Beginner’s Luck

Being an oil painting novice

The darkest time of my life was a little over a year after my cancer treatment ended, and when my separation from my husband began. I was lonely, always anxious, and in the midst of a major depression. The cold and early darkness of an Illinois winter didn’t help matters at all. 

Frankly, I felt my life had no purpose.

From the earliest I can remember, I loved art and was artistic. But I was never formally trained. When cancer invaded my body, followed shortly by my divorce proceedings, art was the last thing on my mind. Until I discovered my apartment bedroom window overlooked a Hobby Lobby craft and hobby shop.

Finally, I nudged myself into that craft shop and looked longingly at a variety of art supplies. I purchased a few tubes of oil paint, a small brush set, and a couple of small – and I mean tiny – round canvases. I painted a cup of coffee on each one. I was still depressed and felt no purpose to life. I stopped painting and just wandered aimlessly from time to time in the Hobby Lobby staring at the art supplies.

Upon leaving the store one day, I noticed sheets posted at the front entrance: oil painting classes were set to begin at the store on Mondays at a cheap price – $10 for a two-hour session. Or if I paid for four sessions in advance, it would only cost me $35. A list of supplies was on the sheets, one of which I seized. I nervously called the art instructor that night. Hans and I spoke briefly and he told me that I should bring to class a picture of whatever I wanted to paint, something that inspired me. The next day I bought the required supplies and a calendar of national parks that contained the picture I wanted to paint: one of my favorite places I had been to – the Great Smoky Mountains. 

I was the only student to show up in the back craft room of the Hobby Lobby the following Monday. I took a leap of faith and paid for four weeks immediately. Right away, I started sketching the picture on the canvas with a pencil. Hans almost had a heart attack and gently scolded me; he wanted me to draw all my sketches with diluted raw umber paint. I was scared to sketch that way, but I did as I was told.

And, to my horror and embarrassment, the beginner brushes I bought now disintegrated as I painted on the larger canvas. So I rushed into the main store and bought better brushes. 

I found brush strokes, color mixing, blending, composition, and playing with texture challenging. 

In fact, everything about oil painting challenged me. 

But I loved it. 

And I got a two-hour private lesson for less than $10. 

For these two hours, my problems didn’t seem to exist. Cancer and divorce were not at the forefront of my mind for the first time in a while, and I found forgetfulness in the act of painting.

I reworked and reworked the foreground trees on my own during that week, focusing on the canvas instead of my problems. I brought the painting back the following Monday in order to get feedback about my revisions.  Hans helped me improve it. I reworked it again during the week and then ventured out to do another landscape from a picture in the calendar. Hans also brought many calendar pictures I could use.

I had a year of private lessons, every Monday, on the cheap. During that year, I painted twice a week on my own, and I was doing better in terms of anxiety and depression, thanks to Hans and a psychotherapist I began to see. Over the next year, a couple joined the class, and we all had painting lessons for a few more years. 

Little did I know when I had moved into that exact apartment, depressed and alone – with the exception of my cat – that joy was just a few steps away. All I had to do was venture forward. And now, years later, I still treasure oil painting and always use raw umber paint to sketch my first draft on canvas.

My first oil painting