Tea Time: Painting Resources from the Oil Painting Video Series

Welcome! You're probably arriving hither from "Tea Time" my v part video series on how to pigment a nonetheless life using oil paints.

If y'all didn't lookout man the entire still life tutorial series yous can picket it here:

Overview

I've made hundreds of paintings since I started painting in oils around 1992-ish. At one stop of the extreme painting instructors encouraged me to only start painting washes correct onto the sail with zilch planning. No training what-then-ever. I also encountered instruction that encouraged long, complicated layering of the oil paints over time. These paintings started out with a grisaille (monochromatic underpainting) so evolved very slowly through indirect painting methods of many coat layers, etc…

Of form there were all kinds of painting-method variants in between these two extremes.

Eventually I arrived at what is my happy place for creating paintings. My method is not for everyone however. It does require you to have some cartoon skills and much patience. I of the worst parts of teaching painting and learning painting is the fact that most people are just too darn impatient. They desire to rush into the actual painting.  They want results and they want them yesterday! I take learned to autumn in beloved with the entire painting-making process and that often includes non painting at all!

The more experience y'all have with the subject affair the faster you tin arrive at the moment y'all physically offset painting. But, if yous are a beginner and or new to the subject affair, I recommend slowing everything down and avert starting the painting until yous are well-versed in the subject matter. It will actually speed things up in the long run. Why? Because yous'll make fewer mistakes while painting which can exist hard and frustrating to fix.

My Painting Approach

I like to silo every bit much of the painting making process into their own separate phases as all-time as I can.

Imaging trying to build a house only you are trying to practise everything by yourself all at once. While you're installing roof tiles, you are too adding plumbing, installing doorknobs and trying to hang curtains… yep information technology's overwhelming.  Despite what you see in many popular videos around the internet you don't take to solve all of your painting problems at the same fourth dimension.

I worry about the composition and layout past itself during the drawing phase. I can erase and draw comfortably on newspaper. Next I summate my colors and paint recipes ahead of time in the form of a color study. All I'm concerned well-nigh here is the color (hue / value / chroma) Thats information technology.

Before the actual painting begins I premix my oil paints on my large glass palette where it's spacious and comfy. I finally move all my pigment strings over to my working palette (usually a handheld wooden palette) and begin the painting.

Because I studied the yet life a couple of times with the drawing and the colour study I am well versed in the subject affair and just focus on the painting procedure. I worry well-nigh edges and brush strokes. Many of the other problems such as composition, color and paint mixing have already been solved! In fact, considering I've already figured out the color there really is no need to even paint an underpainting. Why bother? If I know the colour I need and it's already mixed shouldn't I just paint it in identify and move on? Of course I should…

Tools Used in the "Tea Time" Serial

  • Gamblin
  • Williamsburg
  • Michael Harding
  • Winsor & Newton

Precise Color Matching / Mixing

If you really want to learn color you need to invest time into learning the Munsell colour space. The Munsell color space quantifies color and makes it a learnable, replicable process. All artists conversations most warm and cool colors seem dizzy once you learn how to mix colors precisely.  Mixing mud?  Well that'due south simply another color that may or may non be useful.  Colour is just colour.  Buying a Munsell Book of Color is i of the best decisions I've e'er made for my painting career.  Information technology has saved me countless hours considering I can mix upwardly colors accurately the first fourth dimension instead of guessing and having to constantly fix the colors in a painting.

Certain it costs effectually $chiliad but that's no big deal if you are trying to make a professional person career out of painting.  People will spend $3 per twenty-four hour period on coffee   ($iii ten 365 = $1095)… on a liquid stimulant only not invest in their art instruction/tools… information technology baffles me.  If the book lasts y'all a decade you lot have paid 28 cents/day for information technology and most likely saved hundreds of hours in painting product fourth dimension.

For Beginners

If you are brand new to oil painting be patient.  Information technology volition take a while to feel comfortable in this medium. Spend more time practicing and less time on the internet listening to other people talk about oil painting. Keep your methods simple and go slowly.

Yous can read more than about getting started with oil paints here.  It'southward a rather long article with a ton of information most oil paints.

Best of luck to you!