Tips on Oil Painting – Why Paint With Oils?
December 14, 2009 by admin
Filed under Visual Art
Remi Engels, Ph.D. asked:
Because oil paints have been used for many centuries, their properties are very well known.
Oil is, even today, still one of the easiest and most forgiving mediums you can work in. Creating an oil painting is in fact relatively easy compared to other mediums such as watercolor or even pastels.
The advantages of oil are many and various. Here are some of the most important ones:
* Oil paints are easily put onto a canvas or panel. You just put some paint on your brush and rub it on the canvas or panel. The paint will generally not run or move.
* Creating a painting becomes a matter of putting the right color paint in the right place. Of course, some artists are better at this than others.
* One great property of oil paints is that they do not change color when they dry as opposed, for example, to acrylics. Oils pretty much stay the same for a long period of time.
* It is very easy to correct a mistake when you paint with oils. Just scrape the paint off with a paint knife and repaint whatever it was you scraped off.
* Oil paint dries very slowly because they consist of small pigment particles suspended in oil.
In fact, each color has its own drying time. But all paints dry slow enough so that you can remove them days and even weeks after they were applied. This is also the reason why it is so easy to correct mistakes.
Of course, the disadvantage is that they dry … slowly. That means they stay wet longer although there exist mediums that, when mixed in with the paint, can significantly speed up the drying process if that is what you want.
* It is easy to mix tube colors on a palette and is usually done with a brush of paint knife. There are mediums to thicken the paint into a pasta-like consistency and mediums to thin the paint into a water-like consistency.
* Once a color mixture formula is memorized it is easy to consistently reproduce the mixture. This is less the case with most other mediums.
* The fact that oil paint dries so slowly also gives you more time to work and rework a painting. You have enough time to sleep on certain decisions you need to make. Acrylics, for example, dry much faster and give you less time to ponder your masterpiece before action is required.
* Oil paints are also easily blended. So, it becomes relatively easy to render smooth transitional areas between different colors or values.
* Oils are also amenable to a whole series of techniques each of which yields a different look and feel. One example of such a technique is glazing. In de glazing technique several thin layers of transparent paint are put on top of each other. Each layer must be thoroughly dry before the next one is applied. Once done light is reflected off each layer resulting into an unusual luminosity and brightness.
* Oil can be used on any number of grounds: canvas, panel canvas, glass, wood, paper, etc. each, when done correctly, with excellent and durable results.
These are some of the more important and interesting properties of oil paints that have given this medium the enduring popularity that it has.
Because oil paints have been used for many centuries, their properties are very well known.
Oil is, even today, still one of the easiest and most forgiving mediums you can work in. Creating an oil painting is in fact relatively easy compared to other mediums such as watercolor or even pastels.
The advantages of oil are many and various. Here are some of the most important ones:
* Oil paints are easily put onto a canvas or panel. You just put some paint on your brush and rub it on the canvas or panel. The paint will generally not run or move.
* Creating a painting becomes a matter of putting the right color paint in the right place. Of course, some artists are better at this than others.
* One great property of oil paints is that they do not change color when they dry as opposed, for example, to acrylics. Oils pretty much stay the same for a long period of time.
* It is very easy to correct a mistake when you paint with oils. Just scrape the paint off with a paint knife and repaint whatever it was you scraped off.
* Oil paint dries very slowly because they consist of small pigment particles suspended in oil.
In fact, each color has its own drying time. But all paints dry slow enough so that you can remove them days and even weeks after they were applied. This is also the reason why it is so easy to correct mistakes.
Of course, the disadvantage is that they dry … slowly. That means they stay wet longer although there exist mediums that, when mixed in with the paint, can significantly speed up the drying process if that is what you want.
* It is easy to mix tube colors on a palette and is usually done with a brush of paint knife. There are mediums to thicken the paint into a pasta-like consistency and mediums to thin the paint into a water-like consistency.
* Once a color mixture formula is memorized it is easy to consistently reproduce the mixture. This is less the case with most other mediums.
* The fact that oil paint dries so slowly also gives you more time to work and rework a painting. You have enough time to sleep on certain decisions you need to make. Acrylics, for example, dry much faster and give you less time to ponder your masterpiece before action is required.
* Oil paints are also easily blended. So, it becomes relatively easy to render smooth transitional areas between different colors or values.
* Oils are also amenable to a whole series of techniques each of which yields a different look and feel. One example of such a technique is glazing. In de glazing technique several thin layers of transparent paint are put on top of each other. Each layer must be thoroughly dry before the next one is applied. Once done light is reflected off each layer resulting into an unusual luminosity and brightness.
* Oil can be used on any number of grounds: canvas, panel canvas, glass, wood, paper, etc. each, when done correctly, with excellent and durable results.
These are some of the more important and interesting properties of oil paints that have given this medium the enduring popularity that it has.
All About Oil Paintings and Acrylics
Ben Jonson asked:
Painting as a profession is considered to be one of the most adorable professions. One of the most common questions which many people or the painters face is that what type of paint they should use. The different options which are available are oil paintings, acrylics, water colors and pastels. Well this article will deal in handling one of the most unique problems as to what kind of paint should you use. And I am going to deal with this problem by making you aware with the benefits and disadvantages of each of the method of paints and this in turn will help you decide with which method you will have to go for.
Acrylics: Some of the few benefits which you can get with the acrylics are that they dry very quickly and the acrylic paints can be either mixed with water or any other medium. The brushes which are used for acrylics are that these brushes can be easily cleaned with water. And once the paint is dried again the other layers can be applied over it without disturbing the layers which lies beneath it. It is water resistant and it provides a good option as to it can be used very thickly like oils and it can even be used for thin washes like the water color.
While on the other hand there are some factors which would stop you from using the acrylics like for the fact acrylics dry very quickly, however the working time can be increased by mixing a retarding medium to the paint or you can also spray water on the paintings. Acrylics are completely waterproof so in case once they are dried there is no scope that you can remove the paint. It is also a difficult scenario to remove from the brush once it is dried.
Oil paintings: Another very impressive method or the mode of paintings is that of the oil painting, wherein they do not dry very quickly and thus paves much time to work and more scope for blending. Once the oil paintings are dried they can be painted again and this would not disturb the underlying layers. Another important and very attractive feature is that there is wide variety of color options available with oil paintings and such a range of colors is not offered by any of the modes of painting. You also have very rich and deep colors which maintain their intensity even after they are dried.
Some of the demerits which the oil paintings have are that they take very long time to dry. As they dry very hardly you will have to wait for several months before the painting can be varnished. When working with oil paintings you can work on many paintings simultaneously because of the excessive time they take to dry. As far as brush which is used in oil painting is considered it can be cleaned only with spirit.
Painting as a profession is considered to be one of the most adorable professions. One of the most common questions which many people or the painters face is that what type of paint they should use. The different options which are available are oil paintings, acrylics, water colors and pastels. Well this article will deal in handling one of the most unique problems as to what kind of paint should you use. And I am going to deal with this problem by making you aware with the benefits and disadvantages of each of the method of paints and this in turn will help you decide with which method you will have to go for.
Acrylics: Some of the few benefits which you can get with the acrylics are that they dry very quickly and the acrylic paints can be either mixed with water or any other medium. The brushes which are used for acrylics are that these brushes can be easily cleaned with water. And once the paint is dried again the other layers can be applied over it without disturbing the layers which lies beneath it. It is water resistant and it provides a good option as to it can be used very thickly like oils and it can even be used for thin washes like the water color.
While on the other hand there are some factors which would stop you from using the acrylics like for the fact acrylics dry very quickly, however the working time can be increased by mixing a retarding medium to the paint or you can also spray water on the paintings. Acrylics are completely waterproof so in case once they are dried there is no scope that you can remove the paint. It is also a difficult scenario to remove from the brush once it is dried.
Oil paintings: Another very impressive method or the mode of paintings is that of the oil painting, wherein they do not dry very quickly and thus paves much time to work and more scope for blending. Once the oil paintings are dried they can be painted again and this would not disturb the underlying layers. Another important and very attractive feature is that there is wide variety of color options available with oil paintings and such a range of colors is not offered by any of the modes of painting. You also have very rich and deep colors which maintain their intensity even after they are dried.
Some of the demerits which the oil paintings have are that they take very long time to dry. As they dry very hardly you will have to wait for several months before the painting can be varnished. When working with oil paintings you can work on many paintings simultaneously because of the excessive time they take to dry. As far as brush which is used in oil painting is considered it can be cleaned only with spirit.
