Practice With Oil Paints

In class this year one of our goals is to challenge ourselves and try out mediums we have never used to make a piece.  We never did much when it came to oil paints and I was ready to be adventurous, so our class decided to experiment and test out the paints before we started our new projects.  We painted pictures of fruits using both pallet knives and regular brushes and this is how mine came out.

The first picture I have here was made with regular brushes and I was extremely pleased with how it turned out.  I learned that you had to be careful and patient with the oil paints because they are thicker and don't dry quickly, but I eventually caught on and learned new techniques for blending and adding highlights. I wanted to keep the whole picture bright so I chose bright colors for the background as well to keep it light and happy.  I was afraid the bright green would mess up the leaves that are on top of the orange but I was able to make a lighter green for the back and loved how the leaves didn't get lost in the picture. 

I have come to love using oil paints with brushes but I had a lot of trouble using the pallet knives.  I didn't get a chance to finish the practice piece with a pallet knife so I can't say I learned a lot from the experience but hopefully I can try this again soon and maybe learn some new techniques.  All I know so far is that it was very hard to try to do highlights and shadows because I couldn't thin the paint out much and it became sort of messy looking.  I prefer using brushes at this point but pallet knives seem like they would be a lot more fun to use on a painting that's not this small.