That is beautiful. It takes time to learn about oils, and how you best work with them. I have read a lot of books on painting. Most of them are cheesy and involve using some kind of formula (like Bob Ross) but if you gain one piece of knowledge or something new to experiment with with each one, it's worth it. One place where I learned the most about painting was wetcanvas dot com. It's a community of artists, and you can post works in progress and receive critiques, and learn a LOT about your medium.
I have stopped painting in oils because of the toxicity with a new baby around, but when I first started out, I found it easiest to use one brush for each color/color family, and block in colors, then blend them together with another clean, dry brush. I also used Liquin as a medium... swore by it, that stuff is awesome. It makes your oils dry quicker and makes them more fluid. Eventually, I did a lot of my paintings using several layers of translucent color for shadows using liquin... almost like doing watercolors with oils. But I learned about Liquin, and a lot of other techniques I have experimented with, through wetcanvas. Definitely worth involving yourself in that!
is a wonderful book on color!
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