First Attempt at Oil

This is the dark layer in my first attempt at oil painting. Well to be honest it isn't my very first attempt. One weekend a month or so ago I bought some cheap oil paints two brushes and two canvases. After doing my pastels I thought oil's would be just like them only in a tube. That was a stupid mistake. I looked like a smurf afterwards and made a complete mess. The paint never dried and it was a very frustrating event. Afterwards I asked Donna Shortt what I was doing wrong and apparently everything.
Oil paints have to be mixed with alcohol or another medium to thin them out. This helps it dry. So to begin with I mixed an orange color and mineral spirits to make a warm wash. When that dried a dark purple mixed in with linseed oil for the dark layer was added. This layer still looks very wet as I write this so hopefully I mixed it right. Once this dries I will move on to lighter layers. I know it looks like I can't paint straight lines right now(which I can't) but I will use the sky to form the outline of the shapes so all that fuzziness will go away when I'm on that layer.
Anyway this is exciting and messy (sounds awesome).