Successful Painting In Oil Color

 

Hi friend.
I'm happy to write this hub today because I looked back and I appreciate the fact that I'm a good painter and art critic. I am now going to give you some lessons on how to paint creatively and ideally.

Before I start, let me qiuckly introduce you to the concept of art. What is art?

Art is the ability, skill, talent, gift, etc which one possesses to express the self. Like God, artist have the ability to convert their illusions and ideas to concepts which have the ability to communicate to observers of any category.

Art can be divided into three main parts:
1. Visual (Sculpture, graphics, animations, carving, textiles, drawings, illustrations, web designing, etc.) These entails art that appeals to visual senses.

2. Performing (theater, singing, dancing, magic, etc.) These are forms of art that has to do with stage activities.

3. Literal (writing, poetry, lyrics, scripting, etc.) This is the type of art which deals with writing and scripting. It is also called script art.

The visual art is further divided into two:
a. Fine or Creative art. (Sculpture, tattooing, painting, carving, etc.)
b. Applied/commercial art. (commercial graphics, textiles, ceramics, industrial designing, animations.)

 Now let’s go to painting proper. Painting is the art of creating and interpreting impressions on a format with the use of colour pigment such as oil color, acrylic, or any other medium deemed fit.

There are certain things you need to consider before buying your art materials. The uniqeness of your proposed artwork is very important. Try and make it something out of common; some thing completely different from what you’ve been seeing.

The second is the durability of your work. Think of buying a material that will produce a work that will last for many years. Art collectors and critics have a way of knowing which art piece will last for decades. They don't want to buy a master piece that will go to the bin in the next thirty years, but they’ll keep your phone ringing for a unique art piece that will almost see their tenth generation.

So get your painting medium from a good source like amazon.com which include the following:

 

1. Oil color paints (Talens or Winsor & Newton are recommended). There other good oil paints too out there. Try them.

2. Good easel

3. Pallet tray (or an improvisasion of well cut smooth thick glass surface)

4. Good hog and sable brushes of different types and sizes.

5. Good framed canvas format material or whatever good board material that will endure time will do good.

6. Some use a plane viewer ( a rectangular shaped cardboard that has another rectagular cut in it through which you can view the area of your focus. (for me I don't use it, it makes me feel restricted).

7. Don't under estimate the use of a clean rag to clean your brushes at the end of the day's session.

8. You’ll definitely need a solvent base for thinning down the oil colors. Some use turpentine or improvise with kerosene or diesel.

9. Lastly, you need a good fixative. I recommend linseed oil from a reputable art dealer.

Get all this materials and celebrate your expertise.

Get your format (board upon which you want to create your art) on your easel. Get the board or format primed with any water base acrylic house paint. Any light colour will work well.

 

After it is dried you should then give it another priming, this time with your oil colour. Again you should choose a light faint colour wash. You can wait for somr time to allow this to dry out also. In painting, especially oil painting you don’t rush. Work at your own space. But keep the inspiration on. Don’t quit after some days.

 

Now get your smallest pointed hog brush and apply any colour from your pallett and begin to use this to sketch your images as you see them, observing all the principles of perspective. Be sure to use cubism technique to draw out the shapes first. Cubism is the art of using geometric shapes to draw objects  before going to details. That is you'll need to observe the objects critically and draw out the basic shapes first before applying the details later. For example if you look at an orange with one eye closed, you'll see it as a circle. though orange in its real shape is not a circle but the impression it will project will be that of a circle. This is what is called cubism in art. See the basic drawing of a tree on the side of this hub.

 

After your drawing, now add some details to those basic shapes. Apply the first color of the object you are drawing. Our model is an orange and the middle color for orange is yellow. So paint your orange sketch plain yellow.

 

This is where professionalism comes in. You want to show a darker shade of yellow, how do you do that without using black; or rather you want to give a lighter tone of a color. Now this is it. First get a color scheme. This is how to create your own color scheme. Draw three circles on a plain white cardboard. Allocate each of the three basic colors in each circle. That is red, yellow and blue respectively. Check the table at the side of this hub and make your color wheel accordingly.

 

The color you should paint your dark areas in any painting from now on is a darker tone of the corresponding color in the wheel mixed with a little of black color. That is a richer color toned down. So the dark tone of our orange is lemon toned into darker shade. Apply this faintly and sparingly but confidently. If there is error never mind, Rome was not built in a day they say and you’ll soon master the art with some more practical efforts.

 

Now we have the middle tone and the dark tone in place. Let’s apply the light tone. Generally, painting has three tones plus highlight and the opague totaling five tonal values. Our light area is a lighter corresponding colour mixed with a little white. That is gold mixed with a little of white. Put this also in the proper spot sparingly. I am sure you are happy with this result if you do it right. Our three tones are complete. Dark, middle and light tone. Now lets go for the highlight. Mix the colour you used for your light tone with more of white but be careful and don’t let the white take over the mixture. Let the hue be off-white and apply it only on the spot where you have highlight. Just the sport only. Don’t be tempted to apply it on another place. For the opaque area increase your dark tone with more black and apply it on only the opaque spot also. And bingo, you have your juicy fresh orange in place. There will definitely still be room for improvement of your painting, but don’t rush. Leave it now and take a break or something, then come back to it the next day or day after.

 

Visit your studio occasionally to review your painting because you will always find something to correct or improve on. Do this happily but as usual, don’t over do it. Welcome to the world of professional artists.