The Advantages of Thick Paint + Other Advice from John Singer Sargent!

  I was inspired today to paint a small painting of some honey suckle that   my mom and I cut and put into a small glass vessel.  What inspired me is a bluish reflection that you can see when you look at the glass from a certain angle.  For the past  few days, I would sit outside and look at the reflection and say, "Man, I should paint that."  So today was the day and I pulled the trigger and painted it.  This painting was also an experiment to test out some thicker passages of paint and other principles.
  I used to paint thickly when I was younger, but got more into a smoother academic finish when I was in college.  But recently I've been inspired by the work of Sorolla and Sargent a lot.  I also recently read about Sargent in a PDF article that I highly recommend everyone should check out: Advice on Painting From John Singer Sargent. It wisely says in this booklet: The difference between a colored drawing and a painting is the amount of oil paint itself.  So when I started today, I put out a large amount of each color that I needed and started painting more thickly.
  The other tip from this booklet that I want to share that helped me with this painting is to paint the midtones first and then work in the darks and save the final lights and darks for the end.  This is a principle that I've read about before and it really helps to control the values of the painting!
​  I hope that helped inspire some people!  Enjoy your weekend!