How to Oil Paint

Oil Paints

Oil paints are extremely versatile. They can be used thickly in impasto or extremely thinly in glazes; they can be opaque or transparent. You need to have an idea of the kind of painting you want to do before you buy your paint. Are you gonna slop it on nice and thick or are you going for detail without visible brush strokes?

I suggest these colours: Titanium White, Yellow Ochre, Cadmium Yellow, Cadmium Red, Alizarin Crimson, Burnt Sienna, Raw Umber, Ultramarine Blue, Viridian Green and Ivory Black.

Brushes

I won't spend a fortune on my brushes because they won't survive a month, so I tend to cheap out. This is what I'm told are the best - stiff hog-hair brushes are ideal for thick oil paint. Cheap hog brushes work as well as the more expensive ones, they just don't last as long. Use soft sable brushes, or the cheaper synthetic alternatives, for washes where you don't want brush marks to show. I suggest you try brushes with both long and short handles and different head shapes to see which you prefer."

All the other Tools

I use water based oils so I get to skip the need for thinners and solvents to clean my brushes. they gave me eczema. Not fun. (If you're using solvents make sure your room is well ventilated!) You'll need some linseed oil to dilute your colour or  increase transparency or to smooth your paint out for finer, smoother lines. To get started you'll need a primer. Unless you purchase primed canvass, you'll need to coat it before you begin painting. If you're painting on paper you'll need one coat or your oil paints will destroy the paper. You can purchase palettes but I prefer to use white  styrofoam meat trays. Since they're going directly into a landfill I figure I might as well prolong it's use and it's life! (My friends save them for me now.)

Let's Get Painting!

I'm going to show you how I paint. I like realism, although I am trying to become more 'painterly'. I used to take several photos and images and put them together into one finished piece. Having spent almost 15 years as a graphic designer I've become quite adept with Photoshop. I can place elements of many photographic images and marry them into my finished design, ensuring lighting, texture and colour work for me. I print out my design and transfer it onto my primed canvass.

What to Paint

You might want to start out with something a little more simple than that if this is your first oil painting. Look for a simple image with colours you like. My first painting was in that adult class I told you about. It was a small ship on the water. The entire class painted it. 

Step One - Prepare your work space

 Choose a place to work where there is good ventilation--a window or door can be opened, a fan can be turned on, and / or you have a fairly open space where air can circulate. If you paint outside you'll need to set up securely so the wind won't blow things over. Insects, especially bees, love Citrus Thinner.

Adjust your easel so you can easily touch your painting surface without bending down or standing on tip-toes while holding your brush. Standing is better than sitting, but if you want to sit, paint an arm's length from the easel. I sit and stand!

Put down a drop cloth, plastic bag, or tarp if you're not in a place where you can make a mess. Secure edges with masking tape to keep it from bunching up or blowing away. Your work area is going to stand entirely on the drop cloth, so make sure you have covered enough area to have plenty of elbow room. If you plan on working at a table with a table easel, cover the floor below you and the table top.

Go put on your painting clothes! You're ready to get started.

Step Two - Set up your paints

You need to have one container with just solvent, and the other with medium. I have a bottle of water, soap and linseed oil as I use water soluble oil paints. A standard painting medium is 1 part oil to 2 parts solvent. The most common oil is linseed and its varieties (refinded, cold pressed, or stand oils) but some painters use safflower, walnut or poppy oils. Alkyd resin and Japan drier can be added to the painting medium to speed drying time. Put the solvent (mineral spirits, or brush cleaning fluid) in a closeable container.

Have enough room for your palette, brushes and palette knife, solvent and solvent / oil containers, rags and paint tubes to be comfortably displayed, readily available for you to use.

If you choose to buy a variety of paint colors, try not to get excited about squeezing every single color onto your palette before you begin to paint, as this will waste a lot of paint. Give yourself 2 or three colors to start with and go from there.

Step Three - Outline your design

I used to spend hours copying my design onto canvass. I know project it on. I'm surprised that Leonardo Da' Vinci didn't invent a projector and use it! If her were alive today I am positive he's be all over it. So I save a few hours of my life on each painting by projecting.

I outline the design with colours mixed with linseed oil. It helps the paint dry quicker. I sometimes colour code each area if the painting is complicated and filled with detail. For instance, I'll use green for the foliage in the background. I'll use flesh tones for my fairy and I'll use blue for the sky.   Avoid using Ivory Black for an underpainting or sketching as it dries much slower than other oil paints.

When I first began oil painting I tried drawing on my image with pencil. The lead won't interact well with the paint and will get swished along by your brush strokes. So it's a no-no.

Step Four - Painting!

Paint! This part really depends on what you want to produce. There are certain things to keep in mind no matter what you're painting. For example, oil paints have a short blending life on the canvas. It's not hard to turn an area into a dull brown mud spot if there are a lot of repetitive layers and alterations made. If you try to alter something and it doesn't work, grab a rag and wipe it off. All the paint from that area will come off. Oils take a while to dry, so you have time to remove paint for almost 24 hours after it was applied. Just like any other paint, if you make the first coat too thick, it won't dry all the way.

I paint in layers, from the background to the foreground. You'll see by looking at this image that I'm painting the background. Once it was complete I painted my Fairy. Once she was complete, I painted the shrubs in front of her.  

Clean your brushes well between color changes. When you're ready to remove paint from your brush and use a different color, wipe as much paint off with a rag as you can before putting the brush into the thinner. This will make your thinner last longer and will remove more paint from the brush. Swish your brush in the thinner container, then dry it off with a rag.

Painting Tips

I almost always lay your oil paints out on your palette in the same order so that, with time, you'll be able to pick up a bit of a colour instinctively.

• The proportion of oil (medium) should be increased for each subsequent layer in an oil painting – known as painting 'fat over lean' – because the lower layers absorb oil from the layers on top of them. If the upper layers dry faster than the lower ones, they can crack.
• Pigments containing lead, cobalt, and manganese accelerate drying. They can be mixed with other colours to speed up drying and are ideal for under layers. (Student-quality paints usually contain cheaper alternatives to these pigments, generally labelled hues.)
• If you want to clean away a layer of oil paint or oil varnish, use alcohol, which is a powerful solvent.

Step Five - Cleaning your brushes and finishing your session

If I won't be back in my studio for more than a day, I cover my palette with saran wrap and place it on my fridge. It's just warm enough to keep my paint alive for a few extra days.

Wipe your dirty brushes off as much as possible with clean rags and then swish in the thinner until there doesn't appear to be paint coming off of the brush. Do this to all the brushes you used. Under lukewarm running water, hold a bar of mild hand soap in one hand, then run the brush along the soap, as if you were painting on the soap. Go with the direction of the bristles until no paint runs off the brush. Hold the bristles between your index finger and thumb, under the running water, making sure none of the bristles are bent or frayed out. Press firmly with your thumbnail from the base of the bristles to the tip with your index finger firm against the back, opposite your thumb, until no paint comes out of the brush. Rinse soap out thoroughly, and wrap a clean rag or paper towels around the bristles of the clean, rinsed brushes, pressing to absorb excess water.

Put the lid on the thinner container and leave it until next time, regardless of how cloudy it is. When the thinner settles, the paint goes to the bottom, and clean thinner remains on top. The next time you want to paint, you can pour the clean thinner into a clean container, wipe the pigment from the bottom, then pour the thinner back into your thinner container. This process saves a lot of money and solvent!