Hey everyone...new here (though I've been lurking for at least a year, I think), and pretty new to painting of any kind.
Over the years, I've tried to paint with all medias, and my results have always been mud. Just no, ya know?
I grew up with Bob on PBS in the 80s and 90s, and always wanted to paint like Bob said I could. The jury is still out on whether or not Bob lied to me.
If my television is on, it's either showing American football (Who Dat!), Hamilton on Disney+, or Bob Ross' YouTube channel. Bob gets the most screen time in my house.
Anyway, to the point of my post.
I finally (finally!) attempted to paint with Bob last night. While my final result is a disaster, I'm still kinda happy, because it looks like "something". Hopefully, with a lot of practice, questions and answers, and advice, I can improve. Then, again, maybe not.
So, for starters, this is an attempt at S21E10 Blue Winter. 11x14 canvas, W&N level 2 oils, $4-6 brushes. None from BRI...waiting on those paints and brushes to arrive via Amazon.
From start to finish, I think I did everything wrong, but for the life of me, I cannot figure out why it wasn't working.
I had to make my own liquid white, which I may not have done properly. My sky didn't blend and fade at all...and I brushed and brushed and brushed trying to fade it some. My clouds, oh, my poor clouds! They essentially just blended with the sky, and when I tried to blend cloud bottoms and fluff the clouds, they went flat and streaky, and look like a slow shutter speed captured a very fast moving whitish UFO.
My mountains also didn't blend to fade...I scraped and scraped and still ended up with a dark blob. My highlights wouldn't pull and break...either I ended up with glaciers or nothing at all!
My misty areas looked like mud splatter. My snow just wouldn't be snow. My trees look like aliens. I used linseed oil to try to thin down the paint so it would stick. It still wouldn't do what I wanted it to do!
The giant center "tree" was because nothing in the middle would work right, I couldn't get the pond to form at all...and all of the colors just kept mudding together.
Essentially, I am asking for "Help!", advice and any criticism you may have. And, of course, let me know if you laugh hysterically...I find that amusing. My mother had tears streaming down her cheeks when she saw it!
Oh! How long do oils take to dry to touch (I've read anywhere from one week to six months), and what are your best methods for keeping brushes in good, working condition (after one painting, my brushes look like they've been through the mill - I used Mona Lisa cleaner and conditioner on them)?
https://flic.kr/p/2mairLt
Oh, and @Felix, thank you for having such a wonderful resource here!
PS I cannot seem to get the image on the post, nor can I seem to get the link to work...if you copy and paste the link, it will work though!