How the hell are you painting for hours a day?
I finally got my first oil paints. I paint often with acrylics and gouache, so I knew oil paints would be a learning curve. With acrylics and gouache, I'm used to getting completely lost in the sauce and painting for nearly the whole day. I'm VERY excited to get into oil painting, but one thing is throwing me off; how the hell is it possible to work a painting for more than an hour or two?
I mean this quite literally. I did my undersketch (in paint), and when I went to apply a wash an hour later it completely wiped my undersketch away. 100% my fault, for some reason I forgot the entire point of oil paint is its slow drying time. So I forged ahead as best as I could, but of course a lot of it is muddied. Now it's looking like I'll have to wait for a few more days before I can even attempt to fix the muddy parts.
Am I really supposed to do an undersketch, wait 2 or 3 days, apply a wash, and wait 2 or 3 days, before finally being able to even just block in colours? I can't imagine oil painters can spend more than an hour or two at most on a painting before needing to wait for a layer to dry. I just don't understand how the actual painting part works! A lot of tutorials I've watched don't really touch on this. I understand the techniques, fat over lean, etc, but the actual practical application is confusing me. Is there something specific that is allowing oil painters to fix mistakes, build up opacity, block out colours, etc all in the course of a day, without necessarily waiting for it to dry to the touch? I'd love some help!!!
Thank you!!!