6/2/2011 Art Instruction For Beginners – Art Inst…

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Step By Step Oil Painting Tutorial By Dan Schultz

Posted By rserpe On July 23, 2008 @ 10:31 pm In Oil Painting | 17 Comments

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About Dan
Dan Schultz w as born in New Mexico in 1975 and soon began
to take an interest in art. He enjoyed art classes through his
primary and high school years, and studied commercial art at
Pensacola Christian College in Florida. He received his degree
with a focus on illustration and graphic design, but he never felt
driven to pursue either as a career. After college, he continued
to sharpen his drawing and painting skills by attending
Cottonwood Artists’ School in Colorado Springs, Colorado, and
it was there that he realized for the first time his desire for a
career in fine art.

He chooses to work in a classical style because he deeply

connects w ith traditional works w hich aptly express reality. “Art
should bring about a respect for life and God’s creation around
us,” he says. “I want to do my best to faithfully render w hat is
beautiful to me and hopefully others will find that beauty
reflected in my w ork.”

Please do take a moment to visit Dan’s Website by follow ing

the link below. Much of the artw ork on his w ebsite (beside
what is in his current galleries) is available for purchase directly
from his studio. I know Dan worked real hard on this oil
painting tutorial [2] . I am sure he would appreciate your visit. If you have time, why not drop
him a line as well.

Follow this link to visit Dan’s Website. [3]

Sign Up For Dan’s Email Newsletter

Every month or so, Dan sends out announcements about new artwork, upcoming shows and
other new s. If you would like to receive these announcements please take a moment to sign
up for his new sletter by follow ing the link below :

Please click here to reach Dan’s Newsletter Sign Up Form [4]

West Wind – An Oil Painting Demonstration by Dan Schultz

For this studio painting I used Claessens double oil primed linen canvas, #15 (my usual
painting surface). This painting, as with most of my larger paintings, w as completed using a
photograph as my reference. (My wife, Sarah, is the lovely lady in the photo. Somehow I
doubt she would have been very excited to pose in the middle of a field long enough for me
to do the painting from life.)

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Step 1:
When doing a painting of this size (or larger), I am most comfortable starting with a fairly
detailed draw ing of my composition. In this case, I use vine charcoal directly on the canvas. I
make sure to take as much time as necessary on this step since it w ill provide me w ith the
direction I w ill follow for the rest of the painting. As I draw, I take careful measurements
using my reference photo to make sure everything ends up the right size and in the right
place. (On a side note, I carefully measure when painting smaller sizes too. I just don’t
necessarily do a charcoal draw ing first.) I always double-check my draw ing by looking at it in
a mirror. Somehow seeing the image in reverse makes it easier to see my mistakes.

Step 2:
Now that I am ready to paint, I take a few moments to think about how I w ill proceed. When
doing smaller paintings, I will often work on the whole painting at once. But, because this
painting is a little larger, I decide to start in one area and work outw ards. This way I have
the freedom to stop if I need to, and w hen I return it won’t matter if the paint has started to
dry because I (hopefully) won’t have to work on areas that I’ve already painted. (I alw ays
prefer to work w et-into-wet so I can easily handle my edges w ithout having to repaint over

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dry paint.) Of course, this requires some planning as I begin, but it’s also a fun way to work
because I can see the painting begin to take shape fairly quickly. So now all I have to do is
decide w here to start! I’ve found that the easiest way for me to establish my value range for
a painting is to start in an area with strong, dark values and some good contrast. For this
painting, some of my darkest values are in the focal point (Sarah), so it makes sense for me
to start there.

Step 3:
I do a lot of squinting at my photo and at my painting to compare the value relationships
betw een shapes. If I get the relationships right, I will be able to continue through the
painting w ithout having to go back to change any of the values.

Step 4:
As I continue, I also pay attention the edges between shapes so that they won’t all end up
looking the same. In order to lead the viewer’s eye to the focal point, I make sure to keep
my sharpest edges there, while softening other surrounding edges in comparison. One of
the keys to good edges is variety.

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Step 5:
As I work on Sarah’s w hite coat in the picture, I keep in mind that photographs have a
tendency to incorrectly portray color information, especially in extremely light and dark areas.
As a result, I must think about the sunlight from the day I took the photo and remember the
effect its color temperature had on the entire scene. (This is where all of that continued
practice painting from life pays off too, because I have information in my mind from
experiences painting in these very conditions.) Since I remember that the color temperature
of direct sunlight is warm, I make sure to add warm colors to all the areas of the coat that
are in the direct light. As a result, the shadow s are relatively cooler when compared to the
light areas.

Step 6:
Sarah is now mostly finished (along with the most critical part of the painting.) The farther
along I get in the painting, the more comparisons are taking place. Every shape I paint has
to be correct in drawing accuracy, value, color, and edges w hen compared to what I have
already painted. This is w hy it is so important for me to be accurate as I begin. If I get to this
point and notice that one of those main components is incorrect, I w ill either have a lot of

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repainting to do, or it w ill be time to decide to just start over. (And yes, unfortunately this
has happened.)

Step 7:
Fortunately, I don’t see any glaring errors at this point, so I am free to start working on the
background. The challenge of a background filled w ith trees is to keep from adding too much
detail and distracting from the focal point. Yet another benefit of starting w ith the focal point
is that now I can compare the rest of my painting with it and make sure that it still
predominates. So I try to discern the major shapes in the trees and only put in what is
necessary to give the impression of many trees and branches.

Step 8:
As I block in more of the background trees and foreground grasses, I keep the paint fairly
thin. This allows me to apply thicker paint on top when I get into more detail, and I can also
let some of this initial w ash show through in the finished painting. Again, this gives me some
variety of texture w hich is pleasing in the same way as variety in my edgework (which I
mentioned in Step 4).

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Step 9:
Now that I have the background all blocked in, the time has come to start w orking on the
foreground trees. As I mentioned w hen I was ready to begin painting back in Step 2, I took a
few moments to think about how to proceed. One of the things I took note of w as that my
darkest values in the scene were actually in these foreground trees. Therefore, I had to hold
back a bit on how dark I made the shadow s in Sarah’s skirt so that when the time came to
paint the foreground trees, they w ould be the darkest elements. This helps increase the
illusion of depth in the painting since it “pushes” Sarah farther into the background because
the darkest values on her aren’t quite as dark as the foreground trees w hich should appear
closest to the viewer. I also had to remember that my camera saw the shadows on Sarah’s
skirt and the value of the foreground trees to be about the same, w hich gave me another
reason to be careful about how dark I made the shadows on Sarah’s skirt.

Step 10:
I start adding details to the trees and grasses, taking care that they don’t become too
interesting in comparison with Sarah. After all, she’s most important!

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Step 11:
It looks like the w hole right side of the painting is pretty much finished now. Painting the
values correctly in the grasses at the bottom is somewhat tricky. I have to squint and make
more comparisons betw een the grasses and other values in the painting so that the
shadow s and lights on the grasses w ill be correct. Just like painting the trees and branches,
I try to look at the big shapes in the grasses so I don’t get them too detailed.

Step 12:
Almost finished now! All that’s left is to finish the trees on the left in both the foreground and
background. So all I have to do is treat them the same w ay I’ve treated the other trees in
the painting.

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West Wind • Oil on Linen • 16″ x 28″

Step 13:
I always look at the painting in the mirror one last time to make sure nothing is incorrect or
distracting from my focal point. Often an edge that is too sharp or a distracting brush stroke
needs to be softened. Once those are corrected to my satisfaction, the painting is finished!
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