Oil Painting For Dummies

Anita Marie Giddings, Sherry Stone Clifton

• Publisher: For Dummies
• Year: 2011
• Print ISBN: 9780470182307
• eBook ISBN: 9781118051993
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Art
• Subtopic: Art Techniques

Nobody ever said that oil painting was easy. But it gets much easier and a lot more fun when you follow a step-by-step approach that starts you off on the right foot, helps you build your skills one at a time, and gives you plenty of exercises to develop your craft. That's what you'll find in Oil Painting For Dummies.

Completely free of arty jargon, this full-color guide has all the hands-on instruction you need to master the basics. You'll see how to plan a painting, build an image in layers, mix colors, and create stunning compositions. You'll also find everything you need to know about oil paints, solvents, and pigments; brushes, palettes, and painting surfaces; and how to keep costs down at the art supply store. Discover how to:

• Choose the right supplies
• Set up your studio and care for your equipment
• Handle your materials safely
• Develop your design and composition skills
• Make practice sketches and studies
• Use broken stroke, dry brush, glazing, scraffito and other brush strokes
• Try out different compositions
• Mix any color you want
• Simplify tricky still-life subjects
• Paint landscapes and common objects out doors
• Paint portraits and the human form

Complete with handy color chart, basic materials list, and a very useful viewing square, Oil Painting For Dummies is the fun and easy way to discover your inner artist!

Part I

Getting Your Feet Wet in Oil Paint

In this part . . .

We cover everything you need to know about how to get started painting, from buying the materials to putting your signature at the bottom. We also give you some projects to put your skills to use along the way. This section gives you a good overview of what it’s like to paint. When you finish reading it, you’ll feel much more confident about starting to paint.

We, your humble authors, believe in you. Our goal, more than anything, is to teach you how to paint and give you all the information and support that you need as you progress. Whether you’re starting a pleasant pastime, picking up where you left off years ago, or beginning a serious pursuit of painting, this is the place to begin.

Chapter 1

So You Want to Paint

In This Chapter

Examining the history of oil painting and why it has endured for 500 years

Discovering what it’s like to paint with oils

Finding the materials and space you need to start painting

Developing your skills for a lifelong interest in painting

There you are, standing in front of a painting in a museum or gallery or art fair, and you have the desire to create a work of art. You may have had this feeling for quite some time but you don’t know where to start. Or maybe you’ve had lessons or a class in the past and it just didn’t work out. We know that for many people, learning how to paint is a lifelong goal. And we firmly believe in your ability to reach that goal.

To make a painting or other work of art is to become a part of the cultural expression of your society. It is to create something personal, something of beauty or significance that is your vision alone. We also know that for many people, learning to make art is the best way to gain a true appreciation for the arts. During this process you learn not only to paint but also to see the world around you with an acute sense of perception. You grow to understand the working process of painting and are able to see its evidence right on the surface of a canvas.

If you’ve decided to learn to paint and you don’t know where to begin, we can help. In this initial chapter, we give you an overview of this book and walk you through the process of learning to paint, step by step. We try to make the process understandable, painless, and fun. Collectively, we have more years of experience than we care to admit, and we know that with patience, we can open up this world to you. We’re unabashed promoters for learning to make art and we’re very excited to have this opportunity to work with you in this process. Take a few minutes to look over this chapter before you go running off to the art supply store. And get ready for an enjoyable experience.

What It’s Like to Paint with Oils

Oil paint is made up of pigment, the stuff that gives the paint its color, and oil, which allows it to flow off the brush well and to dry in a slow and measured way. The oil in the paint is usually linseed oil, which dries slowly, but it does dry (unlike mineral oils, which never thoroughly dry). Oil paint dries through chemical action, as opposed to the process of evaporation in water-based liquids. You need to understand this process in order to utilize all the properties of the oil paint to their best advantage.

The great thing about oil paint is that it’s creamy and dries slowly so that you have time to paint an image. You can experiment with brushstrokes, blending new colors, and expressing yourself with a wonderful art medium.

Please be aware that oil paint does have an odor. The smell of oil paint isn’t acrid; it’s more of a nutty scent. After you’ve been painting for a while and you set up your own studio, the smell of linseed oil when you open the door to your studio in the morning can be very welcoming, but some people can have an allergic reaction or otherwise find it undesirable.

If you suspect that you may have a negative reaction, purchase a tube of inexpensive color and test it. Find an inexpensive color, such as yellow ochre, and take it home. Open the tube, squeeze a dime-sized pool of paint onto a paper plate, and leave it nearby while you watch TV or do another quiet activity. If your eyes become irritated and you wear contacts, try not wearing them while you try the oil paint and be sure to have ventilation in your work area. Some people have a reaction on their skin from the paint; if this is the case, you can use latex gloves.

Also be sure to test the solvent used with oil paint. Purchase a bottle of Gamsol and put it to the same test. If the smell of the solvent is the problem, you can try water-mixable paints such as Max oil paints made by Grumbacker (there are other brands as well). If the oil paint itself bothers you, you may want to try a water-based acrylic paint instead.

Gathering Your Materials

You need to know a few things about oil paints before you buy your paints and supplies, so be sure to familiarize yourself with their general characteristics before firing up your charge card. In this book, we get you started with standard oil paints, but as you shop, you run into odd versions of oil paints, such as the fast-drying alkyd paints or water-mixable oil paints. When you have more experience, experiment with these kinds of oils, but for now, stick with the more-traditional materials.

Some major brands are Daler-Rowney Georgian, Gamblin’s Sketching Oils, Winsor Newton’s Winton series, Grumbacker’s Academy colors, and Shiva. These brands are all student grade or inexpensive colors and are perfect for the projects in this...

Table of contents

• Title
• Contents
• Introduction
• Part I : Getting Your Feet Wet in Oil Paint
• Part II : Break Out the Brushes and Start Painting!
• Part III : People, Places, and Things
• Part IV : Color and Design
• Part V : The Part of Tens