Archive for the ‘Basic Oil Painting Tips’ Category

Oil Painting – Three Oranges

June 14, 2011 by · Comments Off
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Still life oil painting of three oranges. Box canvas 12 x 16 inches with sides painted. I started with a green-toned canvas which gives this a slightly cool feel as I let some of the colour come through in the background here and there. I have tried to keep more colour than usual in the [...]

Beer and Sweets oil painting

May 31, 2011 by · Comments Off
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Beer and sweets might seem like an odd combination for a still life painting but despite the obvious differences they have quite a few things in common too. Sugar, health, addictive qualities… I am not going to list them all however, thats what I want the viewer to think about! Overall this one was quite [...]

Learning from the Masters – Part 2

April 28, 2011 by · Comments Off
Filed under: Advanced Oil Painting Tips, Art General, Basic Oil Painting Tips 

As promised here is the Monet copy I did a while back. The original is entitled “Bridge at Argenteuil” Doing this was a great challenge but also a very enlightening process. I learned pretty much what colours he would have used and how he applied the paint in short thick strokes. Colour mixing was fairly straightforward with simple [...]

Still Life on Blue

April 14, 2011 by · Comments Off
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I decided to try a blue background which is fairly unusual for a still life but the slightly ‘orangey’ copper lustre cup complements it well. I started off with a little turps for a change and got the paint to flow. I used Cobalt Blue for the background but added the warmer Ultramarine Blue (and [...]

Strawberries Still Life

March 24, 2011 by · 1 Comment
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Still life oil painting of strawberries, oil on board, 6 x 6 inches. I thought I would have a go at creating my own surface to paint on. You can paint on all sorts of surfaces from canvas to copper as long as its well primed to take the paint. In this case I have [...]

Learning from the Masters

March 23, 2011 by · Comments Off
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It used to be considered standard practise for artists to learn from the preceding generations of masters. Many famous artists have sat in galleries and copied the works of great artists before them. It is a great learning process to scrutinise the colours and brushstrokes, shapes and forms and try to understand what makes these [...]

Three Braeburns – Still Life Oil Painting

February 18, 2011 by · Comments Off
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This is the second of three paintings I promised using the Braeburn apples. For this one I decided to use direct bold brush strokes that emphasise the form of the apples. I found I had to think more about each stroke before putting it down to make sure it would look ok. I didn’t want [...]

Keeping the colours vibrant

April 9, 2009 by · Comments Off
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A useful oil painting tip for beginners: Have you ever encountered the problem, when oil painting, of your paintings losing the initial fresh colour and vibrancy they had when the paint first went on? This is often due to the canvas absorbing the oil from the paint leaving it dull and flat. If you don’t [...]

Brush Cleaning Tip

April 7, 2009 by · Comments Off
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I have tried various methods to effectively clean brushes after using oil paint. The best one I find is to dip them in white spirit to get the thick paint off then dry it on some kitchen towel. Next I pour out a small amount of washing-up liquid into the sink and scrub the brush [...]