Painting with oils

I got out my oils last week and decided to just play without any self critique and I'm presenting them in the same spirit of no critiquing allowed. One thing I decided is that I need to do a LOT more work before I'm comfortable with the medium. On hot days when I first put out the oil it's quite slippery on the board and then a few days later it becomes a bit tacky as it starts to dry on my palette and I need to squeeze out more paint. No wonder some of the old palettes of the master painters are several inches thick with dried paint. They didn't clean off their palettes; they just kept adding more paint to the drying mixture.
Three little paintings reinforced for me that no matter the medium I prefer to paint an abstraction of an image rather than try to represent a more realistic version with my brush. I have my camera for copying the scenery.