1Choose your paints. Before...
1
Choose your paints. Before you can even consider oil painting, you must get oil paints. Although there are dozens of brands of oil paint on the market, don’t be drawn in by the attraction of budget supplies. Buying cheap, poor quality supplies will make your painting difficult, tedious, and frustrating. Paying a few dollars more will give you paints that require one coat instead of two or three for the same vibrancy and blend-ability.
The most basic collection of oil paints should include the following colors: cadmium yellow, yellow ochre, cadmium red, alizarin crimson, ultramarine blue, titanium white, and mars black. You can use a combination of all of these colors to make any hue on the color wheel.(eg. yellow and red to make orange)
You will find that you likely will run out of white paint the fastest, so buy a large tube of this while purchasing small or medium tubes of paint for the others.
Avoid buying “student sets” of paint, as these will seem like a good deal, but offer the poorest quality supplies. Also avoid buying sets of paint that come with paint brushes, as the brushes will likely be of poor quality as well.
2
Get the rest of your materials. Beginning painters often fall under the tendency to avoid getting certain supplies to save money. While this is a perfectly all right practice, there are a few basic painting essentials you will need to make oil painting enjoyable and easy.
Choose a few basic paintbrushes of a high quality material. You don’t need many brushes to start out, but get a few of each kind. Start with differing sizes of round, flat, and bristle brushes.
Synthetic brushes are made of a very soft, fine bristle while natural hair brushes are a bit rougher. Use both for different painting techniques.
You will also need a palette knife for blending paints, a painting palette, canvas boards or stretched canvas, and some old rags and jars for cleaning your brushes.
Oil paint is very thick directly out of the tube, and must be made thinner for the first layers using white spirits or turpentine, and a blending medium such as linseed oil or poppy oil for later layers. The rule is 'Thick on thin', and this prevents later cracking or separation of layers.
Optional supplies include an easel or drafting desk, an apron, a drop cloth, and a specialized box for carrying all your supplies.[1]
3
Set up your work area. Because oil painting does require a lot of supplies, you will need a large area to use. Set up your easel or table in an area that is away from foot traffic and direct sunlight, if possible. If you have one, lay a drop cloth down to prevent any paint spills from ruining your floors.
Oil paint can give off fumes, so make sure that your area is well ventilated with an open window or door.
If you are using an easel, adjust it to the correct standing or sitting position and angle. Make sure that it is sitting in such a way to make painting comfortable for you, not difficult.
Put on old paint clothes to protect your nice clothes and skin. Oil paint is notorious for being exceedingly difficult to clean off, so make sure that you take precautions to avoid coming into contact with it.
If you have long hair, pull it up into a ponytail or bun to make sure that it does not fall in the paint. Remove any rings or bracelets that you might be wearing.
1
Create a rough sketch. Use a hard pencil to create a light sketch of your subject. You can do this directly onto the canvas or onto tracing paper, and transfer it using a carbon copy. When you’re drawing your subject, keep in mind the composition and use of negative space.
Composition is the placement of items on the canvas. Choose the best placement so that the eye is drawn around the entirety of the canvas, rather than left to linger on a single spot.
Negative space is the space around an object. If you are using an item in real life and are drawing it onto your canvas, draw difficult areas by looking at the space around the figure rather than at the figure itself. Consider what you will fill the negative space with once you start the painting in order to make your subject pop.
Make note of overlapping figures, as these add depth to your composition. If your subject doesn’t have any overlapping shapes, consider rearranging until you do. This will add realism to your painting.