Oil painting process: from sketch to painting

Every artist approaches a blank canvas differently. Some painters prefer to dive straight into the final piece, solving structural and color problems directly on the large canvas. Over time, this can leave a rich texture, thick layers of paint where ideas were tried, covered up, and reborn. It can give the painting a beautiful, tangible sense of history. But my work leans in a different direction. I love the magic of those early brush strokes, the first few marks on canvas. There's a beauty and freshness to these marks that I like to preserve. So that means that I like to do a lot of preparatory work before jumping into a larger piece. Sometimes I map things out digitally, but for a piece like this, I needed to see the actual pigment working on paper. So for this piece, I decided to do a small color study, a tiny thumbnail sketch designed to work out the most difficult decisions of color in advance. There's a fleeting, quiet moment just after the sun slips below the horizon when the world changes. At dusk, the sharp lines of the day dissolve into shadow and the city becomes entirely about soft color. The deep blue shadows on pavement, the warm glow of headlights reflecting on asphalt, the soft lavender of a dusky sky. My paintings often focus on moments of intense light, whether it's high contrast light moments with the sun acting as a brilliant force or strong artificial light in a nighttime scene. But with this piece, I wanted to explore something unfamiliar. The light was relegated to the background and the entire scene was enveloped in dusky shadow. To capture that specific atmosphere, I knew I had to understand the colors completely before bringing them to a larger canvas. When I do a small sketch like this, the goal isn't precision, it's clarity. I keep the thumbnail very small and intentionally work quickly. Working at a small scale forces me to ignore the tiny details and focus entirely on larger relationships of shape and color. It helps me see how all of my color choices interact across the whole composition at a single glance. Making small studies is an essential part of my artistic practice. In these studies, I'm allowed to fail quickly, to experiment without preciousness. As I worked on this small sketch, I began to notice something unexpected. I liked the colors, but their subtlety was causing them to blend together. Without a strong structural design, the painting was losing its focus. There wasn't enough contrast to guide the eye. By resolving these questions early on in my small sketch, I'm gifted a beautiful sense of freedom when I finally approach the large canvas. I already know where the painting wants to go. This preparation allows me to protect the freshness of the paint and the liveliness of my mark making. For the final painting, I decided I would make the central figure darker, deeper in their silhouette. By connecting the clothing of the figure to the shadows of the buildings in the background and streetcar, I was able to create a continuous elegant path for the eye to travel throughout the canvas. It was a vital insight I never would have realized without the study. There's so much vitality that goes into the first brush strokes. When you don't have to overwork a canvas to fix mistakes or change your decisions, you can preserve that immediate spontaneous touch of the artist's hand. For me, that's where the luxury of my paintings reside. It feels deliberate, confident, and full of life. In the final piece, the adjustment from the study comes to life. The composition is strong and anchored, yet it also showcases those quiet, subtle shifts of color in the street. It keeps just enough of the twilight's mystery. Thank you so much for joining me in the studio today. I hope this video gives you some insight into my process and a glimpse into the intentionality and design that goes into each and every piece. And if you're an artist looking to elevate your practice, if you want to build confidence, loosen up your brushwork, and learn to see big shape relationships clearly, then I highly recommend developing a sketchbook practice of your own. This color study exercise, along with some of my other favorite exercises for building a consistent, rewarding sketchbook habit, is something that I teach in-depth in my self-paced online course, Starting a Sketchbook Practice. You can find more information at the link in the description if you'd like to dive deeper into this way of working. Thanks again for being with me today. I hope this video left you feeling inspired, and I'll see you in the next one.