Bryon Zirker asked:


Oil paint dries very slowly, Unlike acrylic paints which dry very quickly. Acrylic paint was initially created as an underpainting medium for oil painting.

It is perfectly stable to put a base of acrylic and then place oil paint over it. Linseed oil added to oil paint will extend color, increase flow and increase workability. Oil paint with added medium is called long, oil paint used directly from the tube is called short or stiff.

You place you oil paints on a wooden board called a palette the very best palettes are made of pear wood.

It is very important to understand your paints and know which colors are:

Transparent (see through) Semi Opaque (slightly see through) and opaque (not see through) getting started put as much oil paint on your brush for two strokes three maximum always end your brush stroke on the canvas.

Make sure that you use linseed oil only when you are painting with the wet on wet method or process.

Do not confuse yourself with all of the many other mediums. Wait to discover those when you are more experienced. If you can actually afford the professional paints, definitely go ahead and buy them. You will notice immediately that they are completely different from the student paints.

Always buy the best brushes that you can afford. The Da Vinci brand brushes are the best professional brushes. Buy long handle bushes. The technique is to hold near the end of the handle. When developing talent one point to consider is the ability to take risks. Just play around with your paint however first understand it, only paint at an easel and make sure to stand back from your painting all the time. Never put your expensive brushes in turps when you are working in a session. Go ahead and wipe them clean with paper towels or cloth wash out your brushes in turps or a similar solvent at the end of a session and then be sure to clean immediately with soapy water.

Preparing the canvas the foundation of you piece

It is quite essential that you put on the first underpainting or wash on your canvas. This takes away the glare of the white (which will reflect back at you, quite annoying) and the more layers of paint you get onto your canvas the better and the more professional looking your painting, the more luminous the paint ant the more the painting will sing out with color and texture.

Traditionally an earth color of a burnt umber or raw umber, raw sienna or an ochre was painted on as a good first underpainting. Sometimes it can be pretty exciting to paint on a bright red or dark blue as your first underpainting especially when you are in the habit of putting on three or four layers and seeing the underpainting come through your painting. Use a big wash brush to apply the first underpainting it you use acrylic as your underpaint it will dry quickly and get you started quicker.

How to apply oil paint in two methods

1. Wet on wet or All Prima (in one step)

2. Stage Painting or Glazing Fat over lean

Wet on wet is applied by using the paint stiff, which is directly from the tube Or thinned to the consistency of salad dressing with linseed oil the essential part of painting wet on wet is making your brushes and painting knives do the work for you.

You definitely want to have full control of your brushes and experiment with different brushes to see the marks and texture streaks that they make.

Never work with turps unless you are working with the glazing method.

Never ever stand your brushes in any turps working in your painting session.

Turps will burn the bristles and inevitably there will be some left in the brush when you start to use color.

This will make it difficult to keep control of the flow or thickness of paint. The glazing technique is a process of building up your painting in a series of layers of the thinned paint.

I found this specific method for the glazing technique with oil paint it is called fat over lean

A Lean 1st layer thinned with solvent

A Lean 2nd layer thinned with less solvent

A Lean 3rd layer thinned with less solvent

A Fat 4th layer straight from tube

A Fat 5th layer thinned with little linseed oil

A Fat 6th layer thinned with more linseed oil

It is very essential that you this process exactly follow or the layers of paint will dry at different levels and possibly ***** the paint. Granted, it is a slow method and you absolutely need some patience however the results are spectacular tonal values which are essential in painting. This glazing method gives you full control of creating tones in acrylic paint. Here there is no mystery about paint.

Remember that paint is just pigment with a binder. In the case of oil paint, it is just a pigment with a drying oil usually linseed oil is used for this. The very best professional oil paints you will find are Michael Harding and Old Holland. Windsor and Newton and some other makes are good as well just make sure they are called professional paints and not the lesser quality student paints.

One last thing, Oil Paint dries very slowly, have patience and enjoy the journey. Paint on.

Krista QQ(www.123giftfactory.com) asked:


What is oil painting? Oil paints on the canvas. It’s an indisputable definition. I thought that oil painting is more than that.

Any kind of figurative art (including oil painting) is thought of beforehand. The basic rules of studying drawing and painting are very closely connected with the laws of the discipline.



Tip 1. Brushes

You should have many brushes so that not to lose time washing them while working. Take a new brush for every new mix. Use round kolinsky brushes, No.1 to No. 10. To cover larger surfaces, you will need a few #20 to #35 brushes. For final strokes PRIPLAVLENIYE (final blending) you will need a few very soft round and flat average size squirrel brushes. Brushes should be treated very carefully. After every session they should be washed in turpentine and after that in warm water with soap.

Tip 2. Canvas

The canvas should be primed additionally a few more times and in conclusion it should be ground with fine sandpaper. After that the canvas should be scraped with a razor to remove the canvas texture till smooth dead surface similar to the egg’s surface is achieved.

Tip 3. Palette



The palette must be made of hard dark wood, best of all, of pear wood. After work wash the palette with turpentine and scrape it with a razor. Before work wipe the palette with linseed oil.

Tip 4. Paper

The

drawing is made on paper life-size to the smallest details. Then it is transferred to the canvas by carbon-paper. After that the drawing is outlined with brown ink because the first oil layer – IMPRIMATURA (transparent coat that is equal to the middle tone of largest, lightest object in painting) – will wash away the pencil, but the ink will remain visible almost through the last layers.

Tip 5. Still Life Objects

It is very important to have objects for still life in the studio. Don’t be stingy at garage sales and flea markets, you may regret it later.

Tip 6. Lacquer

The lacquer for

IMPRIMATURA is made of 2% of dry DAMAR CRYSTALS and 98% of turpentine. The lacquer for painting is made of 5-10% of dry resin and 90-95 % of turpentine. A couple of lavender oil drops are added directly to the oil-can. Scientists say lavender oil stimulates the brain. However, I think that old masters added it to eliminate the heavy turpentine smell. The lacquer for the final step consists of 30% of DAMAR CRYSTALS, 3% of linseed oil, and 67% of turpentine.

Tip 7. Canvas Cleaning

Before each new layer the canvas (ideally dried during 7 weeks) is carefully wiped with a half of an onion (in order to prepare the dried surface to absorb better) and then with linseed oil. After that the canvas is wiped with a soft piece of cloth.

Tip 8. Mixture

IMPRIMATURA, or the first paint layer. The canvas is covered with a liquid mixture based on Red Ochre, Yellow Ochre Light and Ivory Black (the mixture should have an olive hue).

Tip 9. Basic Set of Paints

The basic set of paints is the following: “Rembrandt” oil colors: Flake White, Yellow Ochre Light, Red Ochre, Burnt Umber, Raw Umber Ivory and Lamp Black (7 Basic Colors), and 4 extra colors (when necessary) which I use in the last layers: Flake Yellow (instead of it also can be used Cadmium Yellow Deep), Madder Lake Deep, Chinese Vermilion, Prussian Blue. But be careful to use these last 4 colors very sparingly.

Tip 10. TEL’NII PODMALYOVOK

The

first and the second TEL’NII (flesh tones: main life colors) PODMALYOVOK (5th and 6th layers). The first TEL’NII PODMALYOVOK is made half a tone lighter and two tones lighter in colors; and half a tone darker and two tones lighter in shadows. The same is true of the second TEL’NII PODMALYOVOK.

Tip 11. PODMALYOVOK

The dead layer – the fourth PODMALYOVOK – is made with white lead, light ocher, red ocher, and burnt bone. The aim of this PODMALYOVOK is penumbra. The picture must look as if its objects were lit with moonlight – olive cold gray color. Colors are applied thickly, half a tone higher, shadows are very transparent, half a tone lower.

Tip 12. LESSIROVKA

The seventh layer — LESSIROVKA : Details of textures, thickly applied highlights, bright reflections, and signature. In this layer you may use additional paints: Prussian blue, red cinnabar, yellow flake (cadmium yellow deep), madder lake deep.

Tip 13. Shadow PODMALYOVOK

The shadow

PODMALYOVOK (the process of creating intermediate layers) is made with Burnt Umber in two layers (2nd and 3rd layers). In the second layer all details are made excluding the texture. In the third layer LESSIROVKA of the main tone masses is made with a big brush.

Tip 14. Music

Many painters get an energy charge from music. Stop listening to any modern music and begin listening only to classical music. Try to begin loving it.

Last, stop looking at modern art and stop loving it. Modern bright colors and hue contrasts destroy the subtle vision of the painter who took risks to study classical painting in our time.

From the 16th century to the beginning of the 20th century artists used the seven layer technique. Like music where there are seven notes, seven keys, and within each there are seven more. 7 days in a week. 7 Layers of Paint. Each layer in oil painting must dry for seven weeks. The energy which we receive from old paintings in museums, like ghosts in old castles with old paintings, is related to this magic figure.