Dummies guide to oil paintings!!!

I recently did a nice oil painting piece, which overwhelmed my cousin so much , he begged me to write about the “beginners guide” to oil painting !

In fact , he said he was “ afraid” of it ! Strange, because oil painting is an amazing versatile medium, which can be applied in a thick buttery fashion or thinned down to a watery consistency. You can play with your oil paints, literally ! This opens the door to a number of different painting techniques.

1. My personal preference is to begin my oil paintings by first sketching out the composition using acrylic paint or with water-soluble oil paints. The popular approach to oil painting is to thin the paint with turpentine to apply the initial layers. 

Turpentine is quite toxic and I prefer not to work with it. Acrylic or water-soluble oil paints can be thinned down with plain old water and are more pleasant to work with in my opinion.

You can also begin your oil painting by first drawing out your composition in a red pencil and then filling it out! There are a few drawing mediums that work quite nicely with oil paints. My favourite however are water-soluble pencils. 

Sometimes I do use charcoal but it it smudges and cannot be erased easily. Water-soluble pencils are wonderful because they can be applied like ordinary colored pencils and can also be dampened with a brush allowing you to spread out the color. 

2. If you are the impatient type, you may want to try your hand at the Alla Prima oil painting technique. The Alla Prima method is when you complete the painting in one sitting rather than paint in layers and wait for the paint to dry. In this painting approach oil paint is applied wet on wet without letting earlier layers dry. In Italian, the term alla prima means "at first attempt".

Paintings created in this approach are usually completed within a single session  and used best for landscapes.

Although I usually prefer to work out my paintings in layers, I occasionally enjoy this exciting and spontaneous approach to oil painting.

3. If you are the careful, patient type of painter, you may be interested in working with glazes. Glazing has lost popularity these days, partly because of the time needed to complete such a painting and it’s difficulty, but the results are something truly unique to any other type of painting technique. 

Often, because a paint is too opaque, painters will add a medium like linseed oil or alkyd to the paint to make them more transparent and pliable for the purposes of glazing. While these media are usually liquids, there are solid and semi-solid media used in the making of paints as well. 

For example, many classical oil painters have also been known to use ground glass and semi-solid resins to increase the translucency of their paint. The composition is first painted with an opaque monochrome underpainting, usually in shades of gray. After this initial underpainting is thoroughly dry, thin layers of transparent oil glazes are applied. Colors are not mixed directly but added in separate layers to get the desired color. It is extremely tedious work but the results are mesmerising!!!!

4. If you are the adventurous type, put the brushes aside and try a set of painting or palette knives. You can achieve some very interesting results with knives that aren’t possible with brushes. The oil paint can be spread on thickly and scraped off with ease. 

What I enjoy most about knife painting is the texture . Get yourself a set of painting knives and try to complete an entire painting with it . It’s challenging at first if you are used to brushes, but it’s an enjoyable exercise.

Perhaps you would like your painting to have more body and texture. You could try the impasto technique and apply your paint in thick heavy strokes, leaving evidence of all those wonderfully artistic brush strokes. Take a look at a Van Gogh painting and you will see this technique in action.

It’s really no wonder why oil painting is such a popular choice for painters. There is so much to discover in oil painting. You will never get bored trying out all the wonderful tools, mediums and techniques. The possibilities are endless  indeed.