Oil Painting Tips

Oil painting is a bit more complicated, but also more versatile, when comparing it to acrylic painting. Here are some oil painting tips on materials, and further down you'll find tips on landscape, portraiture and handling your creative process.

Tips on colors and art supplies

Here are some oil painting tips on materials and supplies:

Material basics (fat over lean). This is what makes your painting durable in the first place (oil paint is just a raw ingredient!). Bad techniques cause cracking and peeling within a few years after finishing a painting.
Here's some info on oil painting supplies - all about paints, brushes and painting grounds
You don't need lots of colors: you need only the right ones.
Check here for info on oil paint colors and a color mixing guide
Check into older painting materials: inform yourself on painting boards, canvases and classical materials like dammar varnish, foundation white and rabbit skin glue.

A guide in materials

There's a lot to know about oil painting materials - not only for durability and preservation: also because oil paint is a very versatile medium. It can be matte or shiny, hiding or transparent, rich or poor. I've put up an 58-page oil painting guide that contains information on al the painting materials, and tips on how to use them, how to layer them, what they're for etc. It also has over ten recipes for oil paint, different primers and (quick drying) underpainting materials

Artistic oil painting tips

Of course there's more to it than just paint. Further down you'll find oil painting tips that focus on the creative process. Click here for more on beginner oil painting.

Oil painting tips for realism

Oil painting is great for creating a certain realism: a look-and-feel as if everything on the painting is actually 'real'. Even if you create phantasy-scenery, abstract work or landscapes with impossible colors. The trick for creating this 'real' look is: layering. Instead of making one closed surface of paint, build up your painting in layers. Click here for more on Imprimature and underpainting colors. Here you'll also find info on classical realistic oil painting techniques.

Creative oil painting tips

Here you'll find some beginner oil painting tips, with a list of beginners' traps to avoid (like: literally painting the photo, using too many colors, not defining a subject etc).

The first thing you do is usually right

When you make a stroke, look at it first. Don’t change it right away. One of the charms of painting these days: painting is a direct recording of the act of an actual human. Everybody knows humans aren't perfect. So, painting is not about perfection.

Don't underestimate the power of purity... I've seen beginner oil paintings from a 66-year old (in a commercial art gallery!), that were very beautiful because you could actually see the first painting strokes of a ripened soul.

Think of HOW to paint your subject

If you paint a after photograph, pick elements that you like and leave others out. And ask yourself: what do I find interesting or beautiful about this subject? These are the aspects you want to bring out. You can emphasize things by using color, perspective, changes in the background. The place on the canvas where you put your subject, alreaday says a lot. If you place it in the middle, make sure you create a background that is just as interesting as your subject. Consider what background elements will be helpful, and what size of canvas or panel would be ideal.

Make scetches, but only VERY rough ones

Scetches are meant to create some certainty, about what it is you want to do. Don’t go further than that – the actual work will be done on the canvas.

While you work, avoid emotional extremes and stay in the middle

When you paint: be there, with your full quiet attention. Eliminate everything that distracts you. Most of us have things like music, chatting or a computer to avoid feeling empty. But when you want to paint: eliminate those fillers. Feel empty for a little while, and then the best things will come.

Staying in the middle is what keeps you on your track. Recognizing emotional extremes and returning to the quiet middle is a key skill that will help you advance really quickly. Don’t be too critical or too excited, don’t make impulsive, radical decisions. Don’t work too slow, or too fast. In the middle, there’s a very silent constant flow of decision – follow it and you can’t go wrong.

What if your work doesn’t feel right?

We all have been in a situation, where we were unhappy with a painting, and couldn't find out about the cause. Sometimes even professional artists can’t see it when their work is really good.
When you worked on a painting for hours, you lack the distance to judge what you see. In time you’ll get to know yourself in this aspect. Is your perfectionism or a set of expectations in the way, or is there really a way to improve your work? Take your time for this process, and look at it while you work. Don’t “do” things to your work, untill you’ve located the problem, or found a way to proceed

Tips for creating a fresh look on your work:

Place your painting in a different environment. Maybe even at anther place in the same room.
Place it upside down, and regard it as an abstract work. How is the balance, the colors, are there dead spots?
Trace dead spots, by blocking parts of your painting with your hand (stretched somewhere in front of you". Does you work improve by blocking out a spot? Then you've located the problem.
Place it next to another painting, your own or someone else's. In this way, you can learn about the meaning of your painting.
Do you have good light? If you don't have direct daylight, invest in a good daylight lamp. Then you can see what you're doing.
Frame it as if it's finished, eventually hang it up in an exhibition (or somewhere in the house).

Oil painting tips on reducing drying times

The quickest way to reduce drying times is liquin. Add some to your paint, and it will be dry the next day (providing that you make thin layers). There is a downside: liquin neutralizes the specific features (sheen) of lean or fat oil paint. Lean oil paint is matte, fat paint is shiny, and with liquin everything turns into a lardy, greasy halfshine. But for the underlayers, it's OK. Liquin isn't fat: it shouldn't be added before applying the rule 'fat over lean'

Another way to reduce drying times is, to have a semi-absorbent ground, and to work with a fast drying underpaint, like egg-tempera paint. Also a lead- or foundation white can do miracles for drying.

Other oil painting tips

After doing your first paintings, study a bit on color - not just on color mixing, also check out on color theory
Do the same on classical underpainting techniques and materials, eventually try them out. Different materials give a different look-and-feel.
For quick drying: use liquin. But also classical underpainting techniques like egg-tempera underpainting can speed up the drying process.
Use the ability of oil paint to be matte or shiny. Add dammar varnish for shine, and a drop of water for matte paint. Do mind the rule "fat over lean".