This is my basic process for making a quality oil painting.
I try to incorporate this sentence into my art: Make my art tell a story, fill it with drama, never be literal and at the end just make it work.

1. Nice large gallery wrap canvas (at least 16×20 inches) Canvases
2. Professional Oil Paints 
3. Quality Brushes (bristles don’t fall off of good brushes as much as the cheap ones) Brushes
4. Old Clean Rag
5. Odorless acetone (trust me this is a must if working inside)
6. pick a subject (photograph, plain air, straight from your head)
7. look to have good balance on the composition
8. the balance continues as you pick colors for your piece
9. the balance continues as you pick the brush strokes
10. the balance continues as you add details and accents to make the viewer move around the painting