Paint Thickness on Panel

GTO

In the last painting I did I notice that I’ve got some areas where I applied the paint a bit thickly.  There are other areas where the surface is smooth.  For example yin this image below you can see a line above and left if the lamp shade. It is a slight groove in the surface.

Below in this image to the left of the lamp post you can see the roughness of the paint and left if that the smoother paint.

Any suggestions as to how to remedy this.  The paint is dry.  I plan to use a gloss varnish and I am sure these differences will be prominent.

tassieguy

GTO, you could sand lightly and then repaint that area filling in the groove in the process. It's only visible here because you have bright light shining on it and creating glare around the groove which makes it visible. You are a perfectionist. If it was on a wall, people wouldn't have that light on it and so wouldn't even notice it.  It's a stunning painting. But I can relate. If something's not exactly right I have to fix it. 

GTO

Thanks @tassieguy. I wondered about sanding it down.  The DMP method has turned me into a bit of a perfectionist.  I wasn’t so much that way before, but it’s a good thing.  

Many years ago I shared a small corner of studio space with John Cullison, an artist friend back in school.  He did a combination of brush and airbrush works of vibrant jungle tropical plants.  What impressed me was that every square inch of his very large paintings were given the same amount of detailed attention.  Very impressive.  Here’s a link to some of his work.  

https://iasos.com/artists/cullison/

So, yeah, I feel I need to pay closer attention to the surface and the way the paint lays down.

tassieguy

His work is impressive and beautiful  but a bit over the top in terms of colour for me. But I see what you mean by his attention to detail in his paintings. They're amazing. 

KingstonFineArt

Isn't some texture expected in oil painting? The problem I see is the horrible lighting. Rembrandt would look bad in the light.

GTO

@KingstonFineArt I agree, though shouldn’t there be some sort of consistency to the brush marks?  Maybe I’m being too much of a perfectionist.

Abstraction

@GTO For darks, which inherently need to recede, keep them thin and best to use downward brushstrokes from the underpainting onwards. If your brushmarks face down it doesn't create a ridge that catches overhead light. (I was told to keep darks thin, but not told the reason WHY! Took years to come across this very sensible reason.)

The only way I know to address is to be prepared to either sand back or use the palette knife edge to take undulations out - but when you expose the ground it will need sufficient coverage to make it even.

GTO

Thanks @Abstraction I appreciate your technical advice.  I hadn’t heard of the downward stroke or thinner darks.  I will try they going forward. 

Marinos_88

@GTO it looks ok to me, personally I would leave it like that. As long as it doesn't create any issues with reflections on the canvas. 
@Abstraction that's true for thick paint straight out of the tube. I've noticed that's not an issue with mark's added paint medium. Maybe due to low viscosity the brush mark is naturally more flat even with a natural bristle hog brush(unless you load the brush with too much paint). On the other hand with paint straight out of the tube a natural compared to a synthetic brush would lay the Paint in a completely different manner. 
See below, I've done that mistake on that painting where my brush marks are horizontal, it makes the darks look White in some areas. In reality it's just reflected light from the paint ridges. Oh well..

Controlling the amount of paint that goes on the canvas is important.

GTO

@Marinos_88 thanks  for posting that helps illustrate what I’ve been wondering about.