art exercises | 4 10 minute oil paintings

28/10/2025

 decided i wanted to paint as i havent in a while. i think perfectionism has me in its grasp as i paint slower than id like and overthink it i think. so i decided to do a time based exercise like ive done with drawing but with oil paints. I didnt know whether to paint 4 different things for the same duration of time or do varied times and get longer. 
When starting i decided to do 2 10minute of the same thing and then 2 20minutes of something else, but i ended up doing 4 10 minute paintings of the same thing, and i think it came out nicely... 
I actually gave myself 10min 30sec, so i had a bit of set up / presketch time.

i) not bad for first go. did quick presketch with a pencil. I added the background after the timer stopped on this one, as i kinda forgot about it and wanted something to contrast once id peeled the tape off

ii) did the background 1st. also added shadowing below the fruit as i realised it was just kinda floating in space

took a break in between here, and wishing i kinda didnt as lost a bit of the flow i had i felt.

iii) didnt do preskech in pencil, but did a bit of one with the background colour. and the actual background i did last, which i dont think really worked as well. Also had to get more paint out during painting, which i felt i should have done before starting the timer. Also found it difficult to paint at the bottom of the canvas rather than the bottom so kinda threw me off a bit i think.

iv) did presketch for a bit longer than the others, although it was still a very brief basic outline. also went back to doing the background 1st.

felt a lot more comfortable doing the last one, as i had a plan formed and knew some sort of stages to paint it in... for example i started with the yellow and then orange and then red , and then went in to darken the darker bits and added highlights. I still felt a bit of a rush towards the end tho, but i definitely had a step by step process i was ticking off in my head to make sure it looked somewhat decent by the time the time was up.

general thoughts:
might use this technique for bigger paintings as it definitely helped chill out. I think ill use a mixing agent in future so the paint isnt too thick possibly. would be good process to establish some sort of underpainting and then go from there...

woudl be nicer to have more time to mix colours etc and define more sections, esp the pit in the middle of the fruit as it looks a little flat and 2d.

could use this to prep for a bigger painting, as by the fourth time i felt i knew the structure more in terms of lighting and colour tone and which bits to start with... 
Also if i did this pre big painting i could take time to see what bits are lacking, what looks flat, needs to be more defined etc, and also learn what makes the thing im painting look like the thing, if that makes sense..

next:
do same but do 10minutes then an extra 5 for touch ups after dry maybe?
try some longer time durations and also shorter ones..