There is NO better course to learn how to paint like a photograph!

Painting is as much knowledge of the art as it is the natural talent of the artist.

If you can follow instructions then you can paint like a master. Delmus Phelps will walk you through a step by step process on how to paint a realistic painting that will look just like the photograph here.

An example of a realistic painting that you will be able to paint after taking the Real Art Lesson by Delmus Phelps.

More on the How to Paint Realistic Course

This course is for all levels of painting. Beginner to the experienced painter this is an amazing course. Delmus Phelps starts the course by covering everything you need from canvas to painting supplies. He will give you tips and tricks on what he has found that works and doesn’t work. He will help you save time and money before you even dive in. He will then cover brush strokes and master techniques to painting. He will also help to keep you free of anxiety so you can relax and enjoy the experience.

For a step by step explanation of 400 yr old painting technique that makes painting Easy! With hundreds of sales on eBay®, this is a hot course. This course is a must buy and it is only $27.90. This will be the best $27.90 you have ever spent on your hobby!

Here are some great testimonials from this course of how to paint realistic.

Testimonials

From Susan in Maine:

“When I viewed the paintings on the “A Real Art Lesson” ebook cd tears came to my eyes. The work is stunning and truly inspires me to paint again.”

From Deborah in Oklahoma:

“Thanks Delmus your e-book is great, I see things I’ve been doing wrong already.”

For a full page of information on the course so you know exactly what you are paying for click the Buy Now banner below and read more information on this amazing course that will jump start your painting career!

Still, for outdoor painters, it is probably less romantic but more practical to have brushes that can be held comfortably and easily, with the clipped hair which comes from short-haired animals.

Short or long, the most important points about oil brushes are having enough of them and keeping them soft and flexible.

I have dozens of brushes in my big oil-painting box, and recommend that you take at least two long-haired sable ‘writers’, size 4 or 6, six large hog hair brushes and six smaller hog hairs. The reason will become apparent the minute you start to work. Each brush holds one of the colors you are using, or one of the mixtures that you have made from your primary palette.

Since oil paint dries slowly, you need not dip the brush into turpentine again and again, as you do with water and watercolor; so the brush can stay either on the table or in your hand, ready to be used whenever you want to add something in that color to the picture. This is convenient; it wastes little paint, and you don’t have to clean up until the end of your day’s work. .

Acrylics should be washed off with water, never with turpentine, and you must not allow them to dry hard on a brush – they will be almost impossible to remove. You will have to use stainless steel or plastic palette knives.

The photograph here shows my big oil-painting palette with the colors laid out, as well as the fairly small selection of brushes that I take with me on any expedition.

I usually add another large ‘house-painter’s’ brush, for those first wide washes of earth and sky. I keep two of these, one for the blue tones and one for the greens. Even the slightest flake of another color on the blue brush (or vice versa) will eventually turn up just where I don’t want it.

Never be afraid to spend good money on good brushes. I have had some of mine since I was twelve years old, and they are as soft and flexible as they were when I first went to art classes. Of all painter’s tools, brushes become the most personal and most responsive to your way of working.

Although I prefer to carry prepared canvas boards because they are light and don’t need elaborate preparation or stretching, there is a multitude of other possibilities. You can use hardboard panels, plywood or metal. All of these need to be rubbed down with sandpaper before you start work, to give the paint something to key into. This roughness is called ‘tooth’.

Canvas can be bought in rolls or, more expensively, already attached to stretchers. The rule for the sort to choose is logical and easy to understand: rough for large pictures, where you will be splashing on the pigment with a certain abandon; fine-grained for small pictures, that will be worked on in thin washes and covered in fine detail.

Cotton or duck canvas is bright white, cheap and easy to stretch. Jute canvas is much stronger, darker in color and far more expensive.

Whatever surface you choose, keep away from synthetic fabrics unless they have been especially prepared for oil painting. Otherwise, the oil may dissolve the fabric, and you could find yourself with tiny holes in your most successful picture.

Canvas boards are sold by most art shops in a wide variety of sizes. They are backed onto a kind of heavy cardboard; they are not too expensive, and provide a clean, white surface in a reasonable range of medium-rough to smooth textures. They are ideal for outdoor painters since several can be carried tied together with string. A finished board can be easily taken home, carried in your hand if necessary.

If you are using acrylics, you can also use paper; there are pads designed for use only with these paints. If you prefer to work on canvas or canvas boards, it is essential that these have been prepared for acrylics, not oils. And avoid re-using canvas that has already been painted with oils – the acrylic film will not adhere properly.

Working outdoors, however, can actually help you to appreciate fine pigments. Our color codes will show you just how much can be produced from only a few basic tubes. You’ll need to take with you the colors listed below.

Oil colors are pigments already mixed with a small amount of oil to help them flow. You can add more oil, or turpentine, to thin out the paint, or white to lighten the effect. Never use white spirit instead of turpentine; made of rectified paraffin, it usually contains impurities that affect some of the colors quite badly.

An important reason for mixing your own colors is that some commercially produced tones are extremely fugitive – that is, they will fade or discolor quickly. This is especially true if they are subjected to strong sunlight, as they would be out of doors.

Although there are some colors that will not be as clear in the cheaper grades, those listed below are all perfectly satisfactory in student quality. As your work improves, do add some artist’s colors to your palette; they are more finely ground, have few or no additives and are of incomparable intensity.

Basic palette

• White
• Cadmium yellow
• Yellow ochre
• Cadmium red
• Alizarin crimson
• Burnt umber
• Viridian green
• Ultramarine blue
• Ivory black

Acrylic paints often have different names from traditional oil paints, and the range is much more limited. However, you will be able to find the basic seven colors you need by looking at the chart in your local supply store. If you are using canvas or boards, you will need a special acrylic primer, and there are gloss, and matt mediums instead of linseed oils or turpentines. Acrylics dry more quickly than oils, are more flexible and don’t harden with age or change color, but the texture is different. Working with one or the other becomes a personal choice.

Once you have mastered the basic colors, you can add already mixed paints in a few shades to save time. The colors I would choose for any long painting trip would be those based on the earth and sky shades that I use most often in outdoor painting.

Remember that the color will vary slightly according to how you put it onto the canvas. Like most artists I learned to work in a way that is generally known as ‘lean to fat’,

In this the first washes are applied with only enough turpentine to smooth the paint Into the fabric. The effect is generally quite opaque, the colors changing from the deep blobs on the palette to a much dryer, almost filmy look.

These lean washes provide the best background for any style of painting.

Gradually, as I work nearer the foreground, and therefore nearer surface of the finished painting, I mix turpentine and! Or oil with the pigment, achieving more and richer coloring, and greater depth of intensity and tone. I add the top highlights with pure pigment and oil to give a final sheen, providing sparkle and light wherever it is most appropriate.

You will find that one of the great advantages of painting in oil is that you can physically move the paint about. If you go off to lunch, leaving the painting to dry, you may well come back and decide that a section on the right or left is not what you really want; with a few flicks of the palette knife you can be back to the canvas. No other medium can be treated this way. It makes it easy to begin when you know that changing your mind is always a possibility.

Extended palette

• White
• Lemon yellow
• Cadmium yellow
• Yellow ochre
• Cadmium red
• Alizarin crimson
• Purple
• Indian red
• Viridian green
• Light green
• Raw sienna
• Burnt sienna
• Raw umber
• Cerulean blue
• Cobalt blue
• Prussian blue
• Ultramarine blue
• Ivory Jack
• Lamp black

I hope that you will gather from these pages that I dislike very much falling into a system of using over and over again a procedure or a set palette. With your painting materials always the same, each picture will tend to appear just like the preceding one, with only a rearrangement of subject matter. If the materials you use are sound and compatible, and each lends itself to the realization of the desired final effect, then you have selected and used them for their best qualities.

ZINC WHITE possesses the wonderful quality of drying very slowly. When you also use a slow-drying painting medium, it allows you to work wet-in-wet, • sometimes for days. If you use a non-absorbent ground and, at the end of the working day, the picture is covered or placed away in a dark closet where the air is not allowed to circulate, the drying processes will be slowed even further.

TITANIUM WHITE does not have the history behind it of lead or zinc white, but has been used widely for a number of years. From all appearances, it holds up well and is compatible with other reliable colors of the palette. It is the lightest of whites, on the cool side, possessing extraordinary covering power. It works well when you are painting in successive layers or alta prima. It dries at a normal rate, but has a tendency to produce a glassy surface if • too much medium is used. Lead and zinc white have a much better glazing quality than titanium white. For grounds, the opaque quality of titanium is desirable, although you must allow for a longer drying period before proceeding to paint.

LEAD WHITE. The oldest of whites used in oil painting and the most versatile, it works well in grounds, has a semi-transparent quality and, when used with a little more body, will be opaque. Lead white dries fast and well. If the correct amount of medium is used, it will not build up a glassy surface • that is hard to work over with glazes. It yellows more than the other whites and has a tendency to become more transparent with age. A matte finish is easily arrived at without a large amount of turpentine. Of the three whites, it is the warmest. It is a poisonous white, so be especially careful if you grind your own paint.

UNDERPAINTING WHITE. One of the best forms of white I know for underpainting is the white you grind for yourself-either lead or titanium white in powder form, ground in a mixture of dammar varnish (heavy body) and linseed oil-one part oil, one part varnish. You may increase or decrease the oil or varnish to hasten or slow the drying time. If this white is not mixed too rich with medium, it will dry matte and will be a good surface to receive the overpainting. The drying time of this mixture will be but a few hours.

On a moonlit night, as you walk along a narrow bridge over the tide race of Good Harbor Beach in Massachusetts, you find yourself in the land of quiet sounds with the ever-present smells of the ocean. You feel the still sun-warm sands beneath your feet, you taste the fine salt mist on your lips, and your eyes are opened wide to the mysteries of the night before you. The sounds of the night are different from those of the day. There is no call of the gull. Most birds have ceased to fly. Only on occasion do you hear the lonely honk of the geese as they migrate to their new feeding grounds. You notice the small stones which have been worn round by the never-ending movement of the water clinking them together, the ocean arranging them in patterns with each surge, the surge sweeping over the sands making a wishing sound. Somewhere off shore a deep-throated whistle buoy is directing the fishing vessels to Gloucester Harbor. Here at the end of Good Harbor Beach, the rocks are large and stand strong and clean against the sand and the ocean. The moonlight adds an air of mystery to their shadowy ace. The ocean plays about their base, sometimes showing itself boldly with creamy foam, other times disappearing into the night. I have heard people say of artists that they are dreamers. Perhaps. I am more inclined to think the “dreams” are living thoughts and experiences that exist in the moods of their paintings. Artists are moody, they say. They come by it honestly. How else can one paint nature with a sense of truth?

During my short visit here on the beach, changes have taken place. Rocks now stand offshore, separated by a moat of churning foam. The rising tide has driven a small army of fiddler crabs to higher ground-they feed nightly the thin layer of ocean water washed over the sand, safe in the knowledge that the gulls will not feast on them again until dawn.

One of the main reasons I prefer sketching to using a camera is that during time spent working out your composition and observing the many things about you, changes are taking place. These things are seen almost subconsciously, but they are seen and registered. Your sketch will recall these moments to you. They add elements of knowledge and feeling to your painting. The tendency while using a camera is to click the picture and move on to find another subject, not pausing long enough to become acquainted with the entire subject.

Sketching at night presents its own problems, impossible on a moonless night and still not easy with a full moon. I have found felt-tipped pens and white paper the most manageable. You can at least make drawings of the large shapes and forms sufficiently well to make use of them later in your studio. As for color sketches, I find them useless. When they are brought into the light of day, they are unbelievably out of value and relationship. On a very brilliant night, primary colors (red, yellow and blue) can just be made out, but all colors below this class you can only guess at.

If you think about painting nighttime colors in the correct manner, you can arrive at an answer to this problem. First of all, nighttime, as we know it, is but a repeat of daytime in a much darker value and a much lower class of color and key. The moon that illuminates the night is but a poor reflector of the sun, and its power to light the shadow side of the earth is small indeed compared to the sun itself.

A color wheel will explain the different classes of color sufficiently for you to combine opposite colors or add grey to the primaries. Perhaps you can think about classes of color in this manner: First class is a primary; second class is the mixture of a primary with another primary; third class is the addition of a third primary. Or another way would be to trace yellow in actual pigments. First it would be yellow, then yellow ochre, raw sienna, raw umber. Your yellow highlight on a moonlit night may end up being raw umber and white.

The palette for the painting, “Good Harbor Moonlight” consisted of titanium white, ivory black, cadmium yellow light, cadmium orange, cadmium red light, cadmium red medium, alizarin crimson and Prussian blue. Although color plays an important part in the painting of a moonlight picture, values become the major factor from the outset.

I premixed on the palette seven steps of grey, starting with white and adding black to each succeeding step. I ended up with my seven greys each a tone darker than the preceding one, black being the last step. The middle grey divides the light side and the shadow side on the palette. These greys may be used throughout the painting of any Picture and the local color of a subject should be directly mixed into them. When I say local color, I mean the actual colors of the objects to be painted. One can, with this type of palette, premix more steps of grey and even premix the other colors of the palette to correspond in value to the greys. With this palette, you can exercise great control over your values and your painting. Frank Vincent DuMond, one of the great teachers of this century, instructed his students in this manner and I know of no better way to learn value along with color application and control.

Procedures in painting are many and varied. If you examine one artist’s life work, such as Rembrandt’s, you may observe the amount of experimentation in his canvases; extreme details at times, other times suggested detail; thin paint, thick paint; direct painting, glazing-yet, no matter what approach he used, it was still Rembrandt. His life’s work stands as a monument to all of the understanding and knowledge he gained through his years of observation and study, then executed with all of his creative genius.

White paint is only white paint when it stands alone, but with the proper use of darks, half-tones, and color, you may force your white to take on the appearance of a light effect. When considering the composition for “Good or Moonlight,” I arranged the large areas of light and dark so as to create the maximum light effect.

Because the path of moonlight coming across the water always goes directly to the person who is observing it, this becomes a near central composition. The lightest lights will be in the middle of the path, slowly diminishing in y as they go to the edge of the canvas. The four corners of the painting should be all but void of contrast of light and dark.

The placement of the dark rocks should be arranged so as to only enhance the lights. At the focal point, the dark rocks actually cross into the light, creating maximum contrast.

The horizon was placed below the middle line of the canvas so the observer would feel he is at the water’s edge. It also gives a large portion of the canvas to the sky, which creates the expansiveness that one always feels at night.

By learning and understanding the many different vehicles and how they will perform, you will build a sound knowledge of their usage. It does not make sense to me to search for a medium that will do all things, such as I dry slow, dry fast, be opaque, be transparent. The artist can from the outset easily select the ingredients for his medium that will do the job for his particular painting. A reliable painting medium, if used with knowledge and used sparingly, should hold up well and cause no bad effects in the future.

Once you select a particular medium for a painting, it would be bad procedure to change to another while in the process of painting. You may experience all sorts of bad effects on the paint if you do not follow this rule. [f you start your experiments with a basic medium, such as one-third turpentine, one-third linseed oil and one-third dammar varnish, you will have I a good point of departure. If you want to slow the drying time, decrease the amount of varnish. To increase the drying time, add turp or varnish. There is a point beyond which too much varnish will make the paint sticky and hard to handle. Also if you use too much oil, the paint will become and hard to handle. Also if you use too much oil, the paint will become disagreeably greasy and have a poor drying rate.

No amount of words will put together a medium that will give you just what you desire. The following checklist should allow you to select media I for the particular quality you personally desire in your finished painting. Any addition of turpentine or petroleum distillates will hasten this drying I time.

1. Resin ethereal varnishes-damar or mastic-will give the medium the desired depth of luminosity and transparency. If used in excess, these become disagreeably sticky and hard to handle. The drying time under normal conditions is one to two days.
2. Balsams-Canada balsams, Venice turpentine, etc.-lend a smooth effect to the paint surface. They combine well for a glaze medium and, if not used to excess, dry in two to three days. The effect of blending one color into the next can be obtained with the use of the balsams-no other medium will produce it so well, especially in conjunction with the thickened oils.
3. Sun-thickened linseed oil gives the paint surface an elastic enamel-like quality. It dries rather fast when mixed with turpentine, allows for a fluid I draftsman like application. The same may be said for stand oil, except that it has a slower drying rate.
4. Linseed and poppy oil are the basic vehicles used today in the grinding of tubed paints. Linseed oil gives the painting a hard surface and, if used in excess, tends to yellow considerably and to wrinkle. Poppy oil will yellow less but, if too much is used, and if painted in layers, wet over dry, will I crack. Poppy oil is best suited to painting that is to be finished wet-in-wet. It possesses a good buttery quality and feels good on the brush. The drying I time of these vehicles is influenced by a number of things, such as the absorbency of the ground, heat and cold, and humidity. You will also find that the size of the canvas enters into it. On a canvas 4 feet by 8 feet, the medium and its requirements are totally different from a small 12 by 16 inch canvas. We could sum up by saying that there are so many intangibles and personal preferences that you must, with experimentation and experience, build the medium that suits you best.

The palette selected for “Evening” was cadmium yellow light, cadmium orange, cadmium red light, alizarin crimson, ultramarine blue and Prussian I blue-ultramarine blue for the violet side of the spectrum, and Prussian blue for the green side.

One may observe very easily the use of complementary colors in painting this type of picture: Yellow for the glints of light on the clouds in the sky against the violets in the foam of the foreground and the shadows of the rocks; orange for the light on the clouds as they recede from the source of light against the blue zenith being reflected on the ocean below; pink for the lights on the clouds that are still more distant from the source of light against I the greens of the sky and the reflection in the ocean and foam of the foreground.

In the late afternoon and evening, colors and values change very rapidly I and it is rather hard to make sketches that are complete. One must work very fast and small so as to capture the essence of the moment. I have found the use of very heavy (300-lb.) water-color paper tacked to a small board useful to work on with oil paint, turpentine being the vehicle. The watercolor paper, being absorbent, dries the paints sufficiently fast to allow me to work one color over the other and to arrive at a very quick effect. Casein paints can be used similarly. But with oils the dark tones stay dark and do not dry out of value as much as a water-based paint does.

When the brilliant colors have faded from the sky, and greys, blues and violets have taken their place, my sketches are finished. It is time to return to the studio. I am not the only one calling it a day. The clatter of the gulls has ceased. The flowers in the meadow that faithfully follow the course of the sun on its trip across the zenith have closed their petals. Quiet prevails. Only the sound of the never-ending ocean disturbs the air.

On subsequent days while working on a canvas made up of a composite of my sketches, it will be very important that I retain the feelings and mood of that evening in the meadow. You cannot think a storm and paint a quiet picture. Art rises above mechanical procedures. The artist with a sound background who is creative can and should live the mood of the picture he is painting.

The fishing folk of the world use this knowledge, especially in the tropics where the white sands and coral reflect large amounts of light, revealing different shades and hues of color, determining for the fisherman the depth of the water for his safe passage. In actuality, the colors in the foreground of a painting from shore may be the same as the colors on the horizon, but are not revealed to us as the same. We are the stationary ones. The light and colors are moving through layers of atmosphere which restrict their and colors are moving through layers of atmosphere which restrict their tones and intensities-they reach the viewer sapped of strength and changed in character. Along with the usual dark-to-light value changes as you recede into your canvas, you must create the illusion of great depth by adding these color changes.

Many fine artistic, scientific books have been written on the subject of color and its relation to the artist and nature. Study them and experiment by yourself to gain a working knowledge of the subject. There is no end. Often I have observed students of painting returning day after day to the same spot on the rocks to work. The first day they lay in the sky, the second the ocean, and so forth, finishing each as they go, never thinking that the first day’s sky may have no relation to the color of the water the next day. There is no better way to miss the boat.

A good painting must be of the one moment in time when the artist made his decision: this is it! From that second on, the painting must stem from your mind, always holding true to your original concept, reflecting and relating one passage to the other, building an over-all concept of your first thought, only using the scene before you as a foundation block to your composition. If for a moment you allow yourself to copy what is in front of composition. If for a moment you allow yourself to copy what is in front of  the painting. The sun has moved, the sky has changed, the colors are different. If you go on by the hour in this manner, then the painting will end up as a hodge-podge of unrelated and uninteresting facts. Science may have use for these facts, but not the artist. An orchestra that allows its musicians to play as they wish, one giving no thought to the other, does not make music, only discord. A conductor must make each musician take his place and play in relation to the others, reflecting his command in order to make harmony. You, the artist, must be the conductor making each value in color do its part to produce a painting with harmony and beauty.

How fortunate to be an artist, and observe the seeds of incalculable numbers of paintings unfolding before your eyes. All men of deep emotion experience these feelings. The portrait painter looks into the depths of the faces of his sitters. The landscape painter wanders among his giants of the forest, shimmering lakes and tumbling rivers, feeling fresh-fallen snow crunch beneath his feet. The still-life painter observes the wonderful light that breathes life into his subject. Time passes so fast as one stands alone deep in thought!

Now dawn is upon our small craft and the men are talking with excitement, expecting soon to see the first fish hauled over the side. There is an excitement in the wind, too, for it has shifted to the southeast and has picked up to a steady breeze. The ocean is starting to get choppy. The fishermen are working hard and fast to get their catch in, and their gear aboard before they head for port. The wind is not going to let go; it is going to pound us harder, knocking the tops off the choppy oceans and sending a spray across our boat.

Three hours now of hauling gear. The ocean has lost its erratic chop and long deep swells are forming, driving our craft down the side of one wet mountain and up the other. The horizon is gone at times and one is looking straight out into a wall of deep water. We will have to abandon the remaining gear and make a run for home. Turning the boat’s stern to the oncoming ocean, we ride like a tiny surfboard being driven by an awesome force to the northwest.

“Here she comes!” someone calls out as a torrent of white foam breaks beneath our stern, then comes rushing into the small stern cockpit, driving gear and men against the bulkhead. This is no time for meditation-just hang on until we can reach the safety and calm of our harbor.

All through this experience I do not mention the sketch-pad, for the living of these moments are my sketches and I will relive this trip perhaps more vividly in my mind than a few sketches would ever recall to me. No matter what subject an artist chooses to paint, he should try to live his subject, not in two dimensions but in three dimensions, in great depth. Painting is a product of the mind, and the eyes are the lenses to it.

The entrance to the harbor is even more erratic than the open ocean. Into the small cove that forms the mouth of the port, the great oceans are shoaling up in sharp, twisting patterns, tossing the small craft as though it were so much driftwood. There is no rhythm to the ocean here. Through this we pass, to emerge into the quiet of another world. The stowing of the gear, the scrubbing down, the many things that go with securing a fishing vessel, are finished.

As I walk back to my studio with the swaying of the ocean still in my possession, I anticipate with excitement the large canvas that I have already half planned in my mind. A number of sketches will have to be made to work out a composition that will convey the feeling I experienced the moment that great ocean broke at the stern of our craft. First of an, it is the ocean I want to paint, not the boat, the open ocean with its great heaving masses I challenging all who dare her surface. The canvas I selected was 30 by 44 inches, so the perpendicular and diagonal lines of the painting will have a long sweep, and lend excitement to the up and down movement of the ocean. The horizontal lines will be held to a minimum. Even the ocean at the horizon will have this perpendicular action. The feeling must be that this storm continues for miles beyond the confines of this canvas. Three large basic shapes are all I will use for the movement of the ocean. If I use more, it will only tend to minimize the magnitude of the ocean around me. I must feel again as if I were in the valley of the deep, looking out into walls of water, and convey this feeling.

“The Following ocean” is typical of the pictures of a storm at ocean. Due to the lack of permanent rocks to help the foreground, I had to make use of large shapes of the ocean itself. The arrangement of the dark-and-light patterns had to take over for the depth in richness that rocks lend to paintings.

The colors for this picture consisted of Thalo blue, Thalo violet, Thalo green, yellow ochre, raw sienna, burnt sienna and Venetian red. The Thalo colors are dark and rich and give clarity and depth of color to the clean deep water of the open ocean. If you experiment on the palette with the above earth colors into the Thalo group, you will find that all of the clear, beautiful ocean colors can be realized with relative ease. I am assuming, of course, that your selection is based upon the color and tone of the sky, for after all, clear water is but a reflector.

I should like to stress that a painter of nature should never consider the start of any canvas without first paying strict attention to the Source of light and the sky itself. This canvas was washed in with very little color at the : outset, a blue-grey mixed with white to the proper values. The area of foam was laid in heavier and made a full tone lighter than the final effect called for. The foam pattern was held very simple and lighter, in anticipation of future glazing as the picture progressed. Care must be exercised while glazing with the above-mentioned colors, for they are strong and have great tinting power-if carried too far or if the picture is overpainted to excess, the glaze will make it hard and brittle in character. If you do experience difficulty with strong colors such as the Thalos, perhaps a more transparent group should be selected, such as viridian green, French ultramarine blue deep, ultramarine violet and ultramarine red. If glazing is a new departure for you, then start with a selection of colors that are by nature more transparent, and you will experience much less difficulty. Flake white is a good selection because of its quality of drying fast and because it is semi-transparent. Each succeeding day it will be sufficiently dry to proceed with the glazing.