Basics of painting with oil paints. Oil Painting Basics of Oil Painting

Oil painting. Basics. Bill Martin's lessons for beginners.

There are things you should know before you start painting in oils.
All paints are a mixture of dry pigment and liquid. In oil paints, the coloring pigment is mixed with linseed oil. Flaxseed oil is an oil that dries out through the process of oxidation with air. It absorbs oxygen from the air and crystallizes the paint pigment on a permanent basis. Once the oil dries, it cannot be removed.
Oil paints are thick. They are produced in tubes. The paints are squeezed onto the palette and mixed using a palette knife to obtain new shades. Then they are applied to a vertically positioned canvas with hard elastic brushes.
Oil paints dry very slowly. Typically you need to wait three days before adding the next layer. This long drying time is both an advantage and a disadvantage. The big advantage is that you will have time to comprehend what you have drawn. This is very useful when you make gradient transitions from one color to another. Or, if you are unhappy with how it turns out while the paint is still wet, you can scrape it off with a rag, palette knife or rubber scraper and repaint.
The downside is that if you put wet paints of two different colors next to each other, they may blend together unevenly. The palette, brushes and damp canvas must be handled very carefully so as not to smear yourself, clothes, food and furniture.
You can work with paint for up to 12 hours at a time, then you must leave the work to dry for three days, after which you can continue working. When the paints have dried, you can apply new colors on top. There can be many layers to a work. Each subsequent layer must be the same in thickness or thicker than the previous one, otherwise cracks will occur.
After the work is completely dry (from three to six months), you need to apply a protective layer of Damara varnish.

DRAWING.

A complex design is quickly lost when applying oil paints, so it is better to label the design simple figures and contour lines. The drawing can be done directly on the canvas, or it can be prepared in advance and transferred to the canvas.
When applying a drawing directly to the canvas, it is better to use diluted paint. Since it's already paint, you won't have to seal it from subsequent layers.
You can also use coal. The charcoal fill will need to be isolated from subsequent layers with a fixer. Soft charcoal is easier to fix with fixative than compressed charcoal.
The drawing can also be applied with a pencil to the canvas. Then also secure with fixative. The sharp tip of a pencil can make cracks in the primer layer, so you can additionally apply another transparent layer of primer. If you have applied another coat of primer, no fixer is required.

In the photo: a can of fixer, in the box there is carbon paper.
It is better to prepare a drawing for translation using carbon paper on thin tracing paper, then it will be easier to translate. Attach the drawing to the canvas. Translate it using carbon paper. Trace your drawing with carbon paper underneath. Use a ballpoint pen of a contrasting color to see which areas you have already translated and control the thickness of the lines. The applied pattern must also be secured with a fixer or a thin glaze layer of transparent primer.

TRANSITION ONE COLOR TO ANOTHER

Let's consider a graduated transition from one color to another. Oil paints, because they take time to dry, allow you to move them around the canvas while they are still wet. This is why it is much easier to create smooth gradations of color with oils than with other paints. This can be done with any brushes. But flat brushes are best, and round brushes are worst. The same principles apply for small and large stretch marks.


The paints are mixed on the palette and applied to their intended places on the canvas. The brush is then moved back and forth in a cross pattern between the two gradations of color until a satisfactory result is obtained. Then parallel strokes are carried out to finalize the area. Work with a clean brush from dark to medium, and then again with a clean brush from light to medium.


(A) In this example, the brush strokes are ALWAYS perpendicular to the highlight. Moving the brush in a circle, we try to make strokes perpendicular to the highlight, respectively, we get the shape of the strokes of a twisted brush.
(B) Depending on the location of the main colors of the stretch, an idea of ​​the plane in which the surface is located is created. Notice how the shades are arranged to represent a flat surface (left) and a curved surface (right).

WE CREATE FORMS

All shapes are created from five basic shapes. These shapes are: ball, cone, cylinder, cube and torus (donut, bagel). Parts of these forms form any objects that we see. Imagine half a cylinder on a cube and you get the shape of an American mailbox. Half a ball and a cone will give you the shape of a teardrop, a Christmas tree is a cone, an oak tree is a hemisphere (half a ball), and a cylindrical mug usually has a handle in the shape of half a torus (donut).


Chiaroscuro creates form. Each of these forms has clearly defined locations of light and shadow. The sphere is characterized by a sickle and ovals. The cones have a triangular illuminated part and the rest is in shadow. Cubes and flat surfaces contain stretch marks (a gradient transition of light into shadow).
The cylinders are made of strips. Thor - made of crescents and stripes.
Concave versions of these forms have the same chiaroscuro, but without reflections.
If you learn to draw these five shapes, you can draw anything.

The ball (sphere) is defined by crescents and ovals. Balls are painted with crescent-shaped and twisted brush strokes.


Cones are made up of triangles of light and shadow. Cones are painted with triangular brush strokes.


The cylinders consist of stripes of light and shadow. Cylinders are painted with parallel brush strokes.

Cubes and any flat surfaces follow the same rules. Graduated transition from light to shadow. If the depicted surface is parallel to the canvas, then it is depicted in one even tone. A cube is a combination of intersecting planes. Each side of the cube contains a chiaroscuro stretch. The cube is drawn with parallel brush strokes.

The Thor contains aspects of two other figures. It has stripes of light and shadow, like a cylinder, in the center, and crescents, like a sphere, at the edges. Thor is written using twisted strokes and crescent strokes.


Here you see that to convey the shape of an object you need to use light and shadow, not contour lines. Light can be confusing, so try to see the shape of the object first, and then how exactly the light falls on that shape.

COLOR MATCHING


The rainbow gives us examples of the pure colors that surround us in the world. The colors of the rainbow in order: red-violet, red, red-orange, orange, yellow-orange, yellow, yellow-green, green, blue-green, blue-violet, violet. When these colors are arranged in a circle, we get a “color wheel.” The color wheel is a must when comparing colors.


The circle is positioned so that yellow, the brightest light color, is at the top, and purple, the darkest, is at the bottom. From top to bottom, from the right, there are yellow-orange, orange, red-orange, red and red-violet. These colors are called warm.
From top to bottom, on the left side, there are yellow-green, green, blue-green, blue and blue-violet. These colors are called cool.

Additional colors.


Any TWO colors opposite each other on the color wheel are called COMPLEMENTARY colors. Red and green are complementary colors to each other because they are located opposite each other on the color wheel. Yellow and purple are also complementary to each other. Yellow-green and red-violet are complementary colors. Complementary colors placed side by side on the canvas enhance each other. Complementary colors neutralize each other when mixed on the palette. On this plate, complementary colors are at opposite ends of the scale opposite each other. If we move toward the middle on this scale, we end up with a neutral gray color, the least saturated of all.

All colors have shades. The pure spectral colors in this picture are indicated by letters.
So how do we select colors keeping all of the above in mind?
We just need to answer these three questions.
1. What color will make the color we need, where is this color located on the color wheel? (meaning spectral color).
2. How intense is it? (the more additional color we add to the color, the less saturated the color we need becomes).
3. Shade (how dark or light it will be).

Here's how it all works.


The paints are arranged by color on the palette.


We select a color like a brown leaf.
The spectral color will be red-violet. White is added to match the shade. Yellow-green, complementary to red-violet, is added to reduce its saturation.


Select the color of the green leaf.
Spectral green. Cadmium green is our base color. It contains a little yellow, so we tone it down with red-violet (quinacridone pink). Yellow-green and red-violet are complementary colors to each other.
We add white to clarify the shade.


Select the color of the silver electrical tape.
Spectral color blue. We add white to clarify the tonal saturation. Orange, complementary to blue, is added and we get gray.


Selecting the color of a three-dimensional object. A bar of soap.


First we select the middle. Spectral color – yellow-orange. We add a very small amount of additional blue-violet to reduce the intensity of the color. And a little bit of white.


To get light areas of our soap, we add white to the resulting color in the middle. To get the color of the shadow, add more blue-violet to the color of the middle.


So, the colors of the soap have been selected. Usually, to get the color of a shadow on an object, you need to add an additional color to the main color of the object. For darker shadows, use the main color of the subject, but with less white. In some cases, adding additional color doesn't darken the color enough, so that's when we add a little black.

SHADOWS

Shadows create light. Shadows are divided into three categories. The first is the shadowed part of the object, known simply as the SHADOW. The second is a falling shadow from an object, which is formed when the object obscures the light from the illumination source. The third category is the shadow of neighboring objects.


An object's shadow is a darker, less saturated version of its base color.
Direct light produces dark shadows. Diffused light produces less intense, blurry shadows.
Reflected light in the shadow (reflex).


Light falling on an object from its surroundings is called reflected light or reflex. The color of the objects that surround our subject significantly affects the reflected light. See the green reflected light in the left ball? Notice the reflected red in the middle ball. The color of the environment is an integral part of all shadows.


The light and shadow saturation of surrounding objects also affects the reflected light. The first ball just hangs in the air. The second ball also reflects the white surface. The third ball reflects the black surface. The light and shadow saturation of surrounding objects is also an integral part of shadows.

Falling shadows.

A cast shadow is always characterized by being darkest and most focused at the source of the shadow (the subject). Falling shadows are painted in a darker, less intense color than the color of the surface on which they fall.


The color of a falling shadow always contains a complementary color to the color of the illumination and a complementary color to the color of the surface on which the shadow lies.
See a blue tint in the shadow of an object that is illuminated by orange light? And an orange tint in the shadow of an object lit in blue. In the shadow of an object illuminated by red light there is a shade of green. And notice the red-violet hue of the shadow cast by an object illuminated with yellow-green light.
Drop shadows are associated with shape and texture.


Falling shadows describe the surroundings of an object. On the left, the wall is defined by the falling shadow of the glass. The shadow on the right indicates the presence of a mound.


The edges of a shadow define the texture of the surface on which the shadow falls.
Grass on the left and dirt with rocks on the right.

Falling shadows in direct and diffuse light.




Direct light (left) usually comes from a single light source - for example, the sun or a spotlight. It produces high contrast and rich, dark cast shadows.
Diffuse light is usually obtained from several light sources. It produces low contrast and unclear cast shadows.


Objects with virtually no cast shadow are ALWAYS in diffuse light, where they appear flatter and less textured.

Shadows from neighboring objects.


These are the dark shadows we see in places where objects touch each other. A dark line around a closed door, a dark line under a mug of coffee, a dark line between tightly clenched fingers - this is the shadow of neighboring objects.
It is relatively independent of the direction of illumination. These shadows in the shadows are usually the darkest parts of the drawing.


A narrow dark stripe under the cylinder on the left tells us that the objects are separated. The cylinder on the right is connected to its base.

CONTRAST

Using light and shadows together.

Contrast is the ratio of the lightest and darkest parts of an object or its surroundings.

Tone scale.

On the left is high contrast, on the right is low contrast.

When objects have high contrast, they appear closer to us. When contrast is lower, objects appear further away from us. Those rocks in the distance seem further away from us, their contrast is lower than the contrast of the rock closest to us.


The gradual saturation of objects with contrast makes them visually closer to us.


By the contrast of the falling shadow and its surroundings, you can determine the distance.

Low contrast


Objects in diffuse light have the lowest contrast.


Objects without a falling shadow are always in diffuse light. If an object has a tonal gradation from medium to dark, it should have a cast shadow.


If an object has a tonal transition from medium to light, then it will appear as if in a haze or fog.

CONTRAST IS CREATED BY THE TYPE OF LIGHT. High contrast corresponds to bright lighting. Low contrast corresponds to diffuse lighting, distant distances, and haze.

TEXTURE

Texture helps define what exactly you are seeing.

The texture is best seen when light fades into shadow. On smooth objects, glare is a distorted reflection of the light source itself. The sharper the focus of this reflection, the smoother the surface of the object. A glass bottle has a smoother surface than an aluminum bottle, which in turn is smoother than candle wax. We know how these objects focus the glare on themselves.

On objects without bright highlights, texture is clearly visible and is determined by the transition from light to shadow.

These ten objects are arranged in order of their texture.
Notice where your eye immediately looks to appreciate the texture of an object.

We look at the transition of light to shadow to determine how textured an object is.

Texture in diffused light.

On the left is direct light, on the right is diffused light.

Objects in direct light appear more textured than objects in diffuse light.
The log and towel appear softer and smoother in indirect lighting. Objects appear less textured in diffuse light because the transition from light to shadow takes longer.

GLAZING/LAYER LAYERS

Glazing layers are applied on top of the dried paint.

Transparent layers of oil paint are called glazing layers. Translucent are layers of glaze. To obtain glaze, the paint is diluted in a ratio of 1/3 Damara varnish, 1/3 turpentine and 1/3 linseed oil. Glaze is a thin transparent layer of paint, which is placed on another dried layer to obtain a shade of the third color. For example, if you put diluted quinacridone pink (a clear color) onto blue, you will get purple. If you glaze the exact same color, you will enhance it. Falling shadows on complex textures are often covered with glaze. Glazing darkens the color a little. (See the “Paints” lesson about transparency and matte).

This is glazing.

For example, the shell of a beetle needs to be greened.

The glazing liquid is mixed on a palette with cyan green (transparent color) until the required degree of transparency is achieved.

Then the mixture is applied with a core brush to the drawing in a horizontal position. Leave to dry overnight. When using glazing, you can change the color of the design without changing the direction of the paint strokes on the base layer.

Glaze is created by using a diluted matte color over the dried color of another paint. The glaze layer does not change color and is a translucent layer.

The paint is also mixed on the palette with the glazing mixture and applied to the horizontal surface with a core brush.

White (matte color) with glazing gives us rays of light. Leave the work to dry overnight.
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The art of painting is a vast layer of world culture, rooted in the prehistoric period. In the Paleolithic era on the walls of the caves in which they lived primitive people, drawings depicting animals and birds began to appear. It is characteristic that primitive contours drawn with ash, clay or chalk always depicted animals that could be the object of hunting. If people were depicted, then they were necessarily hunters.

Buffaloes and mammoths

More conscious painting, and already in a sense colorful, appeared later, in the 12-10 centuries BC. For example, a buffalo was depicted with ocher, accidentally found by a cave artist, and its horns and hooves - with coal, deposits of which were everywhere in those days.

Oil paints for painting in an extremely primitive form began to appear in the 10th-7th centuries BC. Spectral and chemical analysis determined the presence of natural pigment in the patterns on basalt stones. Several images were painted with paints containing egg yolk and protein.

How and with what to draw?

Still genuine artwork oil paints appeared only in the 15th century AD. The art of painting has acquired a material basis. Oil paints began to be widely used by artists thanks to the efforts of the Dutchman Jan van Eyck, who actively promoted them and even created an entire theory on the topic “How to paint with oil paints.”

Incident at the Museum

The Dutch or Flemish school of painting is one of the most subtle artistic techniques. Each brush stroke of the masters of the 15th and 16th centuries is distinguished by unprecedented naturalism. When Flemish paintings, still lifes and landscapes were exhibited at the Pushkin Museum in Moscow in 1984, an expert group of artists gathered to evaluate the paintings. One of the paintings suddenly attracted everyone's attention. The painting showed a vase that sat on the kitchen table with a bouquet of freshly cut flowers. A drop of dew fell from one of the flowers onto the tabletop. It was depicted so realistically that the group leader asked all the artists present: “What is your opinion, how do you see the level of technology?” The painters replied: “The drop is so real that you want to brush it away with your hand...”

The drop of dew depicted by the Flemish artist has not dried in six hundred years. Perhaps, thanks to such drops, the art of painting is eternal.

Oil paints for painting

A modern set of colors in the artistic palette contains about twenty names:

• cadmium red;
• titanium white;
• cobalt blue;
• fuchsin is persistent;
• cadmium yellow;
• ultramarine blue;
• lemon cadmium;
• pink paint;
• the paint is bright red;
• viridon greens;
• scarlet cadmium;
• azure;
• light yellow ocher;
• cadmium orange;
• mauve paint;
• light green cadmium;
• Indian yellow;
• gas soot;
• purple dioxin;

How to paint with oil paints so that the image is rich and expressive? Of course, experience is needed, which does not come immediately. But the first steps can already be taken now, and for this you need to purchase some supplies.

Where to buy?

Specialized art stores sell a variety of kits and kits for artistic creativity. Oil paints for beginners in a small set can be bought relatively inexpensively; they will be enough for painting simple paintings. It is best to master the basics of painting by depicting any objects. This could be a bowl of fruit, a yellow apple with a red side, a cut watermelon or a bunch of grapes. Novice artists do best with fruit and vegetable themes.

How to paint with oil paints if you have nothing else at hand? Of course, you need a canvas or cardboard sheet of a suitable size for the work. They can be purchased at the same art store, along with thinner and several art brushes. Canvas for oil paints can be sold ready-to-use, coated with a special primer, or in the form of a piece of coarse fabric that you will have to prime yourself. If you do not have experience working with ground coating, then it is better to buy a ready-made canvas already stretched on a stretcher.

Paint brushes come in several types depending on size, hair quality and hardness. Each type is designed for a specific job. Wide and hard brushes are suitable for applying backgrounds; softer brushes perform more important work in drawing out the details of the image. And thin ones are needed for final finishing, applying the smallest touches.

How much to buy?

Art kits that include paint brushes can be quite expensive, but you shouldn't buy them because only a small part of the kit will be used and the rest will sit idle. For a beginning artist, you need 3-5 brushes of different styles. This is a wide flute, two medium-sized brushes (numbers 2 and 3) and a pair of brushes numbered 1 and 0. In this set you can paint anything: from a still life or landscape to a portrait of your favorite dog. Although a portrait with oil paints is a very delicate work, and you will be able to cope with it only after gaining experience.

There are several painting techniques that you can follow to achieve success. The technique of painting with oil paints is complex and varied. To depict any object, it is necessary to create many shades by mixing colors. Moreover, even an experienced artist cannot guess the right combination the first time. The work of creating a painting is based on constant correction of the initially obtained tone. This is a fascinating, but quite unpredictable process.

What is required from an artist?

How to paint with oil paints to achieve a good result the first time? First of all, perseverance is required from the artist. In addition, you need at least basic skills, the so-called basics of painting. Oil paints, a painting master class that will teach you how to use them, become clear and easy to use as you study them.

Education

What is the best way to use oil paints? We offer the first stage master class for beginners.

After the canvas is stretched onto a stretcher, it must be primed. This is necessary so that the paints are not absorbed into the fabric structure, but are laid out in an even layer over the entire surface of the canvas.

The simplest, but fairly reliable primer is a mixture of PVA glue (polyvinyl acetate dispersion) with water-based paint for finishing work. The proportion should be in equal parts, 1:1, the mixture should be stirred well and before applying to the canvas, diluted with a small amount of water to the consistency of thick cream. After this, you can cover the surface of the future painting with primer. As soon as the primer has dried, check it with a light touch of your fingers for adhesion. If it does not stick, then the canvas is ready for use.

Next stage

Next you need to apply the background to the canvas. This can be a background picture or a monochromatic painting of a certain part of the picture. For this work, you can use flat, hard brushes or a palette knife - a pear-shaped metal spatula. This tool is convenient for applying paint in a thin, even layer, and then making the coating as thin as possible so that you don’t have to wait too long for it to dry. As you know, oil paints dry very slowly; this process can take a month or two. Therefore, you need to be prepared for a long break from work.

The background coating has dried, you can proceed to the next step.

Next in line is drawing the contours of the sketch. This is done with a pencil lead if the background of the picture is light in color. On a dark background, contours can be marked with sharpened white chalk. In any case, it is necessary to outline all the contours before the process of painting with oil paints begins.

If the picture should depict several objects, then you need to start with the largest one. For example, this is a ceramic jug with a handle, and four cups are placed around it. Next to them is a small vase with plums, and behind it are several sweets scattered directly on the tablecloth. This plot involves the use of several colors of oil paints: brown, dark blue, black, yellow, red and white.

Shadows as part of the drawing

Since the drawing begins with a ceramic jug, a little brown paint is squeezed onto the palette, which must be diluted to the desired consistency. You can put the finished paint on a brush and make the first strokes. After the jug is drawn, it should be shaded. This will require the same brown paint, but darker. Add a little black to the existing one and stir. Then we apply shadows, it’s not difficult, the painted jug itself will tell you where the dark stripes should be.

The jug is ready, let's move on to the next part of the drawing, the cups. They are also ceramic, and thus the task is simplified. After all the cups are depicted, they are also shaded. It is necessary to monitor the direction of the shadows, since the conventional light in the picture falls on both the jug and the cups at the same angle. Compliance with the rules of angular lighting is one of the foundations of painting.

Glass or faience

The next stage is a vase with plums. There may be certain difficulties in the image here. The vase should not be made of glass, since glass gives many shades, in some places it is transparent, in others it is darkened. Depicting these nuances will be quite problematic. It is better to draw a vase made of earthenware, which will require basic shadows and nothing more.

With plums, everything is also simple, the main thing is to depict them from such a perspective, as if they were partially covering each other. If the drawing is done from life, then this is not a difficult task.

Finishing touches

Dark blue paint is most suitable for depicting plums. In places where they touch, it is necessary to indicate this with thin curved lines. You definitely need to draw plum cuttings; they will emphasize the artist’s idea. But naturally, not every plum should have cuttings; in total, five or six of them should be depicted, no more.

And the last “characters” are candies. The main thing here is to outline believable contours, and you can color the wrappers however you like. After the painting is finished, it must dry. It’s better to put the canvas somewhere in a corner, facing the wall and check it from time to time.

A week ago, Yulia Skripnik, editor of the MYTH.Creativity platform, sent me a message: “Nastya, hello! Can you do an article next week with an exercise on Classical Painting Lessons?” I answered that I would, and a thousand and one fears of a creative person began to swirl in my head:

“I don’t know how to paint in oils. I'm in last time I picked up oil paints several years ago, and I can’t say that this experience was successful. “What if I can’t do anything at all and I’ll just ruin the canvas.”

Putting aside my fears, I began to study the book. Of course, in paper form, simply because its smell itself is inspiring.

The book is divided into 4 chapters and each of them has several lessons. My plan was to read the book until the last page and then choose which lesson I would do. However, there was so much new knowledge and inspiration that already on page 48 I took oil paints and thinner out of the box and climbed into the wardrobe in search of an old, outdated T-shirt. What does this have to do with the T-shirt? Read on 😉

Lesson 2, which we will study with you, is devoted to imprimatura with wiping. I also didn’t know what it was until I started reading the book, and that’s okay.

Imprimatura(from Italian imprimatura - first layer of paint) - a term used in painting: color tinting of the surface of a ready-made white primer.

You've probably seen work done using this technique.

Materials:

• Drawing materials- paper and pencil, or charcoal if you are going to draw directly on the surface
• Primed surface- wooden surface or canvas
• Palette
• Oil paint natural umber. You can use natural sienna or earthy green - experiment with colors
• Titanium white or quick-drying, such as alkyd. They are convenient because they dry overnight
• Linseed oil(optional)
• Cotton rag- a torn T-shirt will do (it is not recommended to use paper napkins)
• Large bristle brush

Above I have listed the materials recommended by the author of “Lessons in Classical Painting” - Juliet Aristide. I didn't follow all of these recommendations. The “same” material may not always be at hand; you shouldn’t give up creative experiments because of this.

First stage: staging a still life

Then it's time to start drawing. I did it directly on canvas with a pencil, however, the author recommends doing it on paper first and then transferring it using tracing paper. And this good advice, because trying to use an eraser on the canvas risks creating “dirt.” I also didn’t focus on the drawing because the goal of this lesson is tonal underpainting.

Before you start imprimatura with wiping, it is worth checking how the surface of the canvas or wooden panel absorbs paint. Some types of cheap acrylic primer hold paint well; it will be difficult to wipe it off until the surface is colored. If you come across such a soil, you can first coat the entire surface with a very thin layer of linseed oil.

Now comes the fun part! You need to cover the canvas with a thin layer, intensively blending the paint with a hard, fairly large bristled brush. The author recommends not to be afraid of too dark a color and not to dilute the paint, because otherwise the layer will come out too thin, but I thought that my paints had been lying idle for a long time and had thickened, so I added a solvent, and this really was a mistake.

Advice from the book: If the picture is too large and complex to complete in one session, the process can be divided into stages (for example, the first half in one day, and the second in another)

Let's start wiping. The outline of the design shows through the layer of oil, so it’s not difficult. You need to constantly change the rag to use clean parts. For larger areas it's easy to wipe off the paint with your index finger, and for smaller areas I wrapped a rag around an orange stick.

The wipe-off underpainting can be completed after stage 4, but adding dark and light accents gives the piece a more finished look. Therefore, using the glaze method, I added white and deepened the shadows with a dark color.

The work is ready! Several obvious mistakes were made, the jeans were stained with paint, but most importantly, I received incredible pleasure from conquering my fears.

I used to be afraid of books about classical painting; it seemed to me that they were created at least for students of specialized universities, but it turned out that this was not at all the case.

I urge you not to be afraid either! Try something new, go beyond the usual materials and techniques.

You will need

• - oil paints of different colors;
• - brushes with natural bristles (bristle and core brushes);
• - canvas;
• - primer;
• - fine sandpaper;
• - easel;
• - palette;
• - drying oil;
• - palette knife;
• - solvent;
• - turpentine;
• - varnish;
• - textile;
• -cup.

Instructions

Buy high-quality oil paints, brushes and other necessary supplies for painting in a specialized store or department. Pay special attention to paints and brushes - these are the main tools of an artist. Good brushes retain their original shape after each stroke, bad brushes practically do not bend and do not return to their original shape when dipped in oil paint.

Stretch the canvas onto a stretcher. For painting with oil paints, thick cotton or linen canvas is used. It must be primed before work. Apply the first coat of primer horizontally. Smooth the surface with sandpaper and, to get rid of small cracks, apply a second, vertical, layer of primer.

Place the canvas on the easel. Pour some turpentine into a cup to cleanse while brushing. After the primer has dried, this will take about an hour. Sketch the painting.

Wipe the palette with linseed oil and wipe dry. Then squeeze oil paints onto it. The palette can be held in your hand or placed nearby while working.

Mix drying oil with dark oil paints that you will use for the base of the painting. Using a palette knife, add a little solvent into the mixture. This will give the paints fluidity and they will lie more evenly on the canvas.

When working on a painting, apply oil paint in gentle strokes. If your work is large, then paint with bristle brushes. Use calico brushes to paint individual areas with fine detailing.

Correct mistakes and inaccuracies in the painting by wiping off the paint with a palette knife and using a piece of cloth soaked in turpentine. Then treat the area with sandpaper and moisten with literally one drop of linseed oil.