My way of painting: Start with Plein Air...Oil pastels...Later use a knife & oils...Eco-dammar after 6 monthsI take a prepped linen canvas, already stretched...I like to prep with Liquitex clear gesso...Clear interferes less with colours...3 coats...Then I bring along good oil pastels, Sennelier is nice...Lay your sketch down in oil pastels-you can use different colours (buy the big box)...Then later, in oils & knife(outside in a garden with sunlight), I lay down colour in paint...What this does is it separates the image ever so slightly from reality-your colour memory will be different than true...This liberates the subject a bit, so it is not quite real...It allows for some imagination to come through...The marriage of real & imagined is my hybrid style...Ya I'm totally into making things easier but still classy...if you learn to paint with a knife you don't need solvents at all, plus you save huge because brushes are pricy... (Also animal hair brushes have politics attached to them-depending on country & animal, so you get to feel self-righteous about the knife too)...With the oil pastels you can lay down a really fresh well done sketch with your colour choices...Later, you can use oils with a knife (try this), & instead of using a palette that gets filled up with paint (messy & wasteful), just lay down your oils straight from the tube onto your pastel lines, all colours down first, then you can smush them in with the knife, which gives a wonderful marbly blend in places where colours touch & mingle...Then you get a thick painting with lots of texture...Ok the waiting to dry is way longer, but you get a total masterpiece...You can photograph it fresh & post it on your Facebook or website & by the time it sells (maybe 6 months later), or goes to a show, you can lay on a coat of eco-dammar varnish...(I smear my eco-dammar on with disposable surgical gloves...Mine is from Eco-House.com)...I don't use solvents, or turpentines at all...How to paint my way...by Sari Grove