I will be painting on the top of an 8 in. by 10 in. wooden box. I've been wanting to do some functional art for a while and this sounded like a good idea.

The painting I am going to be doing is a wolf piece. I'm using an actual photo that was sent me by a friend as the idea and reference.

Step #1

To start, I sanded down the top of the wooden box and applied two coats of acrylic gesso. I sanded each coat until I had a fine, smooth finish. As we know, you cannot paint oil directly on wood. The natural acids in the wood will eat away at the oil paint.

What I have applied here in the first step is a simple base coat of burnt umber, ivory black and titanium white. I've roughly laid out where the tree line will stop and the flat of the ground will begin by painting the light at the bottom. I used a 1 in. brush to put down the paint and then a larger 2 in. varnish brush to go over the entire surface and smooth out my brush marks.

I'm not concerned about how thick I get this undercoat. The gesso can show through. It won't affect the rest of the painting.

This coat should be completely dry before any more paint is laid down on top of it. This undercoat should dry within 24 hours. Atmosphere and weather has a great deal to do with how fast oil paint dries. There are going to be occasions when this paint would take two or three days to dry.