Top 10 oil painting books

Essential references for Oil Painting

How to paint Old Masters-style oil portraits Mona Lisa is a painting by Leonardo da Vinci. A young lady wearing a pearl earring. Madame X is a fictional character. From the dawn of time, artists have been captivated by humanity’s endless diversity and elegance, such as the secrets hidden behind dazzling locks, a coy grin, or an averted look.

Classic Portrait Painting in Oils, an extended version of Chris Saper’s best-selling book, exposes keys to learning how to paint stunning portraits in oil to make soulful works of art. You’ll learn how to work from life, use reference images, and more to produce rich, authentic portraits of timeless character through easy-to-follow lessons and professional oil painting tips and techniques.

14 step-by-step tutorials show you how to paint seven different subjects with different skin tones from life and from photographs.

• Additional exercises demonstrate how to define facial features such as eyebrows, mouths, wrinkles, facial hair, and eyeglasses using expert oil painting techniques.
• Professional advice on working from life, including the best times to shoot, how to pose, see and match paint, and also how to work with kids.
• The fundamentals of lighting your subject and conveying an atmosphere with normal, artificial, artistic, and Rembrandt lighting Expanded on important topics such as perfect preparation, the value of drawing objects in real time on a daily basis, and the significance of using high-quality photography reference content, providing a guide for how to take—and self-edit—your own high-quality pictures.
• New information on how to approach and complete paying commissions, including step-by-step demonstrations on how to paint corporate and family subjects. Painters at all skill levels will learn to make more accurate portraits of any subject using Saper’s universal techniques, with consistent and joyful results.

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The Oil Painting Course You’ve Always Wanted

No book will teach you how to paint in oil. A good book, on the other hand, will point you in the right direction so you can train correctly and master the correct techniques as you go.

The Oil Painting Course You’ve Always Wanted is a comprehensive manual for both beginners and experts. It truly seems like a formal lesson, beginning with the fundamentals of which labels to purchase for brushes, paints, and everything else.

Early classes concentrate on the fundamentals, such as drawing shapes or plain things such as grapes. This is a safe place to start when it comes to drawing, and you can do it on your own.

However, with these exercises at your side, mastering the ropes and avoiding the pitfalls that all beginners encounter would be much easier. This is a fantastic tutorial with a lot of helpful hints for getting started.

Painting with Oils

The real elegance of David Howell’s Painting with Oils is the amount of detail that each lesson provides. This book inspires you to test out new approaches and play with oils.

David is a talented artist, but he not only knows how to paint using oils, but also how to easily describe his method in writing.

You’ll learn how to suggest movement with specific objects and how to locate a piece’s focal point before making a mark.

It’s difficult to get started with oil painting because you’ve never done it before. There’s a lot to learn, and there’s no one-size-fits-all solution to the entire thing.

This book describes strategies that, through repetition, will finally become second nature to you. That is why I suggest putting this book on your shelf for potential reading.

Oil Painter’s Bible

The Oil Painter’s Bible by Marylin Scott strikes a good balance between beginner and advanced guidance.

With just 190 words, it feels a little thin for a “bible.” However, it’s jam-packed with pictures, diagrams, and examples that demonstrate the best methods for dealing with oils as a medium.

The chapter on colour mixing is particularly useful for beginners because it covers such a broad subject. Many artists begin by using a small palette because it allows colour mixing easier.

However, the majority of this book focuses on techniques such as dry brush painting, blending, glazing, and how to make small adjustments without ruining your work.

This book comes to a close by concentrating on unique subjects such as landscapes, houses, people, and still lives found in and around the house.

Another great book to have on your bookshelf, and one you may find yourself returning to several times during your exploration of oils.

Painting for the Absolute and Utter Beginner

Learning everything in a step-by-step manner makes things a lot simpler. Painting for the Complete and Complete Beginner lays out a step-by-step plan for learning to paint in oil, with lessons that draw on each other.

You’ll discover the fundamentals of painting, such as how to use your palette, match colours, and paint in three dimensions.

One of the reasons I endorse this book is that it assists beginners in setting achievable goals. You can only improve too much in a few months, so this book can not help you master oils.

The classes, on the other hand, are practical and follow a hierarchy, with each chapter pushing you a little further along. If a chapter proves to be too tough, spend more time practising before returning to the book to keep going forward.

Problem Solving for Oil Painters

I’ll confess that this is a little “heavy” for beginners, but I believe the principles are important for anyone serious about painting.

Problem Solving  for Oil Painters  look beyond the tools to the metaphysical underpinnings of fine sculpture. You’ll learn how to deal with topics like viewpoint, length, lighting, structure, and, most notably, conveying thoughts.

Art is about thinking clearly and correctly recreating what you see. Colors, as well as shapes and proportions in relation to other elements in the composition, are used.

This book isn’t exactly a how-to manual for oil painting. However, it does answer a couple of the “how do I fix this?” issues that both beginners and seasoned painters have.

The Elements of Landscape Oil Painting

One of the most rewarding opportunities for artists is to go outside and paint in nature. Nature is a majestic theme to paint, and it offers infinite inspiration.

Over 200 pages, The Elements of Landscape Oil Painting occupies a lot of ground. The techniques covered in each chapter can be used in almost every form of painting, from watercolours to pastels.

However, if you’re just getting started with oil painting, these concepts might be too advanced for you. To go outdoors and paint landscapes, you don’t need to be a professional, but you do need to be comfortable setting up an easel and a canvas.

Suzanne Brooker, an author and artist, discusses her experience painting landscapes and offers advice on a variety of topics, including skies, terrains, and natural flora from trees to flowers.

This is a fantastic book for artists who have worked in oil before and wish to branch out of landscape painting.

1,500 Color Mixing Recipes

You can learn to blend oils easily, but mastering the skill requires years of practise.

You’ll have a plethora of hand-made colour recipes at your fingertips with this book.

1,500 Color Mixing Recipes is a 176-page book that includes solutions for mixing paints, watercolours, and acrylics.

About the fact that it is not purely an oil guide, I believe the lessons are extremely useful for beginners. These recipes can last a long time, and you can use them as a starting point for making your own.

It’s also a smart idea to think on how other people approach colour mixing so you can learn how to do it yourself.

Anyone who is having trouble matching colours should pick up a copy of this book and hold it on hand for some simple mixing practise.

The Complete Oil Painter

There’s a lot you can do with oils, and The Complete Oil Painter is one of the best books on the subject. If you’ve mastered the fundamentals, you should apply your oil painting skills to a variety of palettes, subjects, and moods.

Much of this takes time and practise, but going through this book will help you avoid much of the early pitfalls. It covers a number of concepts that all oil painters should be aware of, such as underpainting and alla prima art.

Beginners can find a wealth of information on topics such as painting portraits, landscapes, flowers, and household items. Each theme requires its own treatment, and there are often minor details to remember before beginning a painting.

The final segment covers advanced studio techniques such as canvas sizing, varnishing, and framing your finished paintings.

This book essentially covers all there is to know about oil painting, and it’s ideal for a beginner who needs to get a sense of the big picture.

Daily Painting

The only way to get better at anything is to do it constantly. Granted, not everyone has the ability to train every day, but those who do will notice significant improvements in their performance.

This is one of the reasons why Daily Painting is such an intriguing novel. It’s not so much a how-to as it is an inspiring roadmap by artist Carol Marine, who began painting every day in 2006.

She talks about her experience painting every day and trying to get her oil paintings into exhibitions, as well as the things she’s learnt along the way.

This does not provide a lot of useful information for hobbyists. However, I strongly advise anyone who wants to expand their skill set to pick up a copy of this novel. It’s a book you can go back to over and over again and yet learn new things.

Oil Painting with the Masters

This book was put together by artist Cindy Salaski as a comprehensive guide to oil painting, with tips from scores of contemporary masters.

Professional oil painters’ work is studied in Oil Painting with the Masters. Richard McKinley, Phil Starke, George Gallo, Marc Hanson, Susan Lyon, and Jeffrey Watts are among the featured musicians.

Jeffrey is the founder of the Watts Atelier, which is a fantastic school for young fine artists and performers.

I wouldn’t recommend this book to anyone who is brand new to oil painting, but it can be useful after you’ve progressed past the fundamentals.

Think Big Paint Small

The newest book on this series, Think Big Paint Small, is one of the best for oil painting techniques.

This book explains how to paint small canvases and how to tackle each project with the right attitude. Beginners can start with smaller canvases because they are easier to work on and have less strain.

You’ll be able to adapt your talents to a 3-foot high canvas if you can learn to create volumes on a smaller canvas. And, regardless of canvas scale, the step-by-step exercises in this book will help you think about each stroke and how it will look.

Granted, this book is ideally adapted for artists who have any prior oil painting experience. Keep it handy after you’ve mastered the fundamentals and want to move on to creating completed works of art.

Whatever point you’re at, there’s bound to be something useful in this collection. Oil painting does not have to be painful, but it is a difficult medium to master.

It would be much easier to find the right books to lead you down the journey to oil painting until you have an estimate of your skill level.