Top 10 Tips to Start Oil Painting Like a Pro by Ralph Serpe

LEARN HOW TO DRAW

You will be amazed at how much learning how to draw will help improve your oil paintings. In fact, years ago art students were not permitted to paint until they learned the fundamentals of drawing. Drawing gets you more in touch with value, line and form without the distraction of color. Find a good book on drawing fundamentals and start there.

LEARN ABOUT COLOR

Nothing can confuse a beginner more than color. You need to have a good understanding of color theory if you intend on producing high quality paintings. Concepts like color temperature, hue and intensity are very important and should be studied. Once you have a good understanding of color theory, you must then learn how to mix your colors. There is much more to color mixing then meets the eye. For instance, you cannot mix any old blue with any old yellow and get the perfect green. Certain blues and yellows behave differently than others, so you must learn about the properties of each color.

PERSPECTIVE

Perspective in painting is one of the biggest hurdles for beginners. Sometimes a painting just looks “wrong”, and often it is because the perspective in the painting is off. Learning about perspective will teach you how to properly translate a 3-dimensional world onto a 2-dimensional canvas or other support. Learning perspective is a necessary ingredient toward producing convincing oil paintings. There is of course an exception to this, if you are producing an abstract work and your intentions are to warp the perspective.

MATERIALS

Materials to an oil painter are like what a guitar is to a guitarist. A guitarist cannot play without his instrument nor can he play without understanding how his instrument works. Your painting materials are your instruments. They are what enable you to express yourself, so learning more about them is an absolute must. Learn about the different kinds of brushes and what they do. Know your paints. Not all colors behave the same. Some are more transparent or opaque than others. Know your supports and the difference between them. The list goes on.

TECHNIQUES

There are a plethora of oil painting techniques that you can learn to create your paintings. Techniques like wet on wet, glazing, alla prima, knife painting, etc. should all be explored. Working with various techniques will help you develop your own unique style and help you to produce more interesting paintings.

START WITH A CONCEPT

I remember not too long ago, what a frustrated painter I was. I had 10 or so incomplete paintings collecting dust in the corner of my small studio. I would attempt to complete these paintings over and over again, until finally I had to take a step back and try and understand what I was doing wrong. The reason I lost interest and was unable to complete these paintings, was because I did not have a concept in mind before I started. I would start haphazardly without a clear vision of what I really wanted to accomplish. Concepts are methods for solving problems in a painting. What do you want your painting to be about? When you have a blueprint or roadmap in mind before you start painting, there is no room for diversion. You must stick to your plan.

MASTER YOUR BRUSH

A very important part of oil painting is having control over your brush. Without good brush control , your effectiveness as a painter is limited. Make sure you have the best possible brushes you can afford. One of the biggest mistakes artists make, myself included, is not reloading the brush enough. Make certain you always have enough paint on your brush so that there is always a layer of paint between your brush and the canvas. Do not try and scrub the paint into the canvas. Paint your strokes and leave them be. Don’t over work your brushstrokes.

FAT OVER LEAN

Follow this rule and you will reduce the chance of your paint cracking. Each layer of your oil painting should have a higher oil content then the one below it.

ORGANIZED PALETTE

Having a clean organized palette is an essential part of good painting. Get into the habit of laying out your colors the same way every time you paint. Arrange your colors along the edges of your palette leaving a lot of room in the center for mixing. Don’t be afraid to squeeze out a good amount of paint, especially your whites. You will be more productive if you aren’t continuously stopping to squeeze out more paint. Make certain to include all of the colors you think you will need to complete that session of painting. It’s a good idea to continuously wipe your palette clean during the painting process. Keep some alcohol handy so that you can keep the mixing area of your palette clean.

INSPIRATION

If you are ever feeling uninspired don’t get discouraged. Try taking a walk outside, breath in the air, look around at the beautiful earth God created. Try playing music while you are painting. You will be surprised how music can affect your painting. Visit a museum or local gallery. Viewing other works of art can really get your creative juices flowing.

About the Author

Ralph Serpe is the Webmaster and Founder of two popular communities for artists: CreativeSpotlite.com – Visit today for more free art lessons on a variety of different mediums. ArtInstructionBlog.com – Visit today for more free art instruction on a variety of different mediums.

The author invites you to visit: http://www.creativespotlite.com

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Tips on Oil Painting – Basic Palette

In this article I will detail the tube colors of a starter palette for beginning artists. These are in fact the colors I personally use most often Here is the proposed 6-color palette:

1. Lemon Yellow
2. Cadmium Yellow
3. Cadmium Red
4. Permanent Rose (Alizarin Crimson)
5. French Ultramarine
6. Phthalo Blue
7. Titanium White
8. Ivory Black

Note that White and Black are generally not classified as colors. A color is often known by different names depending on the manufacturer. For example, Permanent Rose is more or less the same as Alizarin Crimson.

The above palette has the capacity to produce very clean secondary colors, i.e., colors that are a mixture of just two tube colors. Notice that there are two versions of each primary color (yellow, red, and blue). One is a cool version (i.e., leaning towards the blues and greens) and the other is a warm version (i.e., leaning towards the reds and yellows). I recommend using this simple palette for quite a while before adding other tube colors.

First learn to completely understand how the six colors together with black and white interact in their numerous mixtures. Here are some of the more important properties of the palette colors:

* Lemmon Yellow – Lemmon Yellow is a cool, greenish leaning, and opaque yellow. Opaque means solid or not-transparent. This yellow is a medium-to-slow drier with medium to low tinting strength. Low tinting strength means that you need to add a lot of this paint to see its effect in a mixture. Its greenish bias makes it an ideal yellow to use with Phthalo Blue (Red Shade) to produce very clean secondary greens.

* Cadmium Yellow – Cadmium Yellow is a warm, orange leaning, and opaque yellow. This yellow is a medium-to-slow drier and has a high tinting strength. Its orange bias makes it an ideal yellow to use with Cadmium Red to produce very clean secondary oranges.

* Cadmium Red – Cadmium Red is a warm, orange leaning, and opaque red. This red is a slow drier and has a high tinting strength. Its orange bias makes it an ideal red to use with Cadmium Yellow to produce very clean secondary oranges.

* Permanent Rose – Permanent Rose is a cool, violet leaning, and transparent red. This red is a medium-to-slow drier and has a medium tinting strength. Its violet bias makes it an ideal red to use with French Ultramarine to produce very clean secondary violet.

* French Ultramarine – French Ultramarine is a warm, violet leaning, and semi-transparent blue. This blue is a slow drier and has a high tinting strength. Its violet bias makes it an ideal blue to use with Permanent Rose to produce very clean secondary violets.

* Phthalo Blue (Red Shade) – Phthalo Blue is a cool, green leaning, and transparent blue. This blue is a medium-to-slow drier and has a very high tinting strength. Its green bias makes it an ideal blue to use with Lemmon Yellow to produce very clean secondary greens.

* Titanium White – Titanium White is an opaque white and covers up just about any color. There are other whites such as Flake White and Zinc White. As a beginning artist you may want to avoid using Zinc White because it tends to crack when applied thickly.

* Ivory Black – Ivory Black is the cleanest of all the tube blacks and is extremely constructive in lots of mixtures. Other tube blacks include Lamp Black and Mars Black. This simple palette is amazingly versatile and many minimal-minded professionals use nothing else. Because there are so few tube colors involved, becoming an expert in this palette is fairly easy.

About the Author

Remi Engels, Ph.D., is a pencil portrait artist and oil painter. Samples of Remi’s work can be found at Remi’s Pencil Portraits and Remi’s Oil Paintings. You are also cordially invited to subscribe to his Free Portrait Drawing Course and his popular Art Tip Newsletter.

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Art Lesson: Learn About Color Schemes for Your Next Painting

Much research and experimentation has been done on color and how it can effect a persons mood and behavior. Certain colors can calm a person, while others can stimulate excitement or cheerfulness. That being said, you may want to think carefully on the type of color scheme you choose for your next painting. This article will talk about five different color schemes you can use to plan out your next painting. The tips in this article can be applied to any painting medium.

Painting is all about harmony. Harmony in a painting is when the arrangement of colors and objects are pleasing to the viewers eyes. As a painter you can either put too much into a painting or not enough. If your painting is too chaotic you may scare the viewer away. On the other hand, if your painting lacks something, it may be perceived as boring, and your viewer will not be engaged, so it’s important to have balance in your color arrangements.

ANALOGOUS COLOR SCHEME

This color scheme uses colors that are next to one another on the color wheel. With an analogous color scheme, one color is usually the dominant one, while the others serve as an accent to the dominant color. You are limited in colors when using this scheme but that does not mean your paintings have to be boring. Just vary the intensity (how dull or bright a color is) and value (how light or dark a color is) to make your painting more interesting and pleasing to the eye. An example of three colors next to each other on the color wheel, that can be used in an analogous color scheme are orange, yellow and yellow-orange. Use only a few different colors with the analogous color scheme. If you add too many, you may destroy the harmony in your painting.

COMPLEMENTARY COLOR SCHEME

The complimentary color scheme is a good choice if you want strong contrast in your painting. Complimentary colors are colors that are opposite each other on the color wheel. Examples of complementary color schemes are reds with greens, oranges with blues and violets with yellows. You shouldn’t feel limited when using this color scheme. For instance, instead of using plain orange, you could use colors on either side like red-orange and yellow orange. Instead of using plain blue, you could use combinations like blue-violet or blue green. You could also vary the intensity and values as well. It can be difficult to create balance with this color scheme. To avoid ruining harmony, choose one dominant color and use the complimentary color as accents. For instance in a yellow and violet complementary color scheme, you could make the main subject and background violets and accent remaining parts of the painting in yellows.

TRIADIC COLOR SCHEME

The triadic color scheme uses three colors that are evenly spaced or equidistant from one another on the color wheel. This scheme produces strong contrast but still retains harmony. This color combination is more challenging for beginners. You can get carried away by making all three colors too intense thereby destroying the balance in your painting. You should allow one color to dominate and use the two other colors to accent the rest of the painting.

MONOCHROMATIC COLOR SCHEME

This color scheme is probably the easiest for beginners to work with. The monochromatic color scheme uses variations in value and intensity of only one color. Beginners like this color scheme because they only need to create a value plan using one color, which makes things a lot easier. Your painting will not be as exciting as other schemes that utilize more than one color, but your painting will produce a peaceful and soothing effect.

SPLIT COMPLEMENTARY COLOR SCHEME

The split-complimentary color scheme uses three colors and is a twist on the complimentary color scheme. Instead of using the colors compliment, you will use the two colors adjacent to its compliment on the color wheel. For instance, Red, Yellow-Green and Blue-Green could be a split complimentary color scheme. 

Don’t let color theory intimidate or discourage you. Working with color in your paintings takes some getting used to. With time and practice you will begin to develop the eye of a good painter. A great way to learn more about the use of color in paintings is to view the art of experienced painters. Make some plans to head out to a museum or visit an online gallery. God Bless and Happy painting!

About the Author

Do you want to learn how to paint ? You can start today! Visit http://www.creativespotlite.com/art-instruction.htm today for free lessons and tips on a variety of different painting mediums including step by step painting demonstrations from professional artists!

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Choosing A Subject for A Landscape Painting by Geoffrey Warburton

"Kelowna Boardwalk" by Rebekah Wilkinson

What, exactly, do you paint? How do you choose, from everything there is to see, the subject you end up painting? I can only answer for myself, and say that there has to be a call to action. I’ve walked past the same spots every day, and suddenly seen the potential in a particular view; a change in the light, a new appreciation of the possibilities. If that’s not there, then nothing is going to happen. It sounds a little airy fairy, maybe, as if you have to wait on inspiration, but it’s more a case of putting yourself in inspiration’s way. If you look for a subject, and you look long enough and hard enough, you will find it.

As a case in point, I found a view I liked on my walk and kept coming back to the spot to make more drawings.

There is no substitute for this. The process eases you into the painting by slow degrees. You see more and more things you will end up using, and gain great confidence through your slow mastery of them. By repeatedly returning to the spot, I rehearsed the painting that I intended to do.

It raises another important point that you might care to consider: when you keep coming back over time, you see the same scene in different seasons, at different times of day. This not only helps you to decide which aspect of the scene is the one you want to paint, it also gives you valuable insight into the structure of the scene. Going back in winter gave me the shapes of the bare branches of the trees. Going back at different times told me where the light came from, and how it changed in colour and the angle at which it fell. Don’t be in a hurry, is the motto. Getting to know a scene is never time wasted.

Doing the drawings brought up the problems I’d have to face too. I wanted figures on the path going down, to provide some narrative interest and to help explain the recession in depth, but I knew there was a risk of ending up with a sight the eye would baulk at; one figure apparently next to the other, but much larger because of perspective. Easy to read in real life, but tricky to set up in a painting. Also, the view of the field on the left that I wanted required me to adopt another point of view and somehow blend it with the view down the path. Technical considerations that had to be addressed, and I think I did all right.

It sounds a little cold and calculating, which is really a good thing. I’m not a great believer in unplanned art. I think there’s always a balance to be reached between inspiration and craft. Without the former, there’s no point in making art. Without the latter, it all falls to pieces. You need a spark, but you also need to know how to lay the firewood, as it were. I could labour over some more similes, but I think you get the point. Art needs craft.

I began to tackle the tricky business of how much detail to include and how much needed editing. Visible reality is a ghastly mess, for the most part. There’s far too much of it, for one thing, which is why using photographs as reference sources is a mixed blessing. Photographs tell you too much. They’re like the friend who starts to tell you a story and doesn’t know what to leave out, so that in the end the story is lost in irrelevant detail.

How do we solve this problem? I suspect the invention of the digital camera may prove to be he best thing since sliced bread. An image editing programme such as Photoshop or Paintshop Pro can be used to fiddle with reference shots so that irrelevant detail is removed, blurred or altered. It’s another weapon in the artist’s armoury, and one we would be remiss to ignore.

About The Author

I’m a landscape painter whose work has been exhibited in many UK galleries. I’m currently building a website for landscape painters, which can be found at http://www.paintlandscape.com and you can follow my blog at http://www.warburtonium.blogspot.com

Visit the author’s web site at: http://www.paintlandscape.com

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