Oil paint 101
4yr
Jo Sheridan
Thanks to loads of help on these forums, I managed to work out what I needed to get going with my first attempts at oil painting - some really fun retail therapy later - some cool "Jacksons" supplies (London based art shop which I really recommend) I have managed my first painting... Whether its any good or not, it was certainly much more fun than the frustrating world of watercolour painting. The first lesson that you learn straight away is what they mean when they talk about the "push and pull" of Oil painting - which strikes me as very similar to trying to blend edges of shadow and half tone with graphite pencils. @Liandro - hope you like it...
Asked for help
OK guys, I've been busy down in the shed with my Oil Paints - I've still not progressed beyond just black and white, but I am having a lot of fun here. Critiques welcome. With my Asaro Head, I tried to match the orientation of the skull to help with the values - i'm not entirely sure how that turned out...@Liandro this is phase two :)
Hi @Liandro - I must admit that I really love Oil painting - the fabulous sound it makes when you scoop up a handful of brushes, the feeling of a long handled brush in your hand, and just the texture of the paint as you mush it around on the glass pallet - its all gorgeous. I also find it totally forgiving, so it feels much less stressful than watercolour, I can control it, wipe it off, start with the wrong value then just layer a better one on top - in fact I might go back to my watercolour Lord of the Rings pic and have a go in Oil just to see the difference in outcome.
I must say also that it was your recommendation to look at the New Master's Academy beginner videos that unlocked this for me - it was so well explained, what you need and more importantly why you need it. I was thinking I would just use their free trial period, but there is so much stuff on there - all these paintings are from resources on there and I have barely scratched the surface - so I have subscribed now, but I think it is probably worth it. Thank you so much for your help and interest. Jo.
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4yr
I love it!! How are you handling the material so far? Have you gotten used to the way oils work compared to other media you were more used to before? Also, have you watched any of the courses we talked about? Glad to know you're having fun.
Hi @Jo Sheridan, these are some awesome oil studies! I tried my best to do a paint over for your skull. It was a bit tricky without reference, so forgive my if I make some wrong assumptions regarding my critique about lighting.
The first thing I did was to adjust the construction just a tad bit. I wanted to make sure that front plane of the teeth followed the same perspective as the eyeline of your skull. Then I just slightly tweaked the shape of the jawbone so that it's angling upward a bit more.
As for the lighting, it seemed like the light was coming from the top left (based on your shadows). The only thing that seemed inconsistent was that the downward facing planes of the cheekbones should be in shadow, so they should be in the same value group as the cast shadow on the jawline. Again, I had to make assumptions on the lighting based on the painting, so forgive me if I may be a bit off.
All in all great work! Hope this helps and let me know if there is anything that I can clear up for you
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4yr
That's so cool, @Jo Sheridan! I admire that you had the guts to take this first step, it must have been scary, but you made it. I honestly like how your first oil study turned out, I think you did a nice job mixing the paint and blending the tones to convey the lighting. Also love the little charcoal sketch. Especially when we're doing it on our own, like you are, learning to deal with a new tool is always a big challenge (imagine that last week I made a few changes on my Photoshop keyboard shortcuts and I'm still struggling to get used to new keys 😅 let alone learning a whole new medium altogether). So congrats on your milestone, keep it up and please feel free to let us updated on how your journey goes. Best regards!
Really cool! I do recommend working from life, you can put random objects like toilet paper and a box and feel a lot more subtle changes in value and depth and some reflections. I believe such details got lost a lot in pictures and if you see them in real life maybe you learn faster by noticing them. So just a recommendation! Keep going, looks good!
Yes, I hear this advice a lot and I am soooo lazy and tend to ignore it and choose photos instead as there are just so many things I want to paint and draw that I see online and in books - but you are right, and I really must start listening... thanks for the extra nudge
This is looking pretty nice, edges and the texture pretty much matches what I thought an oil painting would look like haha. I've always avoided oil because ughh there's just so many stuff you need to put on the table to get going. I only use this little teeny tiny box for gouache/watercolour stuff because I hate putting a lot of stuff around XD
That's cool. I used to do some oil still lifes and it was really fun but I'm afraid of gouache and watercolor. It feels like you need to be more careful in those and I was afraid of even putting the first stroke XD
Ive been building up to eventually/ hopefully using oils. This is great. I used to live just along the road from Jackson art supplies in stoke newington. I still use them as my go to if my local art shop doesn't have what i need. I think i need to stop over thinking oils and just give them a go already. I told myself that i will get better at painting portraiture with acrylics first, but maybe i should just dive in with oils already. Great work.
Go for it! Maybe you can limit yourself in time like 2-4 hours and then move on to the next one, this way maybe you'll be more focused on getting used to the medium and not on creating a masterpiece which can be stressful. Just paint quick non accurate paintings until you feel comfortable enough to put in more time.
I think I needed to try oil, to work out what is so frustrating about watercolour and acrylic - and that is the drying speed thing - Oils just stay wet - I painted on Monday and then had to work until Thursday - when I came back to it I just dove straight back in - lovely - it was a bit dryer which helped the paint stick a bit on top, so it was easy to get going again - I simply can't work fast enough for acrylic and watercolour. All I bought was a few tubes of paint, some odourless solvent, a steel pot for brush cleaning and some boards to paint on - I must admit to making my own pallet with a lid to increase the chances of it all not drying out though...
