Painting with Oils

Painting has been one of my life's greatest sustaining pleasures. It has enlarged my world. My goal here is to share that pleasure with you and to see painting bring out the world of creativity within you!

Oil paints have been most artists' first choice for hundreds of years, with good reason. The colors are gorgeous, you can do anything with them and they last forever. Oil paint is slow drying so you can remove what you don’t like while it’s wet or you can paint over it when it’s dry. Oil paint is easy to use once you learn the basics. I’ve taught beginners to masters and I’ve learned that everything builds on just a few basic concepts that I will show you here.

This web site is set up to take you step by step to a finished painting.
· First learn about the materials you will need to get started.
· Next learn a little basic information in easy steps.
· Finally use these concepts as you paint the four exercises with me on your own canvases.
· You will then have the skills to paint anything you can see or imagine.

OIL PAINTING MATERIALS


To get started you need oil paints, brushes, a place to mix your colors, a tool to mix them with and a surface to paint on. Plus you want a way to clean up. The ingredients are easy to find and you don’t need a lot of them. You can do a lot with a little. Good brushes and good paints are easier to use and go farther than the cheap ones.

The Minimum Kit
Paints
Brushes
Palette
Palette knives
Thinner
Medium
Canvas
Gesso
Saving Colors
Easel
Studio / Lighting
Cleaning Up
Varnish / Retouch Varnish

OIL PAINTING EXERCISES

Master These Oil Painting Exercises and You're On Your Way
Over the years of teaching people how to use oil paints, I have found that this set of exercises has the best results with the least amount of work in the shortest amount of time.

Paint as loosely or tightly as you like, the principles of these exercises are the same in all styles.

At the end you will have had enough painting experience to start to paint your own masterpieces!

Basic Forms

You will learn how to paint the five basic forms, the cone, cylinder, sphere, cube and torus. These forms are the foundation of all the objects you see. To be able to paint these then is to be able to paint anything.

Values Within Colors

In this exercise the colors are seen only as lights and darks or values. This painting will teach you to paint more complex forms than the previous exercise and it will teach you to see a color's value.

Color and Form

In this exercise you will practice mixing colors and painting these bright simple forms.

Distance and Texture

In this exercise you will practice creating the illusion of distance with color. You will also learn to see the form within textured objects.
OIL PAINTING EXERCISES ~ Distance and Texture

Distance and Texture is Your Last Exercise
In this exercise we explore form as it appears in heavily textured subjects and the way colors change as they are seen at different distances.

Distance Changes Colors
As the same colors are seen at different distances they change. When matching colors on your palette you will see that all colors acquire their complements when they are seen farther away.

Even in this short distance the middle reds of the tomatoes are different. The farthest one has the most of its complement (green) in it making it look farther away. Also the green tablecloth as it recedes has its complement (red) mixed with it.



Here the intensity of the colors of the leaves creates the impression of near and far. The most intense colors are always in the foreground.

Look For Texture Between Light and Shadow

Textures are most clearly defined at the transition of the light to the shadow. On smooth objects the edge of the highlight defines the degree of smoothness. On rough objects the change from light to dark defines the texture.


Spheres and cones from smooth to rough, the value shapes within the forms create the illusion of three dimensions.


With these things in mind we paint this subject.


The basic shapes and angles are drawn with thinned white paint on a toned canvas.


Landscape paintings begin with the things farthest away in this case the values of the sky.


The three values of the clouds are blended with a Flat and Filbert sable brushes, to create the softest textures.


The ocean values are put in. As colors recede they become less intense so the blue ocean at the horizon has more orange in it than the blue ocean in the front.


All receding colors become less intense. Their complements are added as their distance is increased.


The grass in the distance is the same color as the grass in the on the hill but because it's farther away it is less intense. The yellow-orange of the grass has its complement, blue-violet, added as it is seen farther away.


Texture begins. The edge of a Flat brush is used to begin the grass.


The darks of the trees are placed first here to further define the drawing. The edge of a Flat bristle brush is used.


Next the lights are placed.


The middle values complete the form.


The lights and darks for the foreground grass are put in.


And the middle value completes the form. Notice the change in intensity of the grass colors in the distance, on the middle hill and in the foreground.

This is the first layer of paint. Oil paint is well suited to working in layers if you want to improve an area or add something else, wait three days for it to dry before adding new paint.

With your review of the basic information and the completion of these four exercises you should have enough different types of painting experiences to be equipped to paint anything you want. So what are you going to do? You can send me a photo if you like.