Tad Spurgeon

Tad Spur­geon has an excel­lent sum­mary arti­cle on his views regard­ing sound oil paint­ing practice.

Because the struc­ture of an oil paint­ing is inher­ently com­plex, it’s always best to attempt keep both it and its var­i­ous com­po­nents as sim­ple as pos­si­ble. How­ever, this ele­ment of sim­plic­ity should not nec­es­sar­ily extend to pur­chas­ing ready-made mate­ri­als if the hope or expec­ta­tion is to cre­ate higher qual­ity work: generic mate­ri­als have a strong ten­dency to pro­duce generic work. While bou­tique mate­ri­als are usu­ally higher qual­ity, this is not nec­es­sar­ily the case with the oil. And they still don’t impart the vital infor­ma­tion about the nuts and bolts of the craft: at the end of the day, there is no real process, just a set of pur­chases, a pseudo-craft.

Go read the whole thing.