INTRODUCTION Every oil painter knows the feeling: Youre standing in front of the easel studying your painting, and while nothing seems particularly wrong with it, theres nothing particularly right about it either. The picture sits there, staring back at you, obviously in need of help, but sending no clear signal as to what kind of help. In my experience, when that happens, when unknown forces have dragged the picture down to the murky depths and are blocking all attempts at resuscitation, its time to hit the big issues, time to strip away superficiality and go after the essentials. But which essentials? As you will see in the following pages, there are many oil painting essentials that are important, but they cant all be summoned up and thrown at the suffering painting.