So I don't really see any other artists here that ever paint in oils, and it makes me sad. I made this little tutorial/ process thing to show you how I go about it and hopefully get someone to pick up oils! Obviously im no ground breaking painter, but I'm just sharing the knowledge that I do have.
First of all here's the still life set up to be painted: just a dusty ceramic twisty vase and a red cloth.
I painted this with only 3 brushes, the Filbert is my favorite, so versatile:
From left to right:
Winsor and Newton size 8 extra long Filbert- Monarch
Cheap Joes Starving artist size 2 round
Wisnor and Newton size 12 round- Eclipse
About brushes: Filbert brushes can do basically anything. If you got only one brush I would get a very nice long filbert, you could easily do a whole painting with just one.
As for my pallette:
Underpainting white/ Flake white hue- winsor newton
( actual flake white has lead in it. If you get it, don't eat it.)
Yellow Ochre light- rembrandt
Transparent Red Oxide- rembrandt
Cadmium Red Medium- rembrandt
Permanent Madder Deep- rembrandt
Ultramarine Blue- Old Holland
Lamp Black- Winsor and Newton.
These are the only colors I used in this painting, but I also have raw umber, viridian, and cadmium yellow medium on my palette as well.
So now to the painting. Im painting on a 8x8 clayboard ampersand panel. But you can paint on just about anything that can be gesso'd. Also shellac'd wood is nice to paint on. for a really cheap support, go to Lowes or something similar and pick up some masonite, it's usually a huge panel, I got mine for $6.50 and they cut it for free. I got 18 16x16 panels out of it.
The hardest part of painting is drawing. A bad painting over a good drawing can sometimes turn out OK, but not even the best paint handling can salvage a poor drawing.
My panel was washed with Transparent Oxide Red, and I'm now also using it for the major lines that I see in the composition:
While I was putting in the lines, I also varied the thickness and that served to show me where some of the darkest darks in the comp. were. Now Im just adding the lightest lights. This doesn't look too pretty but it's the foundation of your painting and is very important. After painting a lot, im sure your brush calligraphy would improve and even these could look pretty, but it need not be very special.
These next two are me just getting a bit of paint on the surface. I start pretty thin and work my way up to the juicy stuff. In these stages I'm kind of just searching until I get a color note that I think is right, then I can relate all other colors to it. The cloth so far is varying mixtures of yellow ochre/ Transparent Oxide Red/ Cadmium Red Medium/ and Permanent Madder Deep
Here I'm getting into some of the highlights in those nice folds. Yum.
In this picture I'm dealing with the background some. It's important to keep things in the right priority, so I won't be giving it too much attention. Mostly just Transparent Oxide Red and Yellow Ochre
When doing a painting Alla Prima ( in one session) it's important not to let too much of the painting develop while leaving some too far behind, so I'm getting a bit of color and adjustment in the vase.
Here I've put even more color into the vase, and put the wiggly vase edge thing in. I've also put in the major shadow shapes in the folds. That was mostly done with Ultramarine Blue, with a bit of Lamp Black and White to tone down the intensity.
These next too are just some rendering, not much to say really. I make sure that the cloth doesn't over power the vase, and I keep the edges mostly soft except for the ones in the major foreground. Varying edges helps a painting a lot. Let only the focal point have hard edges, then as you branch out, firm, then soft, and finally lost edges.
All the basic stuff is done now. This last little step is just putting on nice thick paint. Thick paint Is one of the many ways to prioritize things.
To make sure the vase fits in, I made sure to incorporate some of the warmer colors insides its reflections. It's something subtle that goes a long way.
I hope at least one of you finds this helpful, I would be super happy If I got to see some of you pick up oil painting!
