one with Ms. Janice Carson.  I’ll never forget the first time I went over to her home for my first lesson.  Her home looked like a museum.  Huge oil paintings were on every wall.  Enormous copies of Bougereau and Vermeer, framed in ornate golden frames, lined the hallway.  I remember thinking that I had probably gotten in over my head.

“Have you painted in oils before?” she asked somewhat condescendingly.

“No ma’am, just acrylics.”  Her face made a slight twitch of disgust when she heard that last word.

“Oh, I see.  Well, I’m sure you’ll never go back to acrylics once  you work with oils.”

Over the next 4 months she taught me the tediously slow and detailed technique of verdaccio underpainting–the way of the “old masters”.  This technique is incredible, using a dozen different shades of grayish green to create the look of real flesh,  with all the varying hues and shadows that the blood makes as it runs underneath the skin.  It gives everything else, including cloth, an authentic apprearance as well.  As far as I know, all the master painters of the Rennaisance, Rococo, and Baroque periods used some version of  underpainting to create life-like paintings. Over 70 hours and $700 later I stopped working on it.  It’s not completely finished but I simply could not work on it any more.  Not only was the time it took draining me, but I could feel my eyesight diminishing.  The hours and hours of looking and looking , and then looking again-studying a pleat on the shoulder until you think you see seven different shades of gold, instead of four.  No wonder so many great painters went blind.   

It is quite an accomplishment I suppose, though  I’m reminded of Laurie’s words to Amy in the 1994 film version of Little Women.  When Amy suggests that he spend more time working on his music compositions he replies, “My compositions are like your paintings-mediocre copies of another man’s genius.”  As is mine.

I doubt that I’ll ever paint something like this again. Yes, oils are incredible and I love the look of them. But I also like finishing a project in a few days, not months. 

A few years before I took this class, a New York Times bestselling book came out called Girl With a Pearl Earring by Tracy Chevalier. It was, in fact, a fictional portrayal  of Vermeer’s relationship with the girl in the painting and the circumstances surrounding it.  A friend bought it for me for my birthday.  I won’t go into the details of the story and do not recommend the book, but it describes how Vermeer’s family struggled financially because he produced only about 2 paintings a year! No kidding!  When he died, he left his widow and eleven children deeply in debt. 

I’m thankful for the opportunity to have painted something like this once in my lifetime.  If nothing else, it is a reminder to me that pursuing art to the highest levels of technical skill would take all of my time and all of my money, and that, dear readers, is just too much.