Oil Painting workshop.

It has been so long since I've done any painting or drawing.  If I've done any craft at all lately it has been needlecraft or patchwork and quilting.   I had been booked into three painting workshops at the Light Factory in Eltham earlier this year, but they were all cancelled due to not enough people enrolling.
Finally I got an email saying they were going ahead with an oil painting for beginners workshop on Saturday, and did I want to attend.  Did I what!   I've accumulated four boxes of oil paint tubes that have been at our opshop over the past year or so, but I didn't dare play with them because I didn't know enough about how to use oil paints.
The workshop on Saturday was with Vicki McInnes who is a well known artist around these parts.  I've have been looking forward to doing classes with her, and I wasn't disappointed.  There were only three students - me, a man and his son, so we got all Vicki's attention which was great.  She is an excellent teacher, and I learnt so much about using oil paints, it really inspired me to use them again soon.  I enjoyed using them more than I did acrylics or watercolours when I first started learning to use those.  I still want to do more classes using those media, as well as pastel, and Vicki told me she runs classes in pastel, so I'll be looking out for those in the future. 

Vicki spent the morning explaining how to use oil paints, and demonstrating her techniques.  In the afternoon we did one painting ourselves, with Vicki overseeing our efforts.   We did still life indoors rather than go outside, and my choice of objects was an old brass plate with a rose, on a background of white damask cloth.

It got smudged today when I picked it up to have a look, and didn't realise it was still wet!  Ooooh, naughty girl.  Vicki did warn us that oils can take days or longer to dry!
I won't have time for any more painting for a few weeks, as I've committed myself to a swap of hand made Christmas cards - nine of them. I'll do some with paper, and some using patchwork fabric.