Colorful oil painting
Oil painting: preparing colors
Oil painting takes more mastery than water-based techniques due to the dense, greasy consistency of oils and their very long drying time. Colors must be prepared if they are to be fluid, luminous, and immune.
1. Colored background: a first, very diluted layer of color
As it will collect several coats of color, the backdrop should be well painted. To ensure excellent adhesion and expose the luminosity of the paints that will be coating it, the first layer should be thin and well diluted. There are two options:
To reduce the proportion of oil in the paint to make it more fluid, dilute it heavily with turpentine or white spirit. Until moving on to the next sheet, make sure the previous one is completely dry.
Use a colour that does not contain grease, such as acrylic, so it dries quickly.
2. The thick on thin law applies to colour layers.
The golden rule of painting is thick on thin: each subsequent layer should have significantly more oil than the previous one for paint to dry without cracking and colours to be bright. As a result, the first ones should have little oil and the subsequent ones should be richer and richer.
How does one go about doing this? Using a medium made up of 60 percent linseed oil and 40 percent spirits of turpentine, dilute the first coat of pigment. With each layer, increase the amount of linseed oil. Mix the paints with 100 percent linseed oil until you get to the final coat.
The medium also makes the paint avoid fading by speeding up the drying time between coats, changing the brilliance and clarity of colours, changing the thickness of the paint from fluid to solid, and varying the brilliance and transparency of colours. Now, find out the medium proportions that would fit well for you and paint them: go ahead and make your own combos!
Allow the paint to dry completely before coating it; this will prevent the colours from combining and being sticky with those in the next coat.
Basic oil paint colors
How to Start Painting With Oils (A Beginner’s Guide)
Must use oil paints because there are so many different types of pigments available? The advantages are enormous!
Oil paints have the following advantages over other media:
Drying time is longer. This allows you to spend more time mixing colours or manipulating the colour.
Opacity is increased.
As a result, it is possible to re-paint areas to correct features or change the composition.
Consistency that works.
Oil paint viscosity allows for several coats, thicker application, and textured brush strokes if needed.
Longevity.
Oil paint is more resistant to light than other media and can last longer than other media.
Start by getting the right supplies
When you’re only starting out, don’t go broke, but invest in the highest-quality products you can afford. Less costly paints and brushes are also more difficult to deal with.
Paint colors
Don’t go bankrupt when you’re just starting out; instead, indulge in the highest-quality things you can afford. Paints and brushes that are less expensive are often more difficult to work with.
Ivory black or lamp black
Ultramarine blue
Cerulean blue or Cerulean blue hue
Burnt umber
Alizarin crimson
Cadmium red or Cadmium red light
Burnt Sienna or transparent oxide brown
Raw umber
Yellow ochre
Cadmium yellow or lemon yellow
Titanium white
Greens can be mixed from blues and yellows, but permanent green light, sap green are helpful for landscapes
Few pigments are more expensive than others (particularly cobalt and cadmiums). Some of these more costly shades are also available as “hues,” and are less expensive due to the lower dye concentration.
Canvas or prepared boards
Instead of cotton cloth, which may deteriorate with time, use linen canvas. You can use boards if you want a smoother floor. Choose from professionally prepared panels or cut your own birch or Masonite, then gesso the canvas four times.
Mixing palette
Here you’ll find a wealth of detail on choosing oil painting palettes. To summarise, there are three major categories to consider:
Paper palettes are single-use waxy paper pads that can be thrown away with each use.
With a palette knife or a razor blade, glass palettes are simple to disinfect.
Lightweight wood palettes are simple to keep when painting, and the colour of the wood gives a neutral backdrop.
Brushes
Brushes of different sizes, mainly mid-size but with a few small and at least one large, are needed. More details on brushes can be found here.
To get started, pick up:
- Bristle brushes, for heavier application or textured strokes
- Sable or soft, synthetic, sable-type brushes for finer blending and greater control
- Solvent or paint thinner
Brushes are cleaned with these ingredients, and paint is thinned with them. Hold the solvent in a closely sealed container so you can use it to thin paint and scrub brushes. The following are a few examples of different types:
Turpentine is a natural solvent, but it’s also a toxic substance that can have short- and long-term health consequences. (Though turpenoid is odourless, it is still dangerous.) Use with caution and ventilation.
In terms of toxicity, mineral spirits are similar to turpentine. The odour has been minimised, but the dangerous characteristics have not. Use with caution and ventilation.
Secure gaseous oils for thinning oil paint and cleaning are lavender spike oil or rosemary oil.
Toning your canvas
Many painters like to start with a toned canvas because the white canvas surface can be intimidating! It’s also easier to judge comparative darks and lights when you start with a toned board. Highlights are crucial to the composition, but they are more difficult to see on a white canvas.
To tone, apply a thin coat of paint to your surface and let it dry (such as raw umber).
Squeeze some raw umber onto your palette and combine with a small amount of solvent to make a thin wipe. Cover the canvas with a big, soft brush, then clean with a soft cloth (old T-shirts fit well) for a smooth, even layer of medium tone.
It’s perfect that any of the canvas can be seen though. Allow for 15-20 minutes of drying time.
Getting your palette ready
While your toned canvas dries, squeeze paints into your palette in a rainbow order, starting with the darkest neutrals and working your way to the more saturated, adjacent shades. Yellow Ochre, for example, is a duller and cooler yellow than Lemon Yellow. The darkest representation of each hue is close by, making it easy to find what you need.
Making plans for an art
Plan for your composition before you start painting. You must know how and where objects will work on your canvas, whether it is a still life or a landscape.
Consider where the focal point of attention would be. The centre of interest is always best placed at the junction of two lines that are a third of the way from the canvas’s edges (this is called the rule of thirds).
Time to get painting!
You should start painting until your toned canvas is dry to the touch.
Direct or indirect painting
Most oil painters (especially beginners) prefer alla prima, or “direct” painting, because it requires painting wet onto wet paint. Indirect painting, on the other hand, needs a little more practise, persistence, and knowledge of paint properties.
The difficulty with direct painting is believing that adjacent places will be wet as they are painted. We always assume that one area of paint should be dried before moving on to the next, but this isn’t always the case for oil paint. Wet paint allows for the softening and blending of strokes, which is a key feature of oil painting.
Fill your oil paintings with light & color
Kevin Macpherson’s rich and strong paintings almost shine on these pages! He explains how to use bright, direct brushstrokes to easily capture the mood of a scene, with step-by-step directions that make it simple—just it’s a matter of painting the colours you see. If you follow his lead, you, too, will produce vivid, impressionistic worlds and still lives.
An important guide to universal oil painting techniques that enable artists to broaden their horizons, break out of ruts, and master a variety of subjects such as figures, portraits, still life, landscapes, and interiors. Many painters stick to a certain genre out of tradition or anxiety, but art teacher Gregg Kreutz shows how oil painting methods are interconnected no matter what topic an artist tackles.
Each chapter, which is organised by key creative focal points, shows the challenges and rewards that painters encounter when tackling particular genres. Kreutz demonstrates how artists can improve their skill set for one style of subject matter by painting in a different environment they may not be as familiar with, using step-by-step exercises and samples from the works of past and present oil painting masters.
This detailed guide to oil painting provides painters with all of the techniques and inspiration they need to tackle every form of oil painting.
