Ralph Serpe asked:


One of the more frequently asked questions from beginners in oil painting is: How do I get Started? To get started in oil painting is relatively easy. There are some basic supplies that you will need and some basic guidelines to follow. This article will discuss how beginners can get started with oil painting. This article will not teach you how to become a good painter however. In fact, no one can make you a good painter. You can only be taught certain things and it is up to you to take what you have learned and apply it.

Many beginners who are new to the oil painting medium, generally have the same questions. So let’s cover those questions now so that you can begin your painting journey right away.

Oil Painting Supplies

The first thing you will need to do is purchase a few supplies. You need not spend a ton of money on expensive oil painting supplies. Start with the basics as you are only a beginner right now. The goal at this point is to get used to working with your support, brushes, paints and other materials. So expensive supplies will be wasted during this stage.

Supports

You are going to need a support to paint on. There are a number of different supports that can handle oil paint, but for now, start with canvas. Many beginners often ask if a canvas needs any special coating or priming for oil paint. The short answer is yes, but you need not worry about that either. Any local art supply store or online art supply store will have canvases that are already primed and ready to be used.

Oil Paint

Next, you are going to need paint. You do not need an expensive brand of paint. That would again be a waste for beginners. There are less expensive, good quality paints on the market that will work beautifully for your painting needs. Here are a few oil paint brands to test out: WINSOR & NEWTON Winton Oil Colours, GRUMBACHER Academy Oils and DALER-ROWNEY Georgian Oil Colours.

For those of you who may be concerned about the potential hazards associated with oil paints, have no fear. Introducing water miscible oil paints! These paints are fantastic. They can be thinned with water as opposed to using dangerous solvents like turpentine. Here are two brands to try out if you are interested: GRUMBACHER Max Water Miscible Oil Colors and WINSOR & NEWTON Artisan Water Mixable Oil Colours.

Oil Painting Brushes

Having good quality brushes is important. While a good quality brush will not make you a better painter, a cheap brush will only wind up frustrating you. When you use cheap brushes you will see why. Cheap brushes have a tendency to shed hairs that get stuck in the oil paint, which is extremely annoying. Good quality brushes should have stiff hairs and snap back into place when you run your fingers through them. They should be well crafted and sturdy.

You do not need that many brushes for oil painting. I personally only use two types of oil painting brushes: flats and filberts of various sizes. I do have a few rounds and a fan brush on hand, but I almost never use them. I would also recommend that you use hogs hair brushes as opposed to the softer synthetic hair brushes. The synthetic brushes are just too flimsy to handle the oil painting medium in my opinion.

Cleaning your brushes is important, so don’t be careless in this area, especially if you are working with high quality brushes. Many artists recommend turpentine for cleaning brushes, but I simply cannot bring myself to use this stuff. I use a much safer brush cleaning product called “The Masters” Brush Cleaner and Preserver.

I clean my brushes right after a painting session with this product and it works wonderfully. It may take some time to really get your brushes clean, but it is worth the effort. If the brush cleaner does not remove all of the paint, then I use a bit of odorless mineral spirits. I find this a much better alternative to turpentine.

Oil Painting Mediums

What about mediums? Do you need to mix the oil paint with anything or can you use it straight out of the tube? This is another common question amongst beginners. The answer? You do not need mediums to paint with. They are not a requirement, but I find them to be quite helpful.

Most oil paints that I have worked with are simply too stiff right out of the tube for my particular style of painting. Mediums will help dilute the oil paint and make the paint flow better, which means you will be using less paint. Using less paint, means you will save money.

There are many different kinds of mediums that are used for different reasons, like speeding up the drying time of paint, improving gloss, etc. Do not be overly concerned with mediums right now.

I like to start my painting using thinned down acrylic paint. I first tone my entire canvas with a neutral color. I then draw in my composition using different values of the same color. I let this initial drawing dry over night. I then apply the oil paint using the fat over lean oil painting method.

Lighting

This is a very important part of oil painting. Without proper lighting, you will not be able to accurately see your colors. The best kind of lighting is natural sunlight, so if you have the opportunity to paint in a well lit room or outdoors, that would be ideal. Of course not everyone is blessed with this type of situation, so the next best thing is to use lighting that mimics natural sunlight.

This type of lighting is referred to as “full spectrum lighting”. There are number of different full spectrum lighting products available. Just do a search on google for “full spectrum lighting” and you will find a number of websites on the topic.

Safety

Oil painting for beginners can be hazardous if you are not careful, so it is important to take the necessary precautions. Make sure you work in an area that has good ventilation and airflow. Wear disposable latex gloves while painting. Read all manufacturer warning labels carefully.

Some Final Words

As you sit down to start your first painting, remember that you are just a beginner. Your main goal right now is to have fun and get used to working with your oil painting materials. Do not be overly judgmental about your own work. If you do so, you will only wind up getting frustrated. Your first, second, third or even tenth painting may not turn out the way you wanted it to. This is completely normal so do not get discouraged. Oil painting is a difficult medium to master. It takes perseverance so hang in there. I wish you all the best! God Bless.

Remi Engels, Ph.D. asked:


When you refuse to buy any of the pre-fabricated canvases you can always buy a roll of primed or raw canvas cloth. The first step in the process towards constructing a finished canvas is the stretching of the canvas. Once the stretching is done it is time to prime the canvas cloth if you bought a roll of raw canvas.

The reason it is necessary to prime a raw canvas is that both linen and cotton cloth will eventually rot when saturated with oil paint. To prevent the occurrence of rotting the canvas cloth must be treated with a glue or gelatin solution to so-call “size” the canvas and then coated with an oil-based primer.

Here are the steps to be executed in the priming process:

1) After stretching the raw canvas, evenly brush the weak glue or gelatin solution onto the raw canvas using a wide nylon or bristle brush. Note, do not stretch raw canvas too tight, because the priming will shrink the canvas cloth and therefore tighten it automatically.

2) When the fabric dries, coat it with a mixture of white lead in oil and turpentine, again using a wide brush. The brilliant white surface that results makes it easier to gauge the colors you will be using while you paint.

3) Once the canvas is dry, sand it lightly.

4) Then, apply a second coat of the white lead in oil and turpentine solution, and sand the canvas again.

All these materials and the accompanying instructions can be bought in a serious art supply store or on the Internet.

 

Many artists also enjoy working on wood panels, which is a proving support for oil painting. The old masters worked on oak, poplar, and mahogany, but today “wood panel” can mean anything from a piece of poplar to plywood to Masonite. The latter is increasingly popular because it is inexpensive, durable, and can be cut into virtually any size.

Wood panels are perfect for rendering intricate, detailed subjects where the weave of the canvas might be too uneven. You can buy prepared boards or you can make your own. You must prime the panel with gesso before you begin painting. Dilute the gesso with water; apply it with a wide housepainter’s brush, let it dry, and then sand it smooth. Repeat the process two or more times. If you like a slighter rougher tooth, add less water and do not sand the board.

You can also oil paint on watercolor paper or vellum. You can size the paper with an acrylic medium first so that the oil paint does not eventually rot the paper. If you want to make your painting last longer (permanence) you need to choose heavy paper of at least 200 lbs.

This is the end of short primer on priming different grounds for the purpose of oil painting. There is much more to learn but this will give you enough information to go to a reputable art supply store and be able to converse intelligently on the subject of priming and priming methods. This will certainly start the conversation and you will learn right there about the latest techniques and inventions regarding priming and while you’re at it also about stretching canvases.

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.

Remi Engels, Ph.D. asked:


If you paint with oils you will need a solvent to clean your brushes and thin your paints. Of course, if you paint with water soluble oils then your solvent will be water.

Turpentine is a standard solvent used to thin ordinary oil paints. You can purchase turpentine in any art supply store or hardware store. In some cases, the kind of turpentine you buy in a hardware store may be fresher because of the shorter turnaround time.

Some artists work with mineral spirits. These are also available in hardware stores. To save money, buy the largest available quantity and use a smaller container when you do your actual painting.

Tube oil paint (i.e., oil paint directly from the tube) can be difficult to manipulate. Some colors are stiffer than others and may be hard to evenly distribute over your canvas. To solve this problem, artists often need to mix their tube paints with a so-called painting medium.

A painting medium is a liquid solution that makes the oil paint smoother and easier to manipulate. Adding any one of a number of different painting mediums changes the consistency of the paint. Some mediums are meant to make the paint thinner for glazing and others are meant to make the paint thicker for impasto painting. There are also mediums to shorten or lengthen the drying.

 

The most basic medium is regular turpentine. Adding a little turpentine thins oils paint. Another frequently used medium is linseed oil, which makes the paint more fluid but, over time, it also tends to yellow the paint. The most commonly used medium is a combination of turpentine and linseed oil, sometimes with the addition of a little damar varnish.

Begin by experimenting with a half-and-half mixture of turpentine and linseed oil. Because linseed oil slows down the drying process, you may want to increase the proportion of turpentine. A good mixture is three parts of turpentine to one part of linseed oil.

Once you find the medium you like, mix a batch and store it in a tightly sealed jar. As you paint, dip your brush into the medium, then add a little paint, then mix them together on your palette (mixing surface).

Preliminary compositions can be drawn on your canvas with a so-called thin turp wash, i.e., a little bit of paint with a lot of turpentine. A turp wash evaporates very quickly, so you can quickly paint over them.

In general, the more turpentine you use the matter the finish will be and the more linseed oil you use the glossier it will be. If you like robust, permanently visible brushstrokes, you may want to use less medium. Dry brush is one technique where you do not add any medium at all.

Special painting mediums are also available that change the oil paint in different ways. The most common are those that shorten or lengthen the drying time of the oil paint. Check your art supply store or the Internet to see the available types of mediums. All medium bottles will show instructions on how best to use the particular medium.

Oil paintings must be varnished to protect them from undesirable elements such as dirt and toxins. Varnish is a clear solution made from a resin and turpentine or some other solvent.

In art-supply stores you will see two major types, retouching varnish and picture varnish. Depending on the paint layer thickness, it can take six months or more for an oil painting to dry. In the meantime, the surface of the painting needs to be protected with a coat of retouching varnish. After the varnish is applied, the turpentine evaporates, and leaving a thin protective coat. You can apply retouching varnish as soon as the paint feels dry to the touch.

 

Picture varnish contains more resin than retouching varnish. It should be applied about six months after you complete a painting. If you paint with impasto-like brushstrokes, you may have to wait as long as a year before applying the final coat.

 

Both types of varnish are applied in the same manner. Using a broad, flat nylon brush, apply the varnish evenly using horizontal strokes. You can also use retouching varnish to brighten dry dull patches in your painting.

vijay asked:


If in case you’re an artist by yourself, you most likely do not need to read this as your would perhaps already be knowing it. The information given here is for the first-time artists to give a basic understanding on do and don’ts of the art reproduction.

DO’S

1) Apply the oil paint densely, particularly in the foreground to give it a feel so it would stand out as an original oil painting.

2) You need to mix as few colors as probable to get to the preferred outcome. Try to keep it within three colors.

3) When possible in its place of using white to lessen a color, use a color such as lemon yellow or yellow ocher. This would give a less crumbly look and the colors would be cleaner.

4) Blend edges to make softer them in areas, which are in the backdrop and away from the center of interest.

5) Add thick paint to point out highlights such as on rocks, tree foliage etc. Thick paint on a wine bottle in a still life would make it shine more and make a persuasive light reflection.

Don’ts

a) Don’t thin pigment with turpentine, other than usage of linseed oil. However if you require an ink consistency to make thin lines such as three branches etc. this will be the omission since these are only small touches.

b) Do not ever over-mix your colors on your using palette. This would only result into flat and dull areas in your painting.

c) Avoid mixing more than three unlike colors. Be as straight as possible. If you learn the color wheel this would as well be a good help.

Additional Hints:

If in case you add up a very thin layer of linseed oil to your canvas before you start the paint, you would work less trying to stroke the pigment on. This would give you a more workable surface as the paint would slide on. Also you would not require varnishing your painting because it ends up with a shiny look.

Remember that you were the only person that knows the disparity among your palette and a canvas. As far as the pigment is concerned they are both mixing bases, sense you could even mix your paint on either one.

vijay asked:


Following are the tips for you to maintain good oil painting habits:

Tips for saving color:

• Clean away any mixtures near heaps of colors you are setting up to keep.

• Keep a habit to put colors in same place on palette – used up areas must be worn out & wiped for new oil paint for next painting session.

• For disposable palettes scoop off mounds of paint you desire to maintain with your knife and move them to a fresh sheet; if a skin shapes, stab and take away the skin and work with the new color under.

• If you are not regular on painting for a week – cover palette with plastic cover & place in freezer.

• When you desire to clean your palette clean off central mixing area of wooden/acrylic palette, when you are done with your oil painting,

• For caring for tube keep tubes clean, wipe necks & caps.

Caring for your brushes:

• Wipe to take away surplus paint on rags, newspaper, etc.

• Rinse in container of solvent not advisable to soak.

• Clean your oil painting brush with rags, newspaper to immerse up solvent

• You can also use mild soap (shampoo or dawn), put dab in palm of your hand, foam brush in palm moving in circle to work foam into bristles.

• Lather & wash it in lukewarm water until soap suds are snow white, & rinse with clear water; bristles might discolor.

• Press bristles into tidy, solid shape while moist.

• Let it dry and store in jar bristle-end up.

Safety precautions:

• Read labels on oil paints and mediums – some are gently toxic (cadmium colors), so you need to careful with it.

• Avoid consumption of food or smoking while you paint

• Wash hands carefully after oil painting reproduction session; try using lotion to hands before hand, paints would wash off easier

• Some solvents don’t create deadly fumes, any how, must be used in well air room – open a window

• Some solvents are combustible also and toxic (gasoline, kerosene) – stick to turpentine and petroleum stuff made for artist’s use.