Fine Art Tutorials

Oil painting course – Compilation
Sl. No Title Page No

1 Best Oil paint and Medium : A Comprehensive Review 1
2 Best brushes for oil painting 34
3 How to take care of Oil painting 41
4 How to clean up After oil painting 45
5 How to clean up without solvent 48
6 How to choose surface for oil painting 50
7 Oil painting supplies for Beginners 54
8 How to buy oil painting cheaply 57
9 Types of solvent to use with oil paint 60
10 Best Easels : How to choose an Easel for painting 61
11 The Fat over Lean rule in Oil painting 66
12 How to varnish an oil painting 69
13 Oiling out a painting 76
14 Alla Prima 78
15 The block-in technique to oil and Acrylic painting 82
16 What colours do you need for oil painting 84
17 How to tone a canvas for oil & Acrylic painting 88
18 How to chose pigment for Impermitura 91
19 Glazing Technique for oil painting 94
20 A complete list of oil painting techniques 98
21 Oil Vs. Water mixable oil paint : A Guide 115
22 How to mix colours : A Guide for artists 120
23 How to use color schemes in art 132
24 Realism Painting : How to mix Colour Realistically 143
25 Indirect painting Technique 152
26 Direct Painting Technique 156
27 Painting with limited Palette - A guide 159
28 How to Paint with a palette of 3 colours in oil 165
29 How to create an underpainting in oil 176
30 The grid method : How to create an accurate Drawing 181
31 How long does oil painting takes to dry 191
32 How to create a loose Painterly style in art work 194
33 Cotton Vs Linen Canvas : what are the differences ? 203
34 Composition in Art 207
35 Plein Air Composition Technique 237
36 Advance composition Technique 240
37 Scrumbling painting Technique : Beginner's Guide 250
38 Chiaroscuro : Definition , History & Examples Tutorial 257

Source : https://finearttutorials.com/
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1. Best Oil Paint and Mediums: A Comprehensive

Review
Each paint manufacturer has their own special formula which makes their paint
unique. The very basic recipe for paint is oil (the binder) + pigment.
Paint varies from brand to brand. There will be differences in the type of oil that’s
used as a binder, the pigments used, the amount of pigment added and the
combination of additives, stabilisers, fillers and dryers.
Different oil paint brands have their own recognisable properties, in the handling of
the paint, in the colours selected by the paint maker, and even in the finish of your
painting (whether it’s glossy or matte).
Getting the best quality paint certainly won’t make you a better painter, but it can
make the whole painting experience much more joyful, and your process feel easier.
I’ve loosely ordered this post from the boutique craftsman-made high end ranges, to
the mid-level ranges, to the ‘student grade’ quality paint.
The best oil paint brands for your painting practice, will depend upon your painting
style, budget and colour preferences. Check out these 20 different oil paint brands
for their different qualities and characteristics. Disclaimer: Fine Art Tutorials is a
reader supported site. When you make purchases through links on this site, we may
earn a small commission at no extra cost to you.
1 Schmincke Mussini
2 Michael Harding
3 Blockx
4 Old Holland
5 M. Graham
6 Langridge Oil Paint
7 Williamsburg Handmade Oil Colours
8 Vasari
9 Daniel Smith
10 Rublev
11 Grumbacher Pre-Tested Oil Colours
12 Gamblin Artists’ Oil Paint
13 Holbein
14 Winsor and Newton Artists’ Oil Colours
15 Sennelier
16 Van Gogh oil paints
17 Blue Ridge
18 Blick Artists’ Oils
19 Winsor and Newton Winton Oil Colours
20 Pebeo XL Studio Oil Colours
21 What is the most budget friendly way to start oil painting?
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22 Best oil paints to start with

23 On a budget: the best oil paint brands
24 Best oil paint brands for realism painting
25 The best oil paint brands for the impasto technique
26 Best oil paints for wet on wet technique
27 The best oil paint brands for the glazing technique
28 Best archival oil paint brands
29 What are the best oil paint brands overall?
30 FAQs
30.1 What is oil paint made from?
30.2 Which oil paint is best for professionals?
30.3 Which oil paint is best for beginners?
30.4 Which oil paint colours do you need?
30.5 How much does oil paint cost?
Schmincke Mussini
Buy Schmincke Mussini Oil Colours here.

Pros: Sophisticated formulation prevents warping, high quality, amazing for creating
glazes
Cons: Gives a glossy finish
Rating: 5/5
This is a German brand that produces wonderful professional grade paint, with
excellent lightfastness and the consistency of a paste.
It’s unusual in the sense that the colour is resin based. The binders used in their
colours are specially created blends—they use damar resin, linseed, safflower oil
and poppy seed oil to achieve beautifully rich colours and durable layers.
The process used to achieve the quality of the paint is incredibly sophisticated, and
the use of resin in the paint especially lends itself to creating thin layers of glaze.
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The use of resin in the paint means that the colours dry evenly and consistently, and
it gives the finish of the painting luminosity and lustre. The even drying property is a
unique one, that cannot be found in any other brand of paint.
As binders and mediums such as linseed, safflower and poppy seed oil cure, they
increase in volume. The solvents in the resin mixture in the binder balances this out
by decreasing in volume as it dries, this creates tension-free drying of the layers
which are less likely to therefore warp and crack as they age.
The finish of the paint is glossier than other oil paint brands. This isn’t necessarily a
drawback, it just comes down to your own personal tastes.
If you’re looking to get a primary palette, their colours Lemon Yellow, Translucent
Cyan and Transparent Magenta will give a great chromatic range. You may need to
add another red, such as Cadmium, and yellow that leans towards red such as their
Cadmium Yellow Hue to the mix to be able to mix deeper reds, yellows and oranges.
Their metallics range includes some that are completely exclusive to Schmincke—
they make seven gold shades, five of which contain bronze pigments. These are
definitely worth checking out to experiment with.
Michael Harding
You can buy Michael Harding paints here.

Pros: High pigment content, buttery consistency, no fillers or driers, resistant to
fading
Cons: Some pigments can be expensive (check the link for offers)
Rating: 5/5
Michael Harding is an artist from the UK who was inspired by the Old Masters to
recreate the rich colours and effects of their paintings.
He definitely has the approach of a craftsman when it comes to making his paints—
the paint making operation is run by him.
You can achieve incredible luminosity and vibrance by using Michael Harding’s
paints.
All paints are handmade. Additionally, Michael Harding makes the paint without
adding fillers or dryers to the mix. This means that the pigment content is incredibly
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high. By using any Michael Harding paint, you’ll notice just how far it spreads on the
canvas and how little the colour fades over time. For this reason, they are worth the
investment, as you can be much more frugal with the amount of paint you use.
Due to the quality of the paint, and the fact that no fillers whatsoever are added to
the paint to bulk them out and increase profits, some pigments come at a high price.
But my advice would be to buy your paint tubes individually rather than buying a
selection pack, so you can pick out only the ones that are suited to your painting
style, or budget. Having said that, Michael Harding does provide an incredibly
affordable introductory set of series 1 paints, that include some of the essential
colours, get it here.
There are currently 95 colours available, but Michael Harding keeps adding new
colours to his collection, so it’s certainly a range that is growing.
Blockx
Buy Blockx paint here.

Pros: Stays wet for longer than other brands, perfect for painting alla prima, soft
consistency
Cons: Expensive, some artists don’t like the slower drying times
Rating: 5/5
A handmade, European professional grade paint, comparable in quality to Old
Holland or Michael Harding.
Blockx manufactures the paint traditionally, by hand turning three stone cylinders.
This works to mill the paint without heating or polluting it.
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Only pure pigment is used by Blockx, which is shown by the ease of which they can
be mixed with other pigments on the canvas to create vibrant colours.
The paint is ‘perfectly lightfast’. Blockx grinds the earth colours, black and iron oxides
in linseed oil. Then they grind all the other colours in poppy seed oil, as this is less
prone to yellowing, and the paint film will not wrinkle over time.
Blockx are unique in the sense that they bind their colours mainly in poppy seed oil.
Poppy seed oil is a more expensive, non-yellowing oil that dries slower than linseed.
You’ll notice a difference in your colours, the blues and whites will stay crisp. If you
were to selectively choose colours from this brand, go for the violets, blues and
whites—you can achieve a cooler colour palette working with Blockx than other
brands of paint.
Poppy seed oil dries at a slower rate than linseed oil, but you can use mediums to
speed up the drying process.
Added to this, the poppy oil gives the paint a consistency comparable to soft butter.
These two factors make the paint very suitable for painting alla prima (wet-on-wet).
Poppy seed oil is probably the most expensive drying oil to use as a binder, and
regardless of the lack of linolenic acid in poppy seed oil (which is the component that
creates a strong paint film), Blockx stand by their choice of using it as a binder.
Old Holland
Buy Old Holland oil paint here.

Pros: High pigment content
Cons: Some colours can be very pricy, stiff consistency
Rating: 5/5
First established in 1664 by Old Dutch master painters, Old Holland have been
running for over 3 centuries, which makes them the world’s oldest paint
manufacturer.
The colours are made using production techniques used by the Old Dutch Masters to
this day, and Old Holland is a household name for artists, used by professionals and
restorers.
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Pigments used by the Old Masters that are not considered to be lightfast have since
been replaced, so their colours are almost completely lightfast. They do not add any
cheap fillers or artificial dryers to the paint, and the pigment content is consistently
high.
The paint comes out of the tube quite stiff, so it’s necessary to add additional
medium such as linseed oil to thin the paint.
Old Holland prices are high for some pigments, such as cerulean blue, as this is a
more expensive pigment to source. Their earth colours—the umbers, ochres and
siennas are much more affordable. Despite the high price point, the colours are so
loaded with pigment that they could be considered good value for money when you
take into account how far they will spread on the canvas.
M. Graham
Buy M. Graham Oils here.

Pros: Low toxicity, uses walnut oil, high pigment content
Cons: Slow drying times

Rating: 5/5
M. Graham grind their pigments in walnut oil rather than the usual linseed or
safflower that other paint manufacturers use. This is with the exception of one of
their titanium white pigments which they grind in sunflower oil. Walnut oil was widely
used by the artists of the European Renaissance.
The walnut oil dries to a clear film, which is less prone to yellowing than linseed oil,
resulting in rich pigments that are true to colour.
The paint remains wet for longer, which is an advantage for some artists who use the
wet on wet technique, or like working on a single layer for days at a time. You can
always mix them with a fast drying medium to speed up the drying process if you are
trying to complete a painting quicker.
M. Graham don’t use solvents in their mediums and instead use a combination of
walnut oil and alkyd, which is beneficial for more health conscious artists. Their
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medium can be used to thin paint, and dries much faster than non-alkyd alternatives
because the oil has partially polymerised.
The flow of the paint is incredibly smooth, and the colour spreads a long way on the
canvas due to the high pigment content.
Langridge Oil Paint
Buy Langridge Oil Paint here.

Pros: Large chromatic range, intense colours
Cons: The consistency of the paint differs between colours, not as much choice of
colour compared to other brands
Rating: 5/5
Langridge paint is made in Melbourne, Australia, but you can buy it worldwide from a
store like Jackson’s.
These paints have a very high pigment content and use absolutely no fillers or
additives. This means that the nature of the pigment hasn’t been in any way masked,
so there is quite a bit of variation in the handling properties between colours in this
range. For example, some colours will come out the tube buttery, some will come out
stiff.
There are only 64 colours available, but the range has the fullest chromatic strength,
all colours with maximum tinting power. The colour mixing is extremely clean—when
it comes to colour saturation, these are pretty much unmatchable.
Something to note about these paints is the amount of information they provide
about the contents of the paint and the pigments they use—it’s all on the back of the
tube
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Williamsburg Handmade Oil Colours
Buy Williamsburg paint here.

Pros: Large range of colours (over 170!), good selection of earth colours
Cons: Pricey (but less expensive than Old Holland)
Rating: 5/5
Like Michael Harding, Williamsburg paints were originally formulated by a
professional oil painter. The founder was the artist Carl Plansky, but since his death
the company has been taken over by Golden Artist Colours.
The paints are milled in small batches so that the best qualities of the pigment are
brought out.
When buying oil paints, it’s good to look for handmade paints that have been crafted
by artists for artists—as a lot more passion and care will have gone into getting the
paint just right.
Williamsburg paints are expensive, but not as expensive as Old Holland. They have
a large range of colours, and since being acquired by Golden Artist Colours, they
have increased their range of earth colours to include French Earth Colours, as well
as the traditional Italian earth colours.
They are regarded as professional grade oil paints, they are concerned with
lightfastness ratings which are almost all rated as being 1 excellent—this means that
they are, in turn, concerned with the permanency of the paintings produced by the
artists who use their oil paints.
In terms of unique properties, Williamsburg paints have a tendency to be more
grainy than other paints.
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They have a range of paints ground in safflower oil, as well as a range ground in
linseed. Safflower oil is less prone to yellowing than linseed (the more widely used
paint binder), but the resulting paint film will be softer.
Vasari
Pros: Very high pigment content, pure colours
You can buy Vasari’s Classic Oil Colours here.
Cons: Expensive
Rating: 5/5
This really is the fine wine of the oil painting world—and it’s reflected in the price.
These American makers of professional grade ‘long’ oil paint are dedicated to only
making oil paint, as they don’t manufacture any other medium such as watercolour
or gouache.
They craft their colours in very small amounts, and even fill their tubes by hand.
They have a showroom in Chelsea, New York where you can see live
demonstrations of colour mixing and personally select your own colours.
Their paint has a very light feel, not at all sticky on the brush, with a high chroma and
tinting strength. This is due to the fact they don’t use cheap fillers in their paint.
They use alkali-refined linseed oil as a binder, meaning that the paint film will not
yellow over time, but it maintains a durable paint film that linseed oil provides.
The paint is very expensive, but they run monthly sales on different colour
categories. So if you opt to buy paint from this super high end paint maker, you could
be shrewd and keep checking their website for their monthly offers.
Vasari paints handle well straight out of the tube and they are slightly more fluid than
other brands, which almost makes the use of mediums feel redundant. These paints
are excellent for working in fine detail, due to their consistency, but they may not suit
an artist who likes to paint thickly with impasto strokes.
Daniel Smith
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You can buy Daniel Smith classic oil paints here.

Pros: They make some unique colours, reasonable pricing
Cons: Stiffer in consistency than other brands, not super high end
Rating: 4.5/5
Daniel Smith paints have a high pigment load, and they use alkali-refined linseed oil
as a vehicle for the paint, and their white colours are ground in safflower oil.
The alkali-refined linseed oil they use is consistently light in colour, isn’t as prone to
yellowing and provides good adhesion. Their brushability is very good too, as they
use very few additives in their paint.
Daniel Smith developed a range of oils using semi-precious minerals as the
pigments to achieve some pretty fascinating results. He uses some historical
pigments such as Genuine Lapis Lazuli. He also uses some more novel ones like
genuine turquoise from the Sleeping Beauty mountain range in Arizona. This is a
beautiful pigment when mixed with lighter colours to achieve pastel blues and
greens.
Daniel Smith is also pretty famous for the gesso grounds they produce. The acrylic
gold being a particularly interesting one to use—it uses iron oxides and mica to
produce an iridescent ground.
The quality of the paint isn’t as high as Vasari or Harding, but it’s reflected in the very
reasonable price. The most expensive colours in their price series 6 range, such as
cadmium yellow light (hue PY53, PY138, PY151) and their Pyrrol Scarlet (PR255)
will set you back around £35, while their series 1 colours which include the earths,
whites and blacks only cost £8.90 each.
Rublev
Buy Rublev Oils here.
Pros: High end makers of traditional colours
Cons: They don’t make modern colours such as phthalos and quinacridones
Rating: 5/5
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Rublev has a limited colour palette, focussing on the more natural and historical
pigments. Like many of the higher end oil paint manufacturers, the company that
makes the paint, Natural Pigments, claim that they are made just as they would have
been before the introduction of modern paint tubes—without additives.
Rublev have a huge range of earth colours, many colours that were produced
traditionally and not widely available elsewhere.
They are another manufacturer to supply lead-based white, favoured by many artists
for unique handling properties and luminescence.
Natural Pigments provide a lot of information about what goes into their Rublev Oil
colours on their website. This is a real plus for artists who love to understand the
materials they are working with. It can help determine how the properties of their
materials affect the outcomes in their painting.
Grumbacher Pre-Tested Oil Colours
Buy Grumbacher Oils here.

Pros: Tested by artists, lots of information about properties of paint
Cons: Low viscosity
Rating: 4.5/5
All of Grumbacher’s paints are tested by professional artists before they are put on
the shelves. Properties such as lightfastness, drying time, pigment dispersion and
viscosity are tested by their staff and iterated accordingly until the paint is perfected
to their standards.
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The majority of their 99 colours are single pigment and have a light-fast rating of 1,
meaning colours will resist fading under sunlight.
Some artists complain that the caps are prone to breaking and oil can separate and
leak from the tubes. Paint separation is normal in professional grade paint. Student
grade paints add additives called stabilisers to prevent this from happening. Make
sure the caps are on tight, and clean around the edges of the paint tube to prevent
this from happening.
The consistency of the paint tends to be more liquid than a lot of other paint brands.
Make sure to always check the colour chart provided by the paint maker as some
colours can differ slightly from brand to brand. In the case of the Grumbacher Pre-
Tested Oil Colours, cadmiums tend to be slightly darker than some other brands of
paint.
Gamblin Artists’ Oil Paint
Buy Gamblin Artists Oil Paint here.

Pros: Low toxicity
Cons: Not super high end quality, has a thicker consistency
Rating: 4.5/5
Gamblin are a brand that have made studio safety a priority. They have formulated
paints, mediums and solvents that have low toxicity. Being so mindful of the artist’s
working environment and creating products that aren’t as detrimental to the health as
some others on the market, is what sets Gamblin apart.
No solvents are needed to paint with Gamblin’s oil colours, they can be thinned with
linseed oil, and also cleaned with linseed oil, wiped then washed with soap and
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water or a brush cleaner. A good brush cleaner is the Master’s Brush Cleaner —it

removes wet or dry oil paint from your brushes, and keeps them conditioned nicely.
Gamblin has quite a range of both traditional colours and colours made using
modern pigments and techniques.
Most of the paint from Gamblin uses alkali refined linseed oil as a binder as opposed
to cold-pressed linseed oil. The process of alkali refining the oil prevents the paint
film from yellowing over time.
Another thing to note about Gamblin is that they produce 10 different versions of
white in cool and warm tones, all of which are non-toxic. Their Flake White
Replacement uses titanium dioxide, which has a warm colour with a little
translucency. This white has an opalescent quality which won’t destroy colour mixes.
Regular titanium white can make your colours appear chalky. If you do a direct
comparison to a true Flake White (which uses lead), the handling properties are not
the same. Leaded paint is much more dense, and has long ropey strokes. So this
colour could be beneficial to painters who want to keep their studio free of toxic
materials, but also want a warmer white which lends itself better to creating clearer
colour mixes.
Holbein
Buy Holbein Oils here.
Pros: Reasonable cost, nice to work with
Cons: not as high quality as top brands like Vasari or Harding
Rating: 4/5
This is a good mid-range, Japanese made brand. The pigment content is certainly
much less than Michael Harding, Vasari, or BLOCKX, but a slightly higher grade
paint when compared to Winsor and Newton.
The consistency of the paint is uniform across their palette of 167 colours. Holbein
has found a good balance in the viscosity of the paint it produces.
Holbein stock a range of foundation colours, specifically formulated for
underpainting. These are really useful for creating a barrier between the canvas and
your oil paint. It prevents colours from soaking in to your surface, which is quite
common if you use acrylic gesso as a primer, and creates a unified surface. This
results in richer colours on the top layers of your painting.
Winsor and Newton Artists’ Oil Colours
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Buy Winsor and Newton’s Artists’ Oil Colours here.

Pros: good mid-range paint, vibrant, mixes well, reliable, good range of colours
Cons: There are better paint brands on the market
Rating: 4/5
Artist’s Oil colours are Winsor and Newton’s professional grade line of paints.
In case you’re wondering what professional grade actually means: professional
grade or artist grade (as opposed to student grade) is a description you’ll see used to
describe the quality of different ranges of paint. Professional grade paint will often
have higher pigment content and use less filler to bulk the paint out. It’s more
expensive to make paint this way. This means the price is always higher for
professional grade paint. Professional artists will likely pay more for the luxury of
using paint with the richness of colour that comes from having a high pigment load
and buttery consistency that comes from the manufacturers using little to no fillers.
Winsor and Newton have been making oil colours for over 180 years. There are 110
different colours in this range, ranging from £8 per tube. The colours mix well, and
are very consistent and reliable. By this I mean that different colours will have a fairly
similar consistency when squeezed from the tube. This isn’t always the case with all
paint brands.
When compared to other ranges, in terms of quality these range of paints don’t come
out top of the pile. However, the colours are vibrant and the consistency is workable.
W&N is especially useful for stocking up on colours you get through fast. I use it to
buy large tubes of titanium white.
Sennelier
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You can buy Sennelier Oils here.

Pros: High pigment load, less tendency to yellow, reasonable price
Cons: Some artists don’t like the almost ‘runny’ consistency, dries quickly
Rating: 4/5
These professional-grade paints provide a lustrous satin finish. The natural and
inorganic pigments are ground slowly to an extra fine consistency in archival
safflower oil.
Safflower oil is similar to poppy seed oil in that it contains very little of the fatty acid
(linolenic acid). This component causes yellowing in paint, and creates a more
durable film. So you can be sure that lighter colours such as white a blue will develop
less of a yellow tinge over time when you use Sennelier compared to other paint
ranges.
The paint should dry faster than BLOCKX that uses poppy seed oil as a binder, but
slower than brands of paint that use linseed oil as a binder. Although when tested,
the paint seems to dry quicker on the canvas than other brands, suggesting the use
of additive driers.
Sennelier was widely used by 19th century impressionist painters who liked the
buttery consistency the paint provides. The paint feels much easier to spread on
your surface than paints that use linseed oil as a binder. It is probably one of the
runniest paints available to buy.
Sennelier worked in collaboration with Cezanne to perfect the range of colours.
Professional artists that used the paints include Monet, Gauguin, Matisse, Picasso,
Bonnard, Modigliani, Chagall, Ernst, Hockney. They have helped to shape the range
produced today.
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Sennelier colours are slightly more muted than other professional grade brands. This
can of course be used to your advantage if you prefer to use a more understated
palette.
Van Gogh oil paints
Buy Van Gogh oil paints here.

Pros: Economically priced, good pigment load, good to excellent lightfastness ratings
Cons: Soft consistency (which some artists may not like), student quality
Rating: 4/5
Royal Talens have multiple lines of oil paint, Rembrandt is their professional quality
line and Van Gogh is a more economical, mid-range student quality paint. However,
the pigment load is good and the paints have a soft consistency that is runnier than
other oil paints on this list.
The line offers lots of single pigment colours, with good to excellent lightfastness, so
the colours will be great for colour mixing and will be resistant to fading. The paints
are great value for money, much cheaper than some of the professional paints,
especially for more expensive pigments. For a serious student or aspiring artist,
these paints would be a great choice.
Blue Ridge
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Pros: Really high quality paint at a low price, makes traditional lead whites
Cons: You can only buy it online and directly from the site, international shipping
costs are high
Rating: 5/5
Buy it directly from the website here.
Blue Ridge is a fairly young brand of oil paint, milled by independent paint maker Eric
Silver in North Carolina. It’s been causing quite the stir amongst artists recently, who
have been wanting to spread the word about the excellent quality and value paint.
Originally an apprentice of Robert Doak’s, Eric would make his own paint, sell it to
Doak and gain valuable feedback. Of course, much of what he learnt about paint
milling was self taught too. He then set up Blue Ridge in 2007.
Blue Ridge grind their pigments in a blend of alkali-refined linseed oil and walnut oil
to create the artist quality paint.
Linseed oil acts to create tough, durable layers. The walnut oil provides a clear film
for the colour, where the use of a refined or cold pressed linseed oil alone would be
more prone to yellowing. This enhances the pigments, creating colours that are more
pure.
Blue Ridge is a very affordable brand—their Cadmium colours start at $23 for a 40ml
tube, their Cerulean and Cobalt pigments start at the same price, and of course their
earth colours are much cheaper at only $7.50 for a tube.
The paint isn’t available to buy from large suppliers such as Jackson’s or Blick, and
they sell exclusively online through their own site.
This is premium paint, sold at an almost inconceivable price, made possible by them
cutting out the middleman and supplying directly to artists.
Blick Artists’ Oils
Buy them here.
Pros: Good value, similar to Sennelier, good mid-range paint
Cons: Some colours can be on the oily side
Rating: 3.5/5
This is Dick Blick’s ‘house brand’.
There have been a lot of comparisons drawn between Blick and Sennelier.
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It’s said to be similar in consistency and shares similar colour compositions to

Sennelier, at a fraction of the cost. Blick uses archival quality safflower oil as a
binder in their paints, although they use poppy oil for cerulean blue.
It’s generally thought that their paint is milled at the same place in France that
Sennelier mill their paints. So it’s natural that they should share some qualities.
Although this hasn’t been disclosed by any representatives from Blick’s.
Blick’s paints are slightly stiffer than Sennelier. So it’s clear that Blick work to their
own specifications in paint production.
This brand is a bargain for artists looking for a good deal. It’s a US brand, but they
offer international shipping.
Winsor and Newton Winton Oil Colours
You can buy Winton Oil Paints here.

Pros: Very cheap
Cons: Lower pigment content than top end brands
Rating: 2.5/5
If you are on a budget, this is the ‘student grade’ alternative to W&N’s professional
paints.
There are 47 colour options, but most of the colours are made from ‘hues’ rather
than single or traditional pigments.
Seeing the word ‘hue’ on a paint label isn’t always a bad thing. It can mean that the
colour of a ‘traditional pigment’ has been closely matched. This can occur if the
pigment that was readily available hundreds of years ago is now difficult to attain.
Also, certain traditional pigments such as lead aren’t widely used anymore due to the
adverse health effects they can have. So paint made to reduce the toxic elements
(i.e. Cadmium Red or Yellow Hue) is advantageous to people who want to work with
materials that have low toxicity.
When it comes to the lower grade, more economical paint, ‘hue’ often means that
multiple pigments have been used to closely resemble the colour of the original
pigment. There is a lesser concentration of pigment, therefore the paint won’t mix as
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well, and it’s likely to contain more fillers to bulk it out. You’ll notice differences in the
handling properties and richness of colour in a student grade quality.
It’s important to discern between professional and student grade. It’s not to say that
professional artists won’t use student grade paint—I sometimes use it for doing quick
practice studies.
With all that in mind, Winton certainly isn’t bad to use. They use moderately priced
pigments in their paint rather than lessening the amount of pigment in the paint to an
unacceptable level. For students, professionals with a low budget or artists who need
large volumes of paint that aren’t going to mix the colours too much (for example
textured palette knife paintings), Winton could be suitable.
If you, however, pick up a hue from their Winton range (such as Cerulean Blue Hue)
and the corresponding true colour from their Artist’s Oil Colour range, you’ll see that
the difference is huge, with the hue taking on a much duller appearance.
For a student grade range it’s one of the better ones. If you’ve never used oil before,
you’ll likely get through your first paints really quickly. For this reason, this could be a
good go-to for your first ever paint. Use them to learn the process of oil painting.
Such as how to layer properly, mix with mediums, mix colours and practice applying
the paint to different surfaces.
Compared to other student ranges such as Daler Rowney Georgian Oils, Winton
certainly comes out top.
Pebeo XL Studio Oil Colours
Buy Pebeo oil paint here.

Pros: Very cheap, fast drying time
Cons: Low pigment content, mostly hues and imitation colours, not lightfast enough
for professional work
Rating: 2/5
Probably the most affordable oil paints on the market, and certainly on this list.
These paints are good for anyone who is more price conscious, or doesn’t want to
invest in expensive paint.
Pebeo is a student grade paint. They do not use single pigments in their colours, but
rather a mix of hues and imitation colours. This means that you are more limited
when it comes to creating vibrant colour mixes. The colours will become muddy
much quicker.
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Pebeo’s palette includes modern and traditional colours. However, the colour range
is relatively small compared to other brands, with only 64 colours.
Some colours do look vibrant when you put them on the canvas, but some colours
barely look like the colour they are intended to be. If you were to paint a Pebeo
colour next to a Michael Harding you’ll see how dramatic the difference is.
The lightfast ratings of Pebeo aren’t great. On the rating scale they use, a lightfast
rating of 2, or any number above that means your colours will fade over time. It’s
something to consider if you’re planning to sell your work.
If you value the permanency of your work, I wouldn’t recommend using this brand for
anything outside practice. Use it for painting in very thin layers as underpaintings or
sketches.
What is the most budget friendly way to start oil painting?
When finding the best oil paint brands for your painting practice, you’ll have to first
consider budget. If you are looking for an economical way to start oil painting, I
would advise getting only a few colours from a reasonably priced higher quality
brand, like Winsor & Newton.
You don’t need lots of different colours to start oil painting. In fact, you only needthe
primaries, white and burnt umber. This palette will give you the ability to mix the
widest spectrum of colours and values from the fewest tubes of paint.
Some good primary colours to start with, that will give you the potential to mix a wide
range of tones from just six colours are: Ultramarine blue, Phthalo blue, Hansa
Yellow, Lemon Yellow, Magenta and Pyrrole Red. Hansa has a similar colour profile
to Cadmium Yellow and Pyrrole has a similar colour profile to Cadmium Red.
Interchange the reds and yellows to use as primaries for mixing. However, Hansa
and Pyrrole are generally cheaper.
Starting with a more limited palette will encourage you to learn how to mix more
quickly. It will take a bit of time to experiment with mixing, but it’s arguably the most
essential skill in oil painting. For more advice, read my tutorial on the colours you
need for oil painting.
Best oil paints to start with
Gamblin oil paints are a brilliant choice for beginners. They are a brand that
balances exceptional quality with affordability. Many professional artists favour this
brand too, for this reason.
Gamblin’s colours are highly pigmented and permanent. The paint has a wonderful
consistency, it’s smooth but it’s not too runny. The consistency is more viscous than
brands such as Sennelier, but less viscous than Old Holland, for example. Due to the
archival properties and the strength of the paint film that the linseed binder provides,
artists come back to buy this oil paint brand again and again.
On a budget: the best oil paint brands
Winsor & Newton Artists’ Oil Colours are . They are the cheapest of all the artist
grade oil paints. From a store like Blick, they are often on offer. If you buy a set, or
only choose a few colours you can cut costs.
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The Artists’ Oil Colours offer oil painters all the characteristics they would look for in
a professional grade brand. With a high pigment load, archival properties, smooth
consistency and mixing ability, expect clean colours and a strong paint film.
Best oil paint brands for realism painting
Oil paint brands like Blockx, Sennelier and Schmincke Mussini have a smooth, less
viscous consistency. These brands mill pigments to an extra fine consistency, so
they don’t drag on the brush. As pigment particles are smaller, they make brighter
colour mixes.
Check out our realism painting guide for some tips on how to paint realistically with
oils.
The best oil paint brands for the impasto technique
Old Holland paint has a stiff consistency, brilliant for creating thick textured impasto
work. If you like to create more painterly, textured effects, consider adding an
impasto medium, like cold wax to thicken the paints even further. Cold wax will also
add body to the paint, meaning that you will have to use less tube colour. This will
save you money in the long run.
To improve your impasto painting skills, read our impasto guide.
Best oil paints for wet on wet technique
Blockx oil paints are perfect for the wet on wet technique because they are slow
drying. Wet on wet, otherwise known as alla prima, requires the artist to finish the
painting (or section) before the first application of paint dries. Read more about this
technique and how to try it for yourself in our alla prima tutorial.
Another great oil paint brand for wet on wet paint applications is M. Graham, due to
their slow drying times.
The best oil paint brands for the glazing technique
Schmincke Mussini oil paints work brilliantly when used with the glazing technique in
oil painting. The paints are soft and they use finely milled pigments. Another
important attribute is that many of their colours provide transparent properties, which
is essential to the glazing technique. The finish of the dry paint film is luminous and
satin-like with this brand, due to the fact they contain resin. Resin also acts to create
structurally sound layers that are less likely to warp, or need oiling out.
To increase the transparency and fluidity of paint, use a medium like linseed oil.
Chelsea Classical Studio makes a ‘Fat Medium’ from Damar resin and cold pressed
linseed oil—it’s perfect to use as a glazing medium.
Best archival oil paint brands
Blockx, Michael Harding, Schmincke Mussini, Old Holland, and M. Grahamare all
exceptional quality oil paint brands that create perfectly lightfast paint. Expect the
colours to stand the test of time.
What are the best oil paint brands overall?
Brands like Michael Harding offer excellent quality, with high pigment load and
buttery consistency. The great thing about this brand is that the colours with low
series numbers come at a reasonable price. Michael Harding manufactures paint in
the UK, so prices are slightly cheaper from UK stores. The tubes last for a long time,
due to how rich and intense the colours are. The colours produced by Michael
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Harding are inspired by the old masters, they have a well thought through pigment
range.
Gamblin, Blockx, M. Graham and Schmincke Mussini are wonderful choices too.
You’ll get a lot of joy out of painting with these brands. They all feel easy to handle,
mix cleanly and the colours look bright on the canvas.
As you can see, the best oil paint brand for you will depend upon your preferences,
painting style, techniques and budget.
FAQs
What is oil paint made from?
Manufacturers make oil paint with pigment and a drying oil. The drying oil (binder)
could be such as linseed, poppy or safflower. Recipes of oil paint will vary between
brands. For example, some brands may add various additives, fillers and dryers to
their paint. One brand may use slightly different pigments or types of oil from
another. For this reason, brands of oil paint will have their own unique properties and
behave slightly differently from one another.
Which oil paint is best for professionals?
Professional painters often choose paints that have a high pigment content and use
a quality binder. Professional grade paints won’t have any additives and fillers in
their paint mixture. Pigments in professional paints will have a high permanence
rating. Professional paints contain mostly single pigments, as this results in cleaner
paint mixes.
Which oil paint is best for beginners?
Beginner painters should look for paint that is affordable but doesn’t compromise on
quality. Student grade paints will have less pigment content and use fillers and
additives in their paint to bulk it out. The colours of student paint aren’t as pure or
rich as the higher end professional ranges. Start by buying a limited palette of
primaries from a quality brand and learn how to mix the paint. By getting fewer
colours you will save money.
Which oil paint colours do you need?
With a split primary palette you can mix a wide range of hues and tones from just a
few colours. The palette includes the primaries and a warm or cool version of each
primary colour.
A suggested colour palette to start is: Cyan (PB15), Magenta (PV19), Yellow
(PY128), Ultramarine (PB29), Cadmium Red Light (PR108), Cadmium Yellow
(PY35). Then you will need paint to create shadows and highlights: Titanium White
and Burnt Umber.
How much does oil paint cost?
Oil paint colours have different series numbers. The series number tells you how
expensive the paint’s pigment is to obtain or make. It reflects the cost of the paint.
Paint with low series numbers from budget value brands could start at under $5 per
tube. A more expensive pigment from a professional grade brand could cost
upwards of $40. You can save money by painting with a limited palette and buying
fewer paint tubes that have low series number pigments.
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Oil Painting Mediums: A Guide

Oil painting mediums can be used to alter the consistency, transparency, finish or
drying time of the paint. They also extend the paint, meaning a little paint can go
much further.
There are many different types of oil paint mediums, so read on to understand the
properties of each and how you can combine them with your paint to get the best
results.
Disclaimer: Fine Art Tutorials is a reader supported site. When you make purchases
through links on this site, we may earn a small commission at no extra cost to you.
Contents hide
1 Why use an oil paint medium?
2 Solvents
2.1 Turpentine
2.2 Odourless mineral spirits (artist’s white spirit)
2.3 Oil of spike lavender
2.4 Zest-it®
3 Oils
3.1 Refined linseed oil
3.2 Cold-pressed linseed oil
3.3 Linseed stand oil
3.4 Safflower oil
3.5 Poppy seed oil
3.6 Walnut oil
4 Cold wax
4.1 Gamblin cold wax
4.2 Zest-it cold wax
4.3 Michael Harding beeswax paste
4.4 Michael Harding resin oil wax medium
5 Alkyd resin
5.1 Walnut alkyd medium
5.2 Liquin Original
5.3 Galkyd
5.4 Liquin Impasto Medium
5.5 Neo Megilp
6 Found your favourite oil painting mediums?
7 Oil painting mediums: Pin it!
Why use an oil paint medium?
When the paint isn’t doing what you want it to, there will be an oil paint medium you
can use to modify the paint to make it easier to work with.
Used straight from the tube, oil paints can be unpredictable. Drying times and
viscosity vary between colours (even if they are from the same range of paints that
you bought together). So oil paint mediums can be used to level these out.
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All mediums have their own unique properties—so many effects can be achieved
depending on which medium you choose to mix into your paint. You can thicken the
paint, thin the paint, give it matte or gloss finish, soften the paint, level out the brush
strokes, or give your paint more body and texture.
By becoming more informed about the specific properties of different oil painting
mediums, artists can harness these properties to achieve the desired effects in their
art.
So if you want more predictable, consistent results and to level out the drying times
of your paints, just add a little medium…
Solvents
Prussian Blue and Scarlet Lake pigments straight from the tube, and mixed with
distilled turpentine on oil sketching pad.
Properties: thins paint, increases transparency, increases flow, speeds drying
time, gives paint a matte finish.
Solvents are what you use to clean your equipment after painting, but they can also
be worked into your painting. They stand as a vital part of the painting process for
many artists. It’s possible to paint solvent free, if you want to keep your space free
of fumes.
When mixed with your paints, the solvent will evaporate from the surface of the
painting (taking around a day to dry), leaving the pigment and oil binder to oxidise.
Solvents change the finish of the paint, they make the colours duller, dryer and more
brittle. So it’s suitable to use them to thin the paint to block in large areas of colour in
the first stages of the painting which won’t necessarily be seen in the finished piece.
Excessive use of solvents can create a chalky effect in your painting, and painting
with solvent-thinned-paint over very oil rich layers will likely cause the paint film to
crack (to prevent this from happening, learn the fat-over-lean rule).
If you’re not sure where to start in using solvents to create your own oil painting
medium, it’s good practice to start blocking in colours with purely pigment and
solvent, then work up to a 1:2 oil to solvent mixture. Then 1:1 and gradually
increasing the amount of oil in your mixtures for each new layer. That is the fat over
lean rule in short.
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To make your own painting medium, add either cold pressed linseed oil, or linseed
stand oil to the solvent. The oil needs to be added to the solvent, not the other way
around, as linseed oil is viscous, so it requires agitation to mix properly. Leave your
mixture to sit for 48 hours so it combines.
Turpentine
Buy turpentine here.
Called ‘Turps’ for short, turpentine is distilled from the resin of pine trees, and has a
very fast evaporation rate.
Of all the solvents, turpentine is probably the most compatible with oil paint. When
mixed with the oil and pigment in the paint, the pigments will be dispersed perfectly,
giving an even finish.
Just make sure you get the refined artist grade stuff, as cheaper turpentine that can
be bought in hardware stores generally has more impurities that shouldn’t be
incorporated into paintings. Undistilled decorator’s turpentine contains gum residue
which can cause yellowing.
Bear in mind that turpentine is a toxic chemical, its vapour is also toxic so it is
harmful to breath it in. The fumes can get heady.
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If you choose to use turpentine as an oil painting medium, it’s best to use it in a
space that’s very well ventilated and away from children and pets. Always keep the
toxic chemicals in lidded jars so you’re not breathing in fumes unnecessarily and
always wear protective rubber gloves if you think your skin might come into contact
with it.
There are clever ways of purifying the air in your space—like filling it with house
plants.
As turpentine is the most widely used of all solvents for oil painting, it is generally
considered a benchmark, that the effectiveness of other solvents are compared
against.
Turpentine has a considerable active strength, it can be reused time and time again.
Just wait for sedimentation to occur and simply filter the solvent from the paint
particles at the bottom.
If you’re feeling completely put off at the thought of painting with solvents, it’s
perfectly doable to cut solvents out of your painting process completely. There are
plenty of alternatives to turpentine too, alternatives that are much less toxic, read on
to find out…
Odourless mineral spirits (artist’s white spirit)
Buy odourless mineral spirit here.
In the UK, we call it white spirit, but in the US it’s referred to as odourless mineral
spirits (OMS). White spirit is a petroleum distillate that can also be used for thinning
oil colours.
It’s not as compatible with the paint as turpentine, as it is more abrasive and will
break the paint down in a more uncontrollable way. It is advised to mix with another
oil paint medium if using to thin paint.
White spirit dries at a slower rate and gives a more watery mixture than turpentine. It
comes in odourless varieties, which is a more refined distillate—it’s less harmful but
still toxic.
Don’t bother getting the decorator grade white spirit if you’re using it as a medium
and incorporating it into your painting. The best odourless mineral spirit to use in
your studio would be Gamblin’s formulation called Gamsol, as the aromatic solvents
have been refined from it, so that less than 0.005% remain.
Bear in mind that OMS can cause embrittlement as it weakens the paint film. The
finish is much better with turpentine. OMS can be used as a medium, but it’s pretty
effective to use as a brush cleaner, as it’s cheaper than turpentine.
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Oil of spike lavender
Buy oil of spike lavender here.

This solvent was historically used as an alternative to turpentine. It is strong enough
to fully dissolve resins, and mixes very well with oil to create mediums. It breaks
down thicker paint with ease.
Oil of spike lavender is actually a stronger solvent than turpentine, so less is needed
to effectively thin paint. It works to improve the clarity in your painting, extend
uniform particle dispersion and increases adhesion of oil paint layers.
The solvent is far less toxic than turpentine; it does have strong fumes, but many
people agree that the aroma is more pleasant. As it is a solvent, it should be used
the same way as turpentine, with good ventilation and by avoiding contact with the
eyes and skin.
This solvent is much more expensive than turpentine, but a little goes a very long
way, you’ll only need to use a drop or two at a time.
Zest-it®
Buy Zest-it here.
This is also described as a safer alternative to turpentine and works as an effective
replacement. It doesn’t contain any aromatic hydrocarbons or CFCs.
It’s also kinder to the environment than turpentine as it is biodegradable.
It thins oil paint, cleans brushes and can dilute resin to create varnish. It’s not as
effective at thinning when compared with turpentine or oil of spike lavender,
however. Your mixtures will be thicker and it can make paint cloudy.
Oils
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Properties: increases transparency, increases flow, slows drying time, levels

brush strokes, creates a ‘fatter’ paint layer.
Not all types of oil can be used in oil painting.
The most commonly used oils that can be used in painting are linseed oil (and all its
variations), safflower oil, poppy seed oil and walnut oil.
These oils all share one common attribute, they are all siccative. They undergo a
polymerisation process, whereby the molecules in the oil combine with molecules in
the air to form a solid layer. It’s due to their ability to oxidise that these oils get their
name ‘drying oils’.
Other drying oils include perilla, soybean and tung. These are less widely used for
various reasons. Perilla is very prone to yellowing as it cures, soybean and tung do
not make for very permeable paint films.
All oils are considered ‘fat’ so thinking of the fat over lean rule, you would gradually
add tiny amounts of oil to your paint, or increase the ratio in your mixed mediums as
you add to the layers in your painting.
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Refined linseed oil
Buy refined linseed oil here.

This is obtained from the dried, ripened seeds of the flax plant. So you might also
see linseed oil being sold as flax oil or even flaxseed oil.
This is the most widely used oil to mix with solvents and oil paints to create
mediums, this is due to the fact that it has an unmatchable durability when compared
to other drying oils.
It acts to reduce the oil viscosity, slow the drying time, and increase the gloss of the
oil paint.
Linseed oil is slightly yellow in colour and it should be noted that using linseed oil can
cause your paint to yellow over time.
Linseed oil contains both linolenic and linoleic acid in measures that is favourable to
oil painters. Linolenic acid is the component in the oil that causes yellowing, but also
creates a durable paint film. So any oil with a high linoleic content will produce a
strong film.
Cold-pressed linseed oil
Buy cold-pressed linseed oil here.
Get cold pressed linseed oil (mixed with oil of spike lavender) to use as a lean
medium here.
This helps to create a shinier and harder finish to your paint film when compared to
that of refined linseed oil. It also dries slower than refined linseed oil, taking around
four days to become touch dry.
The oil is very high quality, and is often used as the oil binder, in which pigments are
ground in many professional paints. It is considered a good choice for a binder due
to its high acid number, which coats the pigments more effectively than oils with low
acid numbers.
Linseed stand oil
Buy stand oil here.
Often referred to as ‘stand oil’ or ‘bodied oil’—this thick oil derives from flax, much
the same as regular linseed oil.
The difference lies in the treatment of the oil. Refined linseed oil is heated at a high
temperature often in a vacuum sealed chamber to make bodied oil.
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Stand oil is much more concentrated, meaning a little bit goes a long way and the
consistency is much thicker, almost like honey.
When considering its handling properties, It leaves a glossy finish, which makes this
oil paint medium great for glazing.
Another great thing about stand oil is that it is less prone to yellowing than linseed
oil. The fact that the oil has been heated means that it has undergone
polymerisation, meaning that it is already part-way to being a dried film. This means
that the paint has less oxidation to do before it dries; oxidation being the main culprit
of a yellowed paint film.
Stand oil has good flowing properties, but not as good as linseed oil. You might feel
more of a ‘drag’ on your paint brush when using stand oil, the oil has great brush
levelling properties however.
If you mix stand oil with turpentine, you can make a medium that dries slightly
quicker than linseed oil mixed with turpentine.
Stand oil is less prone to a phenomenon called ‘sinking in’, whereby the oil in a layer
of paint is absorbed into the layer below causing dulled out areas in the painting.
This is because the molecules in stand oil are larger, meaning that they’re not easily
absorbed by porous materials.
Safflower oil
Buy safflower oil here.
As it solely contains linoleic acid, which many will argue that when used by itself is a
weaker binder.
When used as an oil painting medium, Safflower oil increases the flow and has a
lower viscosity than linseed oil, which means that it will make the paint spread
further. You can see from the image above, that the safflower + oil paint mixture was
the runniest.
It has other beneficial properties, namely that the paint film is less likely to wrinkle
over time than linseed oil.
Safflower oil is a lot cheaper than linseed oil. It dries a lot slower, and actually
doesn’t ever fully cure. If left in extremely hot temperatures, there have been cases
of paint actually melting. It has a much weaker paint film than linseed oil.
Some will advise against using this as a painting medium, but it works fine when
used sparingly. For example, when applied thinly on the top layers of your painting if
you wanted to mix it with light colours. Of course, negative properties of your
materials can always be counterbalanced and controlled with good practice, so as
long as you are aware that the paint will dry with a weaker film. For example, you
could paint a layer of varnish over the top to seal the paint.
Poppy seed oil
Buy poppy seed oil here.
Poppy oil, or Poppy Seed Oil is similar to safflower oil in the sense that it is a clear oil
paint medium which doesn’t alter the colour of your paint, and is less prone to
discolouration over time.
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Poppy seed oil was found to be used as a binder by Monet in his painting Water-
Lilies, which would explain how the painting has maintained its sharp blue-violet
hues over the years.
It’s one of the more expensive drying oils you can buy. Artist-grade paint
manufacturer Blockx uses poppy oil as a binder in all of their paints. You can read
more about that in this paint brand review.
It’s slower drying than linseed oil, and safflower oil and it enhances the gloss and
flow of your paint.
Poppy oil contains hardly any of the fatty acid I mentioned earlier, linolenic acid,
which is the main component that makes a super durable film when the paint cures.
As a result, your paint film will be a tad softer when you use poppy seed oil,
compared to if you used linseed. You can counteract this by using it in conjunction
with a small amount of linseed oil though.
Walnut oil
Buy walnut oil here.
Walnut oil is a great alternative to linseed oil. It is less prone to yellowing and creates
a more flexible and durable paint film than poppy and safflower oil.
Examples of paint manufacturers that use Walnut Oil as a binder, are M. Graham
and Blue Ridge.
Walnut oil can be mixed into paint in the same way as other oil-based media. It can
also be used to clean brushes. If you are wanting to keep your space solvent-free,
this is a good alternative to remove paint from your tools.
The oil painting medium is very glossy and hard-wearing, and gives colours depth.
The oil is also very slippery, it improves the flow of the paint and slows drying times.
A good tip is to keep walnut oil in the refrigerator. It can go rancid if left at room
temperature and especially if left in direct sunlight.
All oils go rancid when exposed to air. This isn’t noticeable with linseed oil which is
only used in small quantities in paint. However, nut oils can go rancid in the bottle if
it’s not sealed and stored properly.
One good use of walnut oil, is to ‘oil out’ a painting. Where a painting has become
dry in areas, the oil content has sunk in to bottom layers of the painting. Spreading a
thin layer of walnut oil over the painting can restore its brightness.
Cold wax
Properties: thickens paint, gives a matte finish, textured brushstrokes, speeds
drying time.
This medium comes in a thick paste. When added to your oil paint, you can create
body, volume and retain brushstrokes. You can apply paint with a palette knife, or
a stiff brush.
The medium actually has a whole style of painting associated with it—cold-wax
painting. Think of heavily textured works with thick, expressionistic impasto brush
strokes and luscious matte finishes. If you don’t want your painting to appear
matted, you can always add alkyd to give it a little sheen. You’d get an almost satin-
like effect.
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You can add another dimension to your painting by using wax, building layer upon
layer to create structure. The cold wax adds luminosity and transparency to your
paint too. You really can be quite generous with the ratio of wax to paint, though it
could be recommended to use ⅓ cold wax to ⅔ oil, if you want a textured impasto
effect. You could even add dry pigment to the wax, and not add any oil whatsoever,
but if you do this add a little alkyd to prevent paint layers from cracking.
Painting with wax is pretty straight forward, as the ‘fat over lean’ rule used by oil
painters to prevent adverse effects like cracking, does not apply. Also it speeds up
drying time, so your painting will be dry in a couple of days, even if you’ve painted in
very thick layers.
All wax used in conjunction with oil paint is called ‘cold-wax’ because the wax does
not require heat to dry to its final form (as in encaustic painting).
A combination of beeswax, resin, solvents and sometimes linseed oil are the
ingredients used to make the oil painting medium; as the solvent evaporates, the soft
wax hardens.
Gamblin, Zest-it and Michael Harding all produce their own answers to cold-wax
mediums. They all have slightly different formulations and therefore different
characteristics:
Gamblin cold wax
Get it here.
Made from natural white beeswax, Gamsol (Gamblin’s own solvent), and a small
amount of damar. The medium has a ‘short’ characteristic. This means that when
you pull your palette knife away, the wax stays on the canvas, almost like it has
broken at your stroke. You can achieve sharp points and textured impasto strokes
with this oil painting medium. The wax has a melting point of 68 degrees Celsius, so
your painting won’t melt even on the hottest day of the year.
Zest-it cold wax
Get it here.
Made with beeswax, linseed oil and damar. It is designed to be used with their Zest-it
wax solvent (a non-flammable solvent made from citrus zest).
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Michael Harding beeswax paste

Get it here.
This one is made with high-grade pure bleached beeswax which adds flexibility. It
also contains a viscous linseed stand oil, chosen for its elasticity and stability.
Michael Harding resin oil wax medium
Get it here.
Use this resin to create a soft impasto effect. It is a liquid medium made from
bleached beeswax, dammar resin and viscous linseed stand oil.
Read about the impasto technique to learn how to use thick texture in painting. For
some further reading on cold wax painting, I recommend this book which gives a
comprehensive guide on mark making and other techniques associated with cold
wax.
Alkyd resin
Properties: adds body to paint, gives a glossy finish, speeds drying time

Alkyd is synthetic resin, usually derived from oil to create a fast drying oil painting
medium. Alkyds made by different manufacturers are usually a combination of highly
polymerised plant-based oil (such as soy) and slow-evaporating odourless mineral
spirits.
Alkyd mediums mixed with oil should dry in around 24 hours. If you’re an artist who
likes to work quickly, and can’t fathom waiting for up to a week for oil paint to dry,
then it might be worth considering incorporating alkyd into your painting process.
Another attractive property of alkyd, is that it will make your paint stretch much
further across the canvas. This is without making it too runny or transparent.
Alkyd creates a flexible, firm and glossy surface, which in some cases is almost
glass-like.
The ‘fat over lean’ rule doesn’t apply to alkyds, as alkyds aren’t oil, you can’t
consider them to be either ‘fat’ or ‘lean’. However, the general rule of thumb is to
treat alkyds as ‘fat’. So you slowly increase the amount of alkyd added to your paint
in consecutive layers. Alkyds make the paint film more flexible. A good way to look at
layering with alkyds is that you should layer flexible over less flexible.
33
You can of course thin alkyds, they don’t require a powerful thinner like turpentine.
It’s perfectly fine to use OMS.
Another thing to note is that you may get undesired results from your oil painting if
you interchange layering oil and alkyd. You can use them in conjunction, but if
you’ve chosen to use an alkyd, stick with that through each layer of the painting.
Walnut alkyd medium
Get it here.
M. Graham’s alkyd is derived from walnut oil. It has a similar consistency to stand oil
and is completely solvent-free.
It will increase flow, transparency but dry much faster than the non-alkyd walnut oil
alternative.
Liquin Original
Get it here. Get Liquin Fine Detail (a thinner more fluid version of the
original) here.
Winsor & Newton are the manufacturer of Liquin, which is an alkyd medium. This oil
paint medium halves drying time of paint, due to the cobalt drier it contains. If you
were to leave your paints out overnight, they would be stiff by the next day.
It levels brushstrokes and increases the flow of the paint. Although the mixture looks
brown in the bottle, it doesn’t discolour the paint in any way and actually resists
yellowing. Use this medium without adding extra oils such as linseed oil.
Galkyd
Get it here.
Galkyd has much the same properties as the alkyd mediums above, it increases flow
and transparency. When you use a lot of it, it will also level brush strokes and give a
hard, enamel-like finish to your work.
Gamblin also supply solvent free alkyd mediums.
Liquin Impasto Medium
Buy it here.
This comes out of the tube like a gel, and like Liquin original, it’s not prone to
yellowing.
The thick gel adds body to your paint, enabling you to create textured impasto works
with thick brushstrokes.
The finish is satin-like, however it leans towards being glossy.
Neo Megilp
Buy it here.
This alkyd is described to be a contemporary version of the Flemish all-in-one
medium Maroger. The consistency is like a jelly. It acts as a versatile medium that
provides a durable and silken finish to oil paintings. However, it doesn’t yellow like
Maroger is famed for doing.
Found your favourite oil painting mediums?
Exploring and experimenting with different oil paint mediums will lead you to find
something you truly love working with. It will make your painting process more
enjoyable too.
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Oil painting mediums are great for making paint more workable, but their main pull is
the way they can make an artist’s paintings stand out. By using a unique
combination of mediums, techniques and subject matter you can create a style that’s
recognisably yours.
Oil painting mediums: Pin it!
SaveOil Painting Mediums: A GuidePublished byFine Art Tutorials
2. The Best Brushes for Oil Painting

Discover the best brushes for oil painting in this guide: our top recommended brush
fibres, shapes and brands compatible with the medium.
Here’s what your average paint brush looks like:
Paintbrushes specifically made for oils look a little bit different.

They often have long handles. You’ll ideally be painting on a canvas propped up
vertically against an easel—your oil paint won’t flow, drip or budge from the position
that you’ve placed it on the canvas (unless you’ve used a particular medium to make
it extra runny)—so it makes sense to paint in this way, with your brush held
horizontally. The long handles balance the brush in your hand, giving you much
better control.
Handles aside, oil painting brushes come in a dizzying array of shapes, sizes, hair
types and qualities.
This post is here to help you cipher through all the different types of brushes so you
can understand what each one is best used for, as ultimately, the brushes you
choose for oil painting will largely depend upon the effects you want to achieve in
your work and the techniques you’ll be using.
I will also, as always, give some product recommendations of good quality reliable
brushes that I’ve tried and tested. We all know that a good brush can be the
difference between wrestling with your painting, and a tool that aids you in creating
outstanding work.
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Contents hide
1 Brush hair types
1.1 Bristle
1.2 Sable
1.3 Synthetic
2 Brush shapes and what they do
2.1 Round tip
2.1.1 Product picks
2.2 Rigger
2.2.1 Product pick
2.3 Flat
2.3.1 Product picks
2.4 Filbert
2.4.1 Product pick
2.5 Mop brush
2.5.1 Product pick
2.6 Bright brush
2.6.1 Product pick
2.7 Fan brush
2.7.1 Product pick
3 Chip brush
3.1 Which chip brush is best?
4 Brush sets
4.1 Product pick
5 Don’t throw an old brush away…
6 Finally
7 Best oil painting brushes: Pin it!
Brush hair types
First, I’ll give the lowdown on the different types of brush hair (otherwise known as
bristles) which come in two main categories, Bristle and Sable.
Bristle
Buy bristle brushes here.
What bristle brushes are good for: blocking in shapes in your base layers, creating
texture, working on rough surfaces.
All brushes have bristles, but only brushes made from hog hair (or a synthetic
alternative) are actually called ‘bristle brushes’.
The bristles are stiff and hold a lot of paint. So these brushes are good if you want to
create texture with your brush strokes, if you’re working on a rough surface or you
want to work paint into the weave of your canvas.
The stiffness of the brush is why it’s often described as being so suited to oil
painting. Oil paint straight from the tube is often pretty thick and viscous, so if you’re
opting to paint without using any mediums to alter the consistency, or you’ve added
a medium to make the paint thicker, bristle brushes are better to use than the softer
alternative.
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Bristle brushes are also used for painting base layers with and covering large
sections of the canvas.
Generally the only time you would be working with bristle brushes and very fluid
paint is when you’re painting base layers with oil that’s been thinned with turpentine.
Sable
Buy sable brushes for oil painting here.
What sable brushes are good for: blending colours into seamless gradients, working
in ultra fine detail, creating realistic effects.
You’ve probably seen bristle brushes advertised as being for oil, and sable for
watercolour, but you can use sable for oil too!
Sable brushes work beautifully with oil, in fact, most of the brushes I own are sable
and I use pretty much all of them for oil painting. If a sable brush is labelled as being
‘designed for watercolour’ all that tells you is that it’s suited to paint that has very low
viscosity.
You’ll know if you’ve read my post about different oil paint mediums that oil paint
can be quite thick and stiff straight from the tube, but it’s easy to change the
consistency of the paint to make it runnier with the addition of the right medium.
The hair of sable brushes are soft, and they shine in their ability to give the artist
precise control, accuracy, and blend colours smoothly.
The disadvantage of using sable for detail in oil, is that the paint has to be fairly
runny for it to work and the brushes only function properly on smoother surfaces.
Sable brushes are best for small areas of delicate detail—they are a dream for realist
painters.
Here are a couple of my sable rigger brushes from Da Vinci in sizes 2 and 0. As
you can see, they have a nice, sharp point.
I’ve kept these brushes sharp and in good condition by cleaning them with brush
soap instead of turpentine, as it’s much gentler on the fibres.
What’s a sable brush made from?
The bristles of this type of brush are most frequently obtained from a male Kolinsky,
a type of Siberian weasel. The highest grade brushes will be made from hairs taken
from the tail of the weasel in the winter months—it will be reddish brown in colour
with a darker point. This type of bristle is considered to be the best quality by
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painting purists. The hairs are difficult to obtain and the brushes take time to make
so they come at a fairly high price point.
Not all sable brushes are made from the weasel hair, however, you can find ones
made from squirrel hair or synthetic fibres. The lower grade weasel hair, squirrel hair
and synthetic hair brushes are all cheaper than the Kolinsky variety. The drawback
of the squirrel hair brushes is that the fibres don’t have a ‘snap’ to them, meaning
that the bristles don’t retain their sharp point when moved.
Synthetic
Synthetic bristles come in varying degrees of stiffness between hog and sable.
Some of the newer synthetic brushes are favourable to artists who want to avoid
using animal based products, and will achieve similar results to the traditional natural
hair brushes.
Natural hair is softer than synthetic, but it’s worth noting that the synthetic
alternatives are more durable and have more of a ‘spring’, making them more suited
to working with heavy bodied oil and solvent.
You will be able to find synthetic brushes that hold pigment like a hog bristle brush,
are springy enough to work colour into the weave of a canvas, but soft and flexible
enough to paint detail.
Here are some examples of different manufacturer’s synthetic bristles and how they
behave with oil paint:
Winsor and Newton Monarch Brush: made to mimic the properties of mongoose,
this synthetic brush is both springy and soft. It can move heavy bodied oil, but paint
in fine detail.
Escoda Modernista Tadami: robust, yet soft and resistant to solvent, these brushes
have flexible bristles.
Silver Brush: Bristlon: These brushes have been designed to perform with the
stiffness of hog hair, but with more durable synthetic bristles.
Princeton Catalyst Polytip: Excellent quality brush with the stiffness of hog. These
brushes hold a large volume of paint and release paint evenly and smoothly onto the
surface.
Princeton Neptune Faux Squirrel: These brushes were designed for use with
watercolour, but they are one of the softest types of synthetic brush. The handles are
short, but they are a vegan product. Try the round, or script liner brushes for detail
work.
The advantage of choosing a synthetic brush, is that you can handpick working
properties of bristle types that suit your practice.
Brush shapes and what they do
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Now I’ll dig into the different brush types and functions.
Bear in mind that each different type will also have a range of sizes, there isn’t any
standardised sizing, it varies from manufacturer to manufacturer—all you have to
know is that the higher the number, the larger the paintbrush will be. They generally
start at 20/0 (smallest) and go up to around 24+ (largest).
No matter what shape of bristle you choose, I recommend getting a few different
sizes of round brushes, one larger flat tip (or wash), and a filbert. Then you can add
to your collection depending on what kind of style you wish to be painting and the
scale at which you will be painting.
I’m about to cover the most basic brush types, once you’ve mastered using these
and you hone your painting style, you’ll naturally add more to your collection.
Round tip
The tip of the brush tapers to a point, they are good for detailed work. You’ll probably
find you’ll need a few of these, as they are incredible versatile and great for painting
all manner of subjects.
Product picks
These incredible sable brushes by Da Vinci are very soft. They hold colour perfectly
and are made from 100% natural hair.
This brush made by Escoda, is made from synthetic fibre. It’s springy, flexible and
offers great control.
Rigger
A rigger brush is recommended for highly detailed and intricate work. The long
bristles create a pulled string effect. Almost like a slow drag on the movements of
your hand. The bristles absorb any small hand shakes. This gives ultimate control
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when painting long thin lines. They’re the brush of choice for artists aiming for ultra
clean and crisp detail.
The brushes taper to a point and allow the paint to run off the tip evenly. These
brushes are made with sable hairs, so remember to make your paint runny like
ink.
There are a number of other more specialised brushes you can get for more detailed
work. I’ve outlined them in this post.
Product pick
Check out Da Vinci rigger brushes, made from sable, their ability to hold colour is
really unmatchable.
Flat
Rectangular shaped bristles can hold a lot of paint. Use them to create large
washes. They are especially useful for blocking in large areas of colour in the initial
stages of your painting.
Product picks
This brush by Escoda has an extra long handle. It’ features natural stiff Chungking
hog hair, so it has an incredible springiness to it.
The Raphael Paris brush is made from interlocking double boiled hair, making it
straight, soft but dense. It is a reasonably priced versatile brush.
Filbert
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This is a very versatile brush, they come in both sable and bristle varieties. They are
similar to bright brushes, but they have rounded edges, which make them perfect for
blending colours. I use a range of different sized filbert brushes for blending subtle
gradients in small areas of the painting.
Product pick
The Winsor and Newton Monarch filbert brush is a little stiffer than natural hair.
This makes it well suited to fine detail work as well as creating colour blends in your
work.
Mop brush
Like wash brushes, mop brushes are ideal for painting backgrounds and skies. They
can also also be used to create large washes on the canvas. These brushes are
often round and large in shape. This makes them ideal for blending colours together
—think of blending fluffy wisps of cirrus clouds dotted across the sky.
The bristles are soft and absorbent—they soak up a lot of paint. They are softer than
wash brushes, commonly made with goat hair and are round in shape.
Product pick
This goat hair mop brush stays soft and keeps its shape when wet. It’s the ultimate
brush for blending and you can get it in oval or round shapes.
Bright brush
This is like a flat brush, but the bristles are shorter. These are good for short,
controlled strokes and creating texture. They often have finely chiseled tips, so they
are really great for creating realistic waves, ripples and other water effects.
Product pick
Monarch bright brushes have the perfect stiffness and spring to move heavy
bodied oil colour. The shortness of the bristles makes it easy for the artist to create
lines with sharp edges.
Fan brush
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There are numerous ways to use fan brushes. You can use them to blend colours
together, create multiple strokes with one stroke (this can save time if you are
painting strands of grass, or trees for example), load the brush with multiple colours
and blend onto the canvas.
Product pick
Winsor and Newton’s Monarch Fan brush. Synthetic mongoose hair, makes for a
soft brush that’s also very durable.
Chip brush
This is the ugly duckling of the list.
I use this brush for painting base layers (i.e toning the canvas and blocking in the
basic shapes). Chip brushes are large and square. They are made with hog hair as
opposed to sable. As these are meant to be used for the blocking in stages, they’ll
absorb a lot of solvent over time. So they’ll become dry and nasty pretty quickly. For
this reason, if you decide you need one of these for your painting process, just get
the cheapest one you can find.
Which chip brush is best?
Most chip brushes you find in hardware stores are fine, I get these brushes from
Amazon. They’re pretty hardy brushes, and they don’t shed hairs.
Brush sets
When you’re starting out, it’s a good idea to get a set of brushes that you know will
last. A good set will come with a range of sizes and brush types. So you can try each
one and get to know which works best for you.
Product pick
This set of nine by Rosemary & Co has a good mix. It comes with a pointed round,
two riggers, three long flat brushes, one filbert and a flat brush. See here.
Don’t throw an old brush away…
If your paintbrush looks ruined—if it’s stiff all the way through, or maybe the ends are
splayed, don’t just throw it away. You can either restore it (read about how to bring
your brushes back to life), or you can use the splayed ends to create some
interesting textures, like the grooves on a rock or leaves on a tree. Experiment with
your old brushes that have changed shape, there’s always a chance you’ll find a use
for them.
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3. How to Take Care of Your Oil Painting Brushes

Inevitably, brushes you use for oil painting will become dried out, discoloured and the
tips of the bristles may even start to splay.
Oil painting involves using some pretty harsh chemicals (such as turpentine) that you
can use to strip oil from the brushes to clean them, but will damage the brushes in
the process.
It’s frustrating because good brushes for oil painting don’t come cheap—it almost
seems like they’re not worth buying if they only last a few painting sessions.
You’ll be glad to hear that there are extra steps you can take to revive your worn out
brushes and prevent new brushes from becoming misshapen and nasty.
Implement these simple tricks and your brushes will maintain their springiness, hold
larger amounts of colour in the bristles and you’ll get much more use out of them in
general (it’ll save you from having to buy new brushes every few months!).
Contents hide
1 Tip #1: Bring your old brushes back to life
1.1 Supplies you need to remove dried oil paint from brushes
1.2 How to remove dried oil paint from brushes
2 Tip #2: Get a proper brush washer
3 Tip #3: Prevent misshapen bristles
4 Tip #4: Clean up straight after a session
5 Tip #5: You don’t have to use solvents to clean oil paint!
6 Tip #6: It helps to have some good quality brushes
7 Finally
8 Clean oil painting brushes: Pin it!
Tip #1: Bring your old brushes back to life
First things first, how do you go about reviving old brushes that are seemingly past
the point of no return? I bet you have a few of these lying around. Don’t throw them
away!
There is a way to rectify old brushes that are stiff, dry, splayed and discoloured.
You’ll even be able to get the ones that are completely unmovable and petrified back
to a usable state.
So there is a secret formula to use when doing this.
Supplies you need to remove dried oil paint from brushes
You’ll need the Master’s Brush Cleaner and Preserver. This brush soap is so
effective, you can use it instead of solvent to clean brushes, it’s a lot better for the
brush fibres too. It’s a cleaner, restorer, preserver and conditioner.
There are two other supplies I recommend you get before cleaning: rubber gloves to
protect your hands from the paint and a silicone brush cleaner which helps to work
up a lather and remove paint from brush bristles.
How to remove dried oil paint from brushes
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First, rinse your brush in warm water.

Then swirl it around in the tub of Master’s Brush Cleaner, making sure that you
work it into a lather.
Massage the soap into the bristles—get right into the ferrule (the metal clamp of the
brush)—you can use your hand to work up a lather here but make sure you wear
gloves. Leave the brushes for around five minutes, allowing the soap to bind to the
oil.
After five minutes, repeat the lathering process until the dried up paint has loosened
and the bristles start to feel light and springy. Use a silicone brush cleaner to scrub
the bristles and remove paint. It should take a few minutes of lathering and scrubbing
to completely remove the stiff paint. Rinse the soap from the brush.
The next two steps are optional and only apply if you are cleaning a soft brush or a
brush that tapers to a point at the end:
After cleaning most of the oil residue from the brush, lather a bit of fresh soap into
the bristles and don’t rinse it yet, as you’ll want it to set with the soap in.
Then wrap the bristles in a paper towel to dry—leave it to absorb the moisture. This
way the bristles will dry in formation. You want the bristles to dry in the shape that
they were originally bought in, so this might require a few layers of paper towel and
some masking tape to hold it in place. Leave this to set for a short period, then rinse
when you’re happy.
The gummed up paint should be completely removed from the ferrule and the brush
should be back to its regular shape.
If what you’re trying to do is restore a pointed brush like a liner or round tip, and it still
hasn’t retained its sharp point, there is an extra step you can take to achieve this:
Dip the brush in Gum Arabic, then mould the point of the brush with your fingertips.
Hang it upside down for a few days to dry, then soak in water. You should find that
you’ve restored your brush to a sharp point.
As a last resort, if you still have some single stray splayed bristles, just cut them off
with scissors.
Tip #2: Get a proper brush washer
A good brush washer is a useful piece of kit to have around the studio.
You know that if you leave a brush upside-down in solvent, the bristles become
splayed. You need to immerse the brush in solvent to remove most of the initial build
up of paint, between colours and post painting.
I recommend this brush washer.
It has a spring at the top which allows you to suspend your brushes in solvent, which
will get rid of the bulk of oil on your brush and prevent the brushes from touching the
bottom of the container.
The washer also keeps your solvent cleaner for longer, as the paint sediment filters
through the holes at the bottom of the washer.
Having a lid for the solvent keeps your space free of harmful fumes when you’re not
using it too!
Tip #3: Prevent misshapen bristles
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Bristles become misshapen when paint gets stuck in the bristles of the brush near
the ferrule.
Build up of paint in this way is pretty much unavoidable if you’re only cleaning with
solvent and paper towels. Brushes will become rock solid and splayed.
To prevent your brush becoming splayed dry and solid, clean it like this:
If you have a brush washer, suspend the brushes in the solvent. This will loosen the
paint from the brush making it easier to clean. It’s not good practice to leave your
brushes upside down in a jar of solvent as this can cause brushes to splay. Instead,
hold the brushes in there for a few seconds.
Swill your brushes in the solvent. I recommend using either turpentine or odourless
mineral spirit (OMS) for clean up. Turpentine is slightly more effective as a paint
thinner, but OMS is usually cheaper and emits fewer harmful fumes, making it much
more studio friendly. Get low odour solvent here. Oil of spike lavender is even
more effective as a thinner than turpentine and it is non-toxic, meaning the fumes are
not harmful. However, it’s more expensive.
Use a silicone brush cleaner—you can use the grooves in the pad to get right up to
the ferrule and remove that stubborn oil paint from the brush. The pad also protects
your hand from coming into contact with the solvent.
Wipe the brush on a paper towel—the friction will remove any excess paint.
Then rinse the brush in warm water, and lather it with the Master’s Brush Cleaner.
Regular conditioning will keep your brush painting like it’s new for years on end.
Rinse thoroughly to get the soap out and wrap the tip in paper towel. Let the bristles
dry in formation to retain their shape.
Tip #4: Clean up straight after a session
I’ve made the mistake before of leaving my brushes out for several days after
painting and coming back to find the oil completely hardened in the bristles. It’s much
more difficult to clean all the paint off when it has dried, so keep on top of the
cleaning and be quite disciplined about it—your brushes will thank you for it later.
Tip #5: You don’t have to use solvents to clean oil paint!
It’s fast and effective to clean brushes with solvent, but solvent is corrosive. So you
can cut it out completely.
There are quite a few negative aspects of using solvent. Some artists choose not to
have any in their studio.
Some reasons might be that they don’t have adequate space or ventilation to work
with solvents safely. Or it might be due to the fact that they have children or pets
around. They may be concerned about their own health and how breathing in the
fumes could affect them.
I’ve personally made the transition to cut solvent out of my cleaning process. This is
how I clean instead:
Throughout the painting session, I use safflower oil to clean my brushes. All I do is
dip in the oil and then wipe on a paper towel before I switch a colour I’m using on a
single brush. Oil cleans oil, and safflower oil is relatively inexpensive, clear and fluid.
Plus, it doesn’t smell of anything. Keep it in a lidded jar and put it in the fridge
45
between painting sessions to prevent it from forming a skin. The safflower oil won’t
thoroughly clean brushes, it’s important to use a soap for this…
I use the Master’s Brush cleaner that I mentioned before, it cleans brushes really
effectively. If you use the silicone brush cleaner too, it speeds up the solvent-free
cleaning process (and makes it less messy!). Use it to create a lather with the soap
and brush. The grooves on the pad helps to release the paint from the bristles.
It might take a little longer to remove all the paint than if you use solvent, but the
specially made brush soap is so much kinder to brush fibres than turpentine. It’s
much better for your health to clean up this way too, as you won’t be breathing in
harmful fumes that solvents emit.
Tip #6: It helps to have some good quality brushes
Brushes that are well made with quality fibres that are much more durable than the
cheaper alternatives. They’re usually more expensive at first, but they’ll last longer,
and you’ll enjoy using them more!
I’ve made a list of the best brushes for oil painting—in this post I give a rundown
of the most suitable brushes for the medium, what each type is best used for and
some quality product recommendations.
4. How to Clean Up After Oil Painting

Want to know exactly how to clean up after oil painting? You’re in the right place.
In this post I will teach you how to clean your equipment using solvents; however it’s
possible to clean oil paint without using solvent too.
Contents hide
1 What do you need for cleaning up after oil painting?
1.1 Essential items
1.2 Not essential, but helpful
2 Step 1: Prepare your space
3 Step 2: Clean the brushes
4 Step 3: Clean your palette
4.1 When to remove oil from the palette
4.2 How to remove oil from a glass palette
4.3 How to remove oil from a wooden palette
5 Step 4: Dispose of oil paint waste
6 Finally
7 How to clean oil paintbrushes: Pin it!
What do you need for cleaning up after oil painting?
You’ll need a few items that you’ll probably be able to find around your house, and a
few more items that you’ll need to get from an art store. Check this tick-list and click
the links to find where to buy any extra items you might need…
Essential items
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Solvent: turpentine, odourless mineral spirit or oil of spike lavender. Turpentine

is a more effective cleaner, odourless mineral spirit is usually cheaper and the fumes
aren’t as strong and oil of spike lavender is an effective thinner and a non-toxic
alternative.
Paper towels.
Rubber gloves.
Razor scraper: this is essential if you have a glass palette.
Not essential, but helpful
This brush washer: it’s a lidded container for your solvent that keeps your
workspace from smelling like paint thinner, suspends brushes in the solvent to keep
the tips from splaying and filters paint sediment from your solvent to keep it clean.
This silicone paint scrubber: it speeds up the cleaning process as it provides you
with some much needed friction to completely remove the paint from your brushes.
Brush cleaner and restorer: This acts as a conditioner for your brushes, removing
any excess paint residue, softening and preserving them.
Step 1: Prepare your space
The first thing to do is make sure your space is well ventilated. Open your windows,
as you want solvent fumes to dissipate.
Wear your rubber gloves too. If the solvent comes into contact with your skin, it can
make it dry and sore.
Step 2: Clean the brushes
Suspend your brushes in the brush washer or your solvent container until you can
see that the paint has loosened.
Wipe some of the excess paint off on a paper towel or rag.
Then swill it around in your solvent container until the bulk of paint has been
removed.
Wipe again—you may have to repeat this process a few times until you can see that
all of the paint has been removed from the bristles.
Your paintbrush should be completely clean and free of paint. You can test this by
wiping the brush on a clean paper towel, if it leaves a slight trail of pigment then
repeat the process again.
If you leave your brushes to dry at this step, they will become incredibly dry and
misshapen after just a few uses. It’s good practice to condition your brushes with
soap to keep them in good shape and performing like new for as long as possible.
I use the Master’s Brush Soap for this (the one I linked to above). It’s a specialist
soap for brushes that works to restore them and maintain their cleanness and
springiness.
To clean using the brush soap, first of all I wet the brush I want to clean in warm
water.
Then swirl the brush around on the soap. I then use the Silicone Paint Scrubber (the
link for this is also in the list) to work up a lather with the brush. The grooves on the
paint scrubber work to remove paint stuck at the base of the bristles, so don’t be
afraid to get right up to the ferrule when cleaning. If the bristles harden with any paint
stuck at the base, they become splayed.
47
Repeat this process until the brushes are clean. When the bristles are still wet,
shape them with your fingers to a point. The bristles will remain in the shape they dry
in. You could even wrap the bristles in a strip of paper towel held together with
masking tape to ensure they dry in formation.
Clean palette knives by wiping them on a paper towel.
It’s possible to restore your brushes to their original state, even brushes that have
seemingly passed a point of no return. Use the Master’s soap brush cleaner and
restorer, repeatedly lathering the ends until they become soft again. Make sure to
pull dried paint from the ferrule. You can shape the bristles back to a point
using gum arabic.
Step 3: Clean your palette
When to remove oil from the palette
The short answer to this is, before it dries, ideally. You don’t have to worry about that
as much if you’re working on a glass palette, but if you’re working on wood, oil paint
can be very tricky to remove once dry.
After a session, clean only the new colours that you have mixed during that session.
These are the sections that are most likely to dry over night. This will give you space
to mix new colours in your next session.
This will leave you with the blobs of paint that you squeezed straight from the tube at
the start of the session dotted around the edge of the palette.
As oil paint can stay wet for days at a time, it makes sense to only clean off the
colours that you have created by mixing. The colour that came straight from the tube
that’s likely dotted around the edge of the palette—cover it, and put it in the fridge
overnight. That way, the paint will keep from oxidising and stay fresh for you to use
the next day.
How to remove oil from a glass palette
If the paint is wet, just wipe the sections you want to clean with a paper towel or rag.
To clean the whole palette, first wipe with a paper towel, then you can just wash it
with soap and water in the sink. Glass palettes are by far the easiest to clean. If
you’re looking to get your own glass palette, I recommend this one by New Wave, it
has a large mixing area and is made from tempered glass, so it’s ultra sturdy.
Use a razor scraper if the paint is dry. Hold the scraper at a 45 degree angle to the
palette and scrape the dried paint off. I’ll go over how to dispose of your paint waste,
like paint scrapings further on in this post.
How to remove oil from a wooden palette
Before you start using your wooden palette, you should prepare it properly so that
you can start oil painting on it, without it absorbing oil colour. Do this by first sanding
to ensure it’s smooth, then by dipping a lint-free cloth in linseed oil and wiping it over
the palette. Remove any excess oil with another lint-free cloth, and let it dry (this
should take a few days).
Don’t let the paint dry on a wooden palette, as it’s a nightmare to remove!
When the paint is wet, just remove it with the side of your palette knife. Then wipe
the palette clean with a paper towel or lint-free cloth.
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If you have dried paint stuck to your palette, spread a layer of odourless mineral
spirit or turpentine over it. Let it soak for 5 minutes, then wipe clean with paper towel.
You may need to carefully remove any stubborn bits of paint with a flat razor.
It’s natural for a wooden palette to become discoloured over time—it gives it
character! You just want to make sure the palette is smooth, flat and clean to make it
as workable as possible.
Step 4: Dispose of oil paint waste
Avoid pouring solvents or oil paint down the drain. Doing this can contaminate the
water system. Also, leaving oil-soaked rags or paper towels piled up in the open air
is a fire hazard. For this reason, you should dispose of oil paint waste properly.
You’ll need airtight containers to store the waste in until you can get to your local
waste disposal unit. It’s also good practice to fill the container with some water as an
extra preventative measure.
Remember to keep it shut at all times, except when you’re opening it to fill with more
waste.
When it becomes full, take it to your local hazardous waste facility, or call up your
local council to enquire about where best to dispose of it.
Remember, you can reuse solvent by decanting it into a new container—you don’t
need fresh solvent for each clean up.
5. How to Clean Up After Oil Painting Without Solvent

It takes a little more effort to clean up after oil painting without solvent, but there are
so many benefits to keeping your workspace solvent-free.
Turpentine, odourless mineral spirits and alternative paint thinners are very effective
at cleaning paint, however solvent can have adverse effects on your health if you’re
breathing the fumes in regularly. Also, it’s not so great to use if you have kids or pets
around your studio.
Luckily, it is really easy to clean up without solvent. You will have to scrub a bit
harder to remove the paint thoroughly—but that’s the price you pay for having clean
air in the studio.
There are a few things you’ll need to clean up, I’ve outlined them in the list below.
Contents hide
1 Materials you need to clean oil paint
1.1 Essential items
1.2 Not essential, but helpful
2 Step 1: Clean the brushes
3 Step 2: Clean your palette
3.1 How to remove oil from a glass palette
3.2 How to remove oil from a wooden palette
4 Step 3: Dispose of oil paint waste
5 Finally
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6 Clean oil paintbrushes without solvent: Pin it!

Materials you need to clean oil paint
Essential items
Brush cleaner and restorer: This stuff is like magic, it cleans, conditions and
restores your brushes. It is your solvent replacement.
Brush washer: use this to store water to clean the brushes. It filters the soap and oil
keeping the water clean
Paper towels
Rubber gloves to protect your hands from paint
Razor scraper: is essential if you have a glass palette
Not essential, but helpful
Safflower oil: Use this to clean throughout your session. It will remove oil from your
brush, meaning you can remove colour from bristles. However, it’s not suitable for
cleaning at the end of the painting session as it can leave an oily residue on brushes
causing them to stiffen.
This silicone paint scrubber: it speeds up the cleaning process as it provides you
with some much needed friction to completely remove the paint from your brushes.
This is great for using with springy brushes like synthetics or hog, but go carefully
with delicate brushes like sable.
Step 1: Clean the brushes
Avoid washing oil paint down the sink, as this can contaminate the water system.
Instead, remove the majority of paint by dipping in safflower oil and wiping with a
paper towel. Do this several times until the bulk of the paint has been removed.
Then wet the brush and swirl around in the Master’s soap. Wipe on a paper towel to
remove residue and repeat until most of paint has been removed. This soap is great
because it’s gentle yet effective, which means it’s suitable for use with sable
brushes.
Then the final step, with a relatively clean brush, is to swirl in the Master’s soap
again, and remove any excess paint in your brush washer. There will be a lot of
repetition in the process of wetting with water and wiping on paper towels.
If I have hardened oil paint on my brush, or if there’s a lot of stubborn paint in the
bristles, I use the Silicone Paint Scrubber to work up a lather with the brush, the
grooves of the scrubber pull the paint from the bristles. You can use this to remove
paint from the base of the bristles near the ferrule, which if left to dry could cause the
brush to become splayed and stiffened. Silicone is gentle and fine to use with hog
hair and synthetic brushes, but if you’re using with sable bristles, go carefully as
these fibres are delicate.
If your brush needs some extra TLC, leave some of the Master’s soap in the bristles
to dry (mould the bristles into their original shape).
Rinse the brush thoroughly.
When the bristles are still wet, shape them with your fingers to a point.
Clean palette knives by wiping them on a paper towel.
Read these tips to learn more about how to restore brushes to their original state.
Step 2: Clean your palette
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How to remove oil from a glass palette

If the paint is wet, just wipe the sections you want to clean with a paper towel or rag.
To clean the whole palette, first wipe with a paper towel, then you can just wash it
with soap and water in the sink.
If the paint is dry, use a razor scraper. Hold the scraper at a 45 degree angle to the
palette and scrape the dried paint off. I’ll go over how to dispose of your paint waste,
like paint scrapings further on in this post. Glass palettes are easier to clean than
wood. If you’re looking to get a glass palette, buy a tempered glass one like this one
by New Wave. This palette is sturdy, has a large space for mixing and comes in
white, clear and grey colours.
How to remove oil from a wooden palette
Before you start using your wooden palette, you should prepare it properly so that it
doesn’t absorb oil colour. Do this by first sanding to ensure it’s smooth, then by
dipping a lint-free cloth in linseed oil and wiping it over the palette. Remove any
excess oil with another lint-free cloth, and let it dry (this should take a few days).
Make sure you never leave paint to dry on it as it’s tricky to remove.
When the paint is wet, just remove it with the side of your palette knife. Then wipe
the palette clean with a paper towel.
It’s natural for a wooden palette to become discoloured over time. You just want to
make sure the palette is smooth, flat and clean to make it as workable as possible.
Step 3: Dispose of oil paint waste
You’ll need an airtight container to store the paint waste in, as drying oil is
combustible. Fill your airtight container with water before you put the oil paint waste
in. Oil paint waste includes oil and soap sediment that has collected at the bottom of
your brush washer.
You can dispose of the waste at your local hazardous waste facility, but call up your
local council to enquire about where best to dispose of it.
6. How to Choose a Surface for Oil Painting

There are lots of options when it comes to choosing an oil painting surface. There’s a
whole world beyond the classic cotton canvas.
You can find high quality painting supports at amazing value. Or you can get creative
by choosing something to make your work stand out.
Many surfaces provide a decent guard for the painting film and they will last, as long
as you prepare the surface so the paint binds properly.
I’ll run through the different types of surfaces available to oil painters, how durable
they are and different products you can buy. I’ll also delve into how your choice of
surface can affect the painting process and the look of the finished piece.
Contents hide
1 Paper
1.1 Our product picks
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2 Canvas
2.1 Cotton
2.1.1 Our product picks
2.2 Linen
2.2.1 Our product pick
3 Wood
3.1 Solid wood
3.2 Plywood
3.2.1 Our product picks
4 Metal
4.1 Copper
4.2 Aluminium
5 Have you found your perfect oil painting surface?
6 Finally
7 The best surfaces for oil painting: Pin it!
Paper
Oil painting paper is great for oil sketches. Many artists use it to plan larger works
or experiment with colour and composition.
Paper is a good option for beginners who are just getting to grips with how to use oil,
as it’s the cheapest surface you can find for oil painting and therefore the best to
practise on.
Although paper isn’t the most hardy oil painting surface you could choose, paper
specifically made for oil paint is different to other papers. It’s incredibly thick, like
card and tough.
Oil painting paper is designed to absorb binder and solvent evenly, leaving pigment
at the surface. No surface preparation is required if you use oil painting paper.
If you paint on paper that isn’t designed for oils without preparing the surface
properly first, the paper will become dark and the fibres brittle. It will begin to
deteriorate as the oil oxidises on the surface. Normal paper is way too absorbent for
painting with oils, most of the oil and pigment will become lost beneath the surface,
creating a dull effect. Oil paint can also flake straight off the surface if the oil has
been absorbed and there is not enough binder left.
You can paint on other paper, for example watercolour with oils, just make sure the
paper is thick enough and prime it (both sides) first.
Paper is one of the least durable surfaces, but you can change this by preserving
your work and keeping it properly.
If you’re concerned with the longevity of the work you produce on paper, it is
possible to varnish it and mount it beneath glass to make it archival. This is the best
varnish for the job. Wait until your painting is dry and firm, then apply the varnish with
a brush.
Our product picks
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High Quality Option: Arches paper, is good quality and therefore on the expensive
side. The paper fibres are protected against the oxidisation of the drying oils. The
absorbency is good—so you don’t have to worry about paint running if you’re using
thin turpentine washes, for example.
Good Value Option: If you’re looking to minimise costs but want relative quality from
your oil painting surface, this Daler Rowney pad is a good option. It’s double
primed, has a texture like linen and is relatively inexpensive. It’s not as thick as the
Arches option, however.
Canvas
Canvases can be bought in different formats and in an array of fabrics.
The ready-made ‘stretched and primed’ format, is most artists’ preferred way of
buying a canvas. Getting a canvas that has been prepared in a factory saves a lot of
time and hassle—it means you can pretty much just paint straight onto it.
Many artists opt to stretch and prime their canvas themselves, however, as it
gives them more control over their final product—they can make their canvases any
size they want and be sure that the quality of the stretching and priming is as good
as they can make it.
The two main fibre types that are used to make artists’ canvases are cotton and linen
(which is made from flax).
Cotton
This fabric is inexpensive and flexible. The flexibility makes it easy to stretch, but it
can work against you if you are painting on a larger scale, as the surface won’t be
taut enough to apply pressure without the fabric moving.
Cotton has a noticeable weave and is quite thick, so if you paint on without extra
priming and sanding of the surface, your painting will have a textured appearance to
it and you’ll have to use bristle brushes to work the colour into the surface.
Our product picks
High Quality Option: If you’re looking to sell your work, it’s best to get archival quality
materials. These Winsor and Newton professional canvases. The frames are
tested for warp resistance and you can adjust the tension of the cotton yourself.
Best Value Option: Arteza provide a huge range of sizes of cotton canvas that are
good quality despite the price point. See here.
Linen
If you want to paint on a fabric that provides the most stable surface, then linen is the
best option.
Linen has better archival properties than cotton. With changes in temperature and
humidity, cotton will expand and contract a lot more than linen, which can cause
paint on the surface to crack.
Linen canvases are more expensive than cotton, as they are considered the golden
standard for artists to paint on. They are also more expensive because there are
more steps involved in processing the flax fibres and weaving the fibres into a fabric.
Just look at the paintings by the Dutch painters in the 17th century, they are mostly
painted on linen and their works have stood the test of time.
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Because linen is pretty rigid, this is the fabric to go with if you are working on a large
scale.
Our product pick
High Quality and Great Value: Winsor and Newton canvases are made from
premium flax and are incredibly sturdy. Outstanding care has gone into producing
these canvases—and their price point is low considering.
Wood
Oil painters around the world have been painting on wood for centuries. It was the
go-to surface for many of the old masters.
It was during the Renaissance period when the first canvases were made, that artists
began to stray away from wood. Canvases fast became a popular surface as they
were more lightweight and easier to transport.
Regardless of this, wood is a great alternative to canvas. It’s rigid and smooth, it’s
often less expensive and it just feels amazing to paint onto. There’s something about
painting on wood that feels natural.
If you include a lot of fine detail in your paintings, wood is a good option. Its smooth
surface means that soft brushes suited for detail work won’t get lost in the canvas
weave.
The rigidity of the wood is a very important factor. If the surface can’t bend, the paint
film won’t crack in the same way that it can with canvas. If you can anticipate your
painting might be subjected to casual damage (i.e. you’re not storing it away
somewhere and you’re displaying it in a high traffic area) then wood panel might be a
better option.
That’s not to say it’s totally indestructible. It comes with its own disadvantages and
these can vary depending on which wood you choose. It’s worth reading on so you
can make an informed decision about what’s right for you.
Solid wood
A solid wood panel is pretty much unbeatable when it comes to painting.
Wood that is well seasoned and has been dried in a kiln will have a low equilibrium
of moisture content. This is preferable for painters. It’s advised to leave your painting
panel in your studio for a week or so before you start priming it. This way the wood
can adjust to the temperature and humidity. of the room you are painting in.
Hardwoods are preferable for painting, as they hold the paint better. Woods such as
poplar, oak, basswood, walnut, cedar.
Genuine mahogany is the best wood you can use for painting. Mahogany is resistant
to rot, insect damage and is incredibly stable, it has a low T/R ratio and a unique
structure of interlocking rings that makes it resistant to warping.
You can have wood specially cut for your paintings by a carpenter, ask for quarter-
sawn wood as the grain on the front and back of the plank will be the same.
Plywood
Plywood is easy to find in any hardware or art store and it is inexpensive. You will
also find ‘cradled wood panels’ commercially sold as artist’s painting panels, these
are usually made from baltic birch.
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Plywood panels are made of multiple layers of wood veneer, thinly sliced and glued
together, with the grain direction of each ply running perpendicular to the adjacent
slice. This makes the surface resistant to volumetric shrinkage.
Our product picks
Ampersand Gessobord panels have been primed in the factory, saving you the job
of gesso-ing yourself.
These unprimed basswood panels from Ampersand provide a rigid support for oil
paint. They are also cradled, so they give your painting depth.
Metal
Working on metal has advantages over wood panel and canvas. As well as providing
a luminosity that can’t be achieved whilst painting on other surfaces, it provides a
more durable painting support that doesn’t warp.
If you like to paint on a surface which is 100% smooth, with no absorbance, metal is
a good choice. The paint flow will not be stopped by the weave of the canvas.
Copper
Copper has been used as a painting support since the Renaissance. The vibrancy
and colours of these old works have not degraded over time.
Artists would even leave part of the metal exposed, so over time the metal would
oxidise and show a patina.
When working on copper, it doesn’t matter which thickness you choose as you can
mount it after painting.
It’s important to prepare copper properly before painting on it. Firstly sand it using
very fine sandpaper. Then clean it using methylated spirit to wipe off the dust with a
lint-free cloth. Make sure you wear gloves and ventilate the room before using
methylated spirit as the fumes are toxic.
Our product pick
Copper etching plates make for brilliant oil painting supports, see here.
Aluminium
Just like copper, this surface is great for artists who like to paint on a hard, smooth,
non-absorbent surfaces. It’s better for your brushes too, as it means you don’t have
to scrub them to work on rough textures.
Rigid, lightweight and luminous, aluminium is a stable conservation quality surface. It
doesn’t react to changes in the environment like wood or canvas do.
You don’t have to prime aluminium panels, as the paint will adhere to them just fine
the way they are.
When painting on aluminium, make sure to work with lots of binder. Don’t apply paint
that has been thinned with turpentine. This is to give the paint the best chance of
adhering to the surface.
Aluminium suits very fluid paint, find out how to alter the consistency of your
paint with a medium.
7. Oil Painting Supplies for Beginners:
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A Guide
Find the best oil painting supplies for beginners, with the essential materials you
need to get started.
Learning to oil paint is an exciting task. However, it can feel like a struggle figuring
out what you need to start painting and then how the oil painting supplies actually
work.
An art shop haul doesn’t have to break the bank, but I do recommend making an
investment in quality materials to get you started on the right foot. This is better than
buying the cheapest materials you can find.
Getting quality materials will make your painting process run much smoother, and it’ll
make it much more enjoyable too.
Contents hide
1 Oil Paint
1.1 How to look out for quality oil paint—sorting the good from the bad
1.2 Choose pigments carefully
1.2.1 Do you need black pigments?
1.3 The essential colours you need to start out
1.4 Optional pigments to broaden your palette
1.5 How to buy oil paint cheaply
2 Oil painting supplies: The best brushes
3 Surfaces
3.1 Oil painting supplies: the best surfaces
3.2 Prime your surface
4 Oil painting supplies: the best palettes
4.1 Palette product picks
5 Mediums
5.1 Linseed oil
6 Easels
7 Varnishing an oil painting
7.1 Why varnish an oil painting?
7.2 An explanation of different types of varnish
7.3 What supplies do you need to varnish an oil painting?
8 Cleaning up and taking care of your materials
8.1 Using solvent with oil paint
8.1.1 Types of solvent to use with oil paint
9 Have you found the perfect oil painting supplies?
10 Oil painting supplies: Pin it!
Oil Paint
The most important of all your oil painting supplies.
It sounds obvious, but you need to decide on which brand(s) to go for and which
colours to buy. The quality of the paint can vary from brand to brand. Plus, choosing
colours isn’t as simple as picking just any yellow, red or blue.
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How to look out for quality oil paint—sorting the good from the bad
When you’re starting out, you want value without compromising on quality.
With the following brands, you really can’t go wrong:
Michael Harding
Winsor & Newton
Gamblin
Choosing a high quality brand of paint means selecting paint that has a high
pigment content and uses fewer fillers to bulk the paint out. You’ll notice that higher
quality paint ranges have intense colours that spread much further on the canvas.
For this reason, these brands provide more value, as you need to use less of paint to
get the amount of colour you need. Quality paints also feel much easier to handle
and make cleaner mixes when combined with other colours.
I’d recommend against getting a starter selection pack of paints. While you usually
get a good range, it’ll often be missing an essential primary colour or include colours
you won’t use. It’s much more fun to make your own selection pack anyway. As your
painting skills progress and you start to find the subjects you like to paint, you can
add to your collection.
Choose pigments carefully
Magenta, yellow and cyan are the primary colours in pigment form. However, It’s
pretty much impossible to find a ‘true’ primary pigment. The numbers for the
pigments that come closest to primaries on the colour wheel are PV19 (magenta),
PB15 (cyan) and PY128 (yellow). These pigments will come under various different
marketing names, but it is possible to use these three as a limited palette of colours
make a wide gamut of hues. In order to create any other colour on the spectrum, it is
useful, however, to have a warm and cool version of the primary colours, giving you
a palette of six colours.
Most pigments will lean towards another colour slightly when placed on the colour
wheel. Other than cyan, blue pigments, for example, will lean towards either red or
yellow. Ultramarine has reddish undertones, meaning that if you mix it with a yellow
to try and make green, the resulting colour won’t appear a vibrant green, it will look
dull and muddy. Mix Ultramarine with Quinacridone Magenta, or a red that has bluish
undertones such as Cadmium Red Deep, and you can achieve an intensely vibrant
violet.
Do you need black pigments?
Black isn’t an essential colour to have as it’s very easy to create harmonious warm
and cool greys simply by mixing the contrasting colours already on your palette. It
will create the appearance of shadows and the mixes will appear black when seen in
the context of the rest of your painting. A pure looking black can be made by mixing
Burnt Umber and Ultramarine Blue.
Cool greys are greys that have more blue in the mix and warm greys and browns
have more yellow or red. Use a transparent earth pigment, such as burnt umber to
create shadows in the early layers of a painting instead of using black throughout, as
black can appear muddy in paint mixtures.
The essential colours you need to start out
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Here are the essential colours that you can use to mix to make any colour on the
spectrum. These will act as your primaries.
Titanium White (this is the most opaque of all whites and therefore has a great
covering power).
Burnt Umber (natural dark brown earth pigment that can be used to create
shadows).
Cadmium Red Light (this has a bias towards yellow). A cheaper alternative is
Naphthol red, which has a similar colour profile.
Permanent Rose (this is a marketing name for primary magenta. It’s cool in its
purest form, but mixes with yellow to make vibrant oranges).
Ultramarine Blue (reddish undertones, to be mixed to make bright purples or neutral
greens).
Cyan (this is primary cyan, the pigment is phthalocyanine. In mixes it can make
vibrant greens).
Transparent Yellow (very bright primary yellow).
Cadmium Yellow (a rounded, deeper yellow with reddish undertones). Hansa
Yellow is also a primary but is cheaper to buy than Cadmium.
Optional pigments to broaden your palette
The following are optional colours. They’re not essential to have, but the pigments
have distinctive attributes that you wouldn’t get simply from mixing primaries:
Burnt Sienna (reddish brown earth pigment. Earth pigments can be used for mid-
toned under paintings as they dry quickly.)
Yellow Ochre (another earth pigment, with a gold-yellow colour).
Viridian Green (blue-green and dark in value, it’s good for using in shadows).
Alizarin Crimson (useful for making deep, rich reds and neutralising greens. Make
sure you get permanent Alizarin as the pigment does not have a high lightfast
rating).
Zinc White (is a more translucent white that tints colours without altering the opacity.
It doesn’t give colours the ‘chalky’ appearance that titanium white can give).
Quinacridone Gold (a beautiful colour to use in golden sunsets or for mixing to
make the gold-greens you quite often see in sunny landscapes. You can use it to mix
with phthalocyanine blue to make a colour close to sap green).
As you can see, every pigment has its own unique properties and uses. Each
pigment will slightly alter in opacity, covering and tint power, lightfastness, oil content
and drying speed—but it’s really only by using the paints that you will become
familiar with their properties and find your own unique uses for them to suit your art
style.
8. How to buy oil paint cheaply

Another thing to note is that brands that make cheap paint ranges often create
colours labelled as ‘hues’. This means that they haven’t used a single pigment
ground in oil to make a colour, they will have used a combination of other pigments
to closely resemble the original pigment. Premixed colours will appear duller when
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compared to the original pigment, and when they mix with other pigments, the
resulting colours won’t be as vibrant as if you had just mixed two pure pigments
together. This is why you see such dramatic differences in prices between different
ranges of paint (Winton vs Winsor and Newton Artist’s Oil Colour, for example), even
if the colours are seemingly the same. Because of the price differences between
ranges that make hues versus single pigment paints, many artists opt to buy hues of
the colour and can of course produce beautiful results.
Look for paint that has a low series number of either 1 or 2 and has been ground
with a single pigment. The low series number just means that the particular colour is
inexpensive to make. You will probably want to get hues to substitute paint that have
high series numbers, when you’re first starting out, such as Cadmium pigments.
Oil painting supplies: The best brushes
Get used to applying paint to your surface before you invest in expensive brushes.
There are lots of different styles of brushes available to artists, so it’s a good idea to
try out different types and see what you like.
Get some synthetic or hog brushes to start with (they’re the cheapest) in a few
different sizes and shapes, so you can test them out to feel what’s best for you, then
decide if you want to invest in more expensive brushes. This pack of 5 hog
brushes by Winsor and Newton are inexpensive and the perfect place to start.
Round brushes are good for details and sharper lines.
Flat brushes work well for covering large areas of the canvas.
Get at least one flat brush made from hog hair, see here. These are stiffer and are
therefore useful for working the paint into the weave of the canvas (if you are
working on a textured surface).
Filbert brushes are totally optional but I find that these are really effective for
blending paint on the canvas.
Surfaces
There are so many surfaces that are compatible with oil paint, some require more
preparation than others. Common surfaces artists use include linen canvas, wooden
panel, and even metals like copper and aluminium.
While you’re honing your skills as a painter, you’ll want inexpensive surfaces to
practise on that don’t require too much fuss to prepare for painting. Just start
experimenting and find what you love to paint on.
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Oil painting supplies: the best surfaces

Oil paper is a good option. I use paper to test out colour mixes and compositions for
paintings. Of course, if you like how a painting has turned out on paper, you can
always frame it!
Canvases are great for when you’re just starting out too. Most manufacturers sell
canvases that are relatively inexpensive, pre-stretched and pre-primed. This saves
you the extra time it would take to stretch fabric over a frame and prime it yourself.
I’ve linked to a cotton canvas; canvases come in linen too, but cotton is a cheaper
alternative.
Wood feels amazing to paint on to. I love it because it’s naturally much smoother
than canvas, meaning you can achieve finer details in your work. You can paint on
many different types of wood. Some panels you see in art stores (like the ones I’ve
linked to) have been made especially for painting. Just remember that if your panel is
‘unprimed’ you will need to prime the surface before you apply oil paint.
Gessobord is archival quality, primed hardboard. Artists love these panels—they’re
great to take painting outdoors. You don’t need to do any further surface preparation
to paint onto it. Plus, if you paint something you really like, you can buy panel
frames, or float frames and hang your panel on the wall.
Read more about the different surfaces for oil painters and what kind of effects you
can get from using different painting supports.
Prime your surface
If you are working on an unprimed surface, like raw wood, you’ll need a surface
primer. A sealer and primer such as gesso will create a hard film between the paint
and surface. It allows the paint to bind to the surface more easily and prevents the
paint from soaking straight in.
For painting on unprimed wood, I recommend sealing the wood first with Gac
100 (two coats is fine), then applying gesso afterwards.
Here’s a good acrylic based gesso I use.
Paint a layer of gesso onto your surface with a wide flat brush, wait around 45
minutes for it to dry, then sand it with fine-grain sandpaper. Repeat this process
twice more. If you want a smoother surface, then add a few extra layers of gesso,
repeating the painting and sanding process until your surface is how you want it to
be.
For a more thorough walkthrough, read this step-by-step guide on how to prime a
surface for oil paint.
Oil painting supplies: the best palettes
Tempered glass palettes work best for oil, as they are the easiest to clean. They also
feel incredibly smooth to mix on.
Whether you opt for wood or glass, make sure the palette you buy is completely flat,
as this will give you more surface area to mix the paint on. Plus, a flat surface is far
easier to clean. Oil paint won’t run off the sides, so you won’t need to worry about
that!
Also consider how you are going to be painting…
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If you’re painting plein air (outdoors) you’ll probably want a palette you can hold
easily. Wooden palettes work well for this as they are light and have ergonomic
thumb holes to make moving the palette around easy. They can be tricky to clean,
but they look pretty iconic. Here’s our product pick.
If you’re painting indoors, have somewhere to lay a palette flat and don’t anticipate
that you’ll be moving around much, tempered glass works nicely as a palette.
They’re heavier and usually much larger than wooden palettes but they’re so easy to
clean. With wooden palettes you’ll usually have to soak them in solvent to remove
paint. With glass, you simply scrape dried paint off with a razor scraper, then rub
clean with a paper towel. If you want a glass palette, get a purpose made tempered
palette instead of using picture glass. It’s much safer and won’t shatter.
Palette product picks
Here’s the glass palette I use (and love)—you can buy it here.
Here’s a cheaper tempered glass palette.
If you want to read about the top rated palettes for oil painters, read our palette
guide.
Mediums
So what are mediums used for?
Mediums are used in oil painting to alter the drying time, consistency and finish of
the paint. By using mediums in painting, you can achieve very different results
depending on which one you use.
You can get creative by mixing different mediums to achieve a range of results. For
example, you can make the paint glossier, or completely matte. You can give the
paint more body to create thick textured works, or you can thin the paint so it runs
just like ink.
Understanding the properties of different mediums will give you mastery of the
practice of oil painting. Unique uses of mediums can make your work stand out—
identifiable as your own.
Paint thinners such as turpentine are mediums too, but I’ll cover paint thinners in the
cleaning up section below.
You can create your own medium mixes by combining linseed and turpentine in
equal parts.
Linseed oil
Buy it here.
Linseed oil comes in many different forms—some manufacturers use cold-pressed
linseed oil as a binder (oil that holds together pigment) in tubes of paint you buy.
However, refined linseed oil is most often used as a medium.
The addition of linseed oil makes a painting workable for longer. It’s used to slow the
drying time of the paint. Not all paints take the same amount of time to dry, as
different pigments are often bound with different amounts of binder. You can add a
small amount of linseed oil to the different paints to level out drying times and finish.
Linseed oil also makes the paint runnier, easier to handle and spread much further
on the canvas. It increases the transparency too.
Easels
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Painting surfaces need to be propped up vertically for use with oil. This is because
oil paint dries slowly and becomes tacky as it’s drying. This means that dust particles
will stick to it if you’re working with it laid down. Plus it’s much easier to work with
large paintings this way, as you’ll be able to see the whole piece front on.
I’ll run through the different options, what they’re best used for and give some
product recommendations.
Table top easel: Smaller and more portable than a floor standing easel, these are
great if you have a desk to work at instead of a larger studio space, or if you prefer
painting sitting down at a table. I also find that this table top easel is much better for
working on smaller pieces.
Studio easel: This is perfect if you have your own studio space. You can stand while
you work, or get a stool to sit down and paint. This easel holds surfaces up to 48″.
Field Easel: For those who love to paint plein air, this pochade box is transportable
so you can take it outdoors, and fully collapsible making it easy to carry. It comes
with an inbuilt palette and holds canvases up to 15″.
To read more about different types of easels and how to find one to suit your
individual art practice, read this easel guide
9. Types of solvent to use with oil paint

Turpentine (incredibly effective at thinning paint. The fumes are toxic, so ensure to
only use it in a ventilated space and handle it with care.)
Gamsol (considered to be a studio-safe solvent.)
Oil of spike lavender (non-toxic and highly effective thinner that smells of lavender)
Using solvents on your brushes can dry them out—I always condition my brushes
after cleaning. It’s important to look after your brushes to keep them like new for
longer. I use the Master’s Brush cleaner which cleans and preserves the brushes.
It will remove any extra residue that’s been left in the bristles. The brush conditioner
itself will last ages, and more importantly it will make your brushes last a lifetime.
Paint thinner can be reused time and time again, even if it looks cloudy with paint
residue. Just wait a few days for the paint sediment to settle to the bottom of the jar.
Then decant into a new jar, filtering the sediment. This brush washer filters out the
sediment for you.
10. The Best Easels: How to Choose an Easel for

Painting
If you’re contemplating getting a new easel, first determine exactly what you need
from a surface support. Consider the requirements of your individual practice.
Specifically, think about the size of the surfaces you like to paint on and which kind
of easel could accommodate that. Another important consideration is
the location you most frequently paint in—if you travel around a lot and paint
outdoors, you’re going to need an easel that’s easily transportable and stays
standing when you place it on various types of ground.
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Contents hide
1 Easels for different mediums
2 Types of easels
2.1 Tabletop easel
2.1.1 Product picks
2.2 Studio easels
2.2.1 A frame
2.2.1.1 Product pick
2.2.2 Radial
2.2.2.1 Product pick
2.2.3 H frame
2.2.3.1 Product picks
2.2.4 Accessories for studio work
2.3 Field easel
2.3.1 Product picks
2.3.2 Accessories for field work
3 The best easels for beginners
4 The best easels for professional painters
5 Finally
6 Best easels: Pin it!
Easels for different mediums
Easels that adjust to diagonal or vertical angles are great for use with mediums like
acrylic, oil and pastel. The sticky paint won’t collect as much dust if your canvas is
stood up vertically. Plus, you’ll be able to see your whole painting up-front, instead of
having to crane your neck over a flat table to see what you’re doing. These easels
don’t work well with watercolour or ink, as these mediums have very low viscosity,
and the liquid could run before it dries. You can find easels that can be adjusted to
lie horizontally too, perfect for drawing or watercolour. I outline some examples
below.
Types of easels
Tabletop easel
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Table top easels are easels that require an extra surface support, like a table, to be
brought to eye level.
They’re ideal to have if you work on a smaller scale, as most tabletop easels won’t
hold extra large surfaces.
If you don’t have enough space in the room you paint for a freestanding easel, but
you have a table or desk you could you paint at, then tabletop easels are a
favourable choice. They’re also a good option for people who like to work sitting
down.
They can be the most inexpensive type of easel to buy, as they’re the smallest. So
it’s a good choice if you’re a beginner, not wanting to splash out on expensive
materials.
See the product picks to find a table top easel suited to your preferred way of
working and your budget.
Product picks
Mabef Table Easel: this is the mid-range option. Made in Italy from high grade
beech wood, this easel can hold medium sized canvases around 22 inches.
Richeson Tabletop Easel: this is the high end option. It’s made from solid
hardwood and can hold canvases that are up to 36” high. You can adjust the angle
of this easel easily from 0° to 85°.
Richeson Pochade Box Easel: without the tripod attachment, you can use a
pochade box as a table easel. You can buy the tripod attachment separately to make
it into a free standing easel that’s perfect for working indoors or out. Without the
tripod, you can prop it up wherever you choose to work, on a table, or even on your
lap. It’s ideal for travel because it packs away into its own box, that you can also
store a palette, paints and anything else you need. The box will hold canvases up to
15”.
Studio easels
Studio easels are designed to hold large canvases. They provide optimum stability
while painting. They’re built to last, so they will be sturdy. You’ll have more trouble
trying to move a studio easel around when compared with the the other types, as
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they’re made to stay in the artist’s studio. Think of a studio easel more as an item of
furniture.
Studio easels can have simple designs and mechanisms, or they can have more
features and functionality.
A frame
A frame easels are the easiest studio easel to fold away, store and move around.
They’re good for medium to large sized works. This type of easel has less flexibility
when it comes to adjusting the surface angle than others. Many cheaper A frames
can only be adjusted to a diagonal angle, not vertical or horizontal.
Product pick
Mabef A frame studio easel: This model is pretty inexpensive for a studio easel and
can support canvases up to 47”. It has an anti-vibration spring and the canvas holder
can be adjusted with the ratchet control. Mabef easels are made from high quality
Italian beech wood.
Radial
Radial easels suit a wide range of canvas sizes. They can be adjusted to various
angles to suit your working style. Many radial easels bend at hinged joints to support
surfaces at 180°, convenient for watercolourists. Radial frames are quite minimal and
non-obstructive, making them appropriate for still life, or life drawing.
Product pick
Mabef Radial Easel: This universal folding easel is lightweight and easy to store
away. It can accommodate canvases up to 43″.
H frame
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H frame easels are considered to be the most supportive and accommodative of

larger sized painting surfaces, but are more difficult to pack away and move around.
They are often built with more features and come at higher price points.
Product picks
Mabef H Frame: This mid-range option is made from Italian beechwood, and
supports canvases up to 84½ inches in height. It has an adjustable working angle
and a tray to hold paints and brushes.
Richeson Classic H Frame: If you’re working at a large scale and want an easel
you can trust to hold heavy surfaces without becoming unstable, the Santa Fe II the
best option. It will hold canvases up to 106” that weigh up to 135kg. The H frame has
a double mast making it extra supportive. It’s made from solid oak and features a
mixing surface with two canisters. Of course, the extra features and support come at
a higher price point.
Accessories for studio work
Studio cabinet: this is a mobile workspace with in-built washer pots. The cabinet
has three drawers so you can neatly store away art supplies.
Field easel
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Field easels allow you to pack away your materials into a compact container, so that
you can easily travel to paint plein air. They’re small and light in comparison to studio
easels, making them easy to carry around.
Product picks
Aluminium field easel: This sturdy field easel is incredibly lightweight and can be
folded away and packed into its own bag. The easel is suitable for drawing, pastel,
acrylic or oil.
French Box: French box easels are heavier than the simple field easel frames, but
they pack away into a box. They are a compact option for those who love to travel
and paint. You can store essential paints and other materials in the box whilst
transporting it and whilst painting. This classic French Box by Jullian holds surface
up to 72″ and comes with its own pack away bag.
Mabef Pochade Box: A pochade box appears like an artist’s tool box from the
outside, but inside it holds a palette, has a storage compartment for paints and an
inbuilt easel that folds out. This box by Mabef is great for small plein air works, it
holds panels up to 11¾ x 9½”.
Richeson Pochade box: This beautiful pochade box holds larger surfaces—
canvases up to 15”. It also comes with an inbuilt glass palette measuring 12 x 10”,
giving you lots of space for mixing. This is the tripod that goes with the box.
Accessories for field work
Easel Umbrella: This gadget clamps onto your easel to protect you and your work
from the elements.
Painter’s Seat: a folding painter’s stool that’s easy to carry and bring with you on
location.
If you’re interested in venturing outside to paint plein air, read our plein air painting
tips.
The best easels for beginners
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For beginners looking for an easel that marries affordability with

functionality, tabletop easels are a brilliant choice. Some smaller tabletop easels
start at less than $30 and can hold medium sized canvases. They are a great option
if you prefer painting on a small to medium scale. Also, if you decide to get a larger
easel further down the line, tabletop easels have their own function, for if you want to
sit at a table or desk to paint a small piece.
The best easels for professional painters
The best easels for professional painters and for studio work is an H frame easel.
These easels are the sturdiest and hold the largest sized canvases. They are easy to
set up and are adjustable so they can hold various sized canvases.
11. The Fat Over Lean Rule in Oil Painting:

‘Fat over lean’ is one of the first rules you will encounter when you learn how to oil
paint.
It is a technique that describes the structural process of oil painting. ‘Leaner’ paint is
layered beneath ‘fatter’ paint. When followed, artists create a sound construction to
ensure the paint will properly adhere to the surface.
There’s no real ‘how to’ when it comes to oil painting. As soon as you’re familiar with
the basic principles, you can start finding a way of painting that suits you. The fat
over lean rule is a general guideline followed to diminish unpredictable results.
I’ll describe what the different terms mean, why the rule applies to oil painting and
different measures you could take to follow it, so that you get the best results from
your painting.
Contents hide
1 Fat over lean: What is lean paint?
2 Fat over lean: What is fat paint?
3 Why follow the fat over lean rule?
4 How to layer your painting using the fat over lean rule
4.1 Different ways of layering fat over lean
4.1.1 Fat over lean mediums
4.1.2 Think of the rule in relation to the brands of paint you use…
5 What happens if you don’t follow the fat over lean rule?
6 What about other mediums mixed with oil?
6.1 Alkyds
6.2 Cold wax
7 Fat over lean: Pin it!
Fat over lean: What is lean paint?
What is ‘lean paint’?
Lean paint is paint that has been mixed with a paint thinner such as turpentine or oil
of spike lavender.
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Straight from the bottle, paint is simply tiny particles of pigment dispersed in a binder.
Binder is usually either linseed oil, safflower, poppyseed or walnut oil. Some
manufacturers add additives such as fillers and drying agents to extend the paint and
add volume.
When mixed with a paint thinner, or solvent as it’s otherwise called, it dilutes the
paint and makes it much wetter, runnier and easier to handle. It also makes the
paint leaner.
Solvent dries by evaporation. This leaves the pigment and oil binder dispersed more
sparsely across the canvas to oxidise with the atmosphere. For this reason, when
the paint is touch dry, it takes on a much duller appearance. The paint has been
diluted, is drier, and it will have a weaker film. This is because the physical properties
of the oil molecules (polymers), such as the binding and gluing properties are less
concentrated, having being spread more thinly across the painting surface.
It dries much more rapidly than paint from the tube, and even more quickly than paint
that has been mixed with an oil-based medium….
Fat over lean: What is fat paint?
What is ‘fat paint’?
Fat paint is paint that has a high oil content. This means it could have been modified
by adding an oily medium such as linseed oil. Adding extra oil is just like adding to
the proportion of binder in your paint.
Using oil as a medium, in terms of its handling properties, will increase the fluidity of
the paint, making it easier to spread. It will increase the drying time, flexibility and
gloss of the paint film, making it much more durable.
Although there is less pigment in your paint mixture when you add extra oil medium
as it is more dispersed throughout, your dry paint film will likely appear much more
saturated or have qualities of depth when compared to paint straight out of the bottle
or paint mixed with solvent. This is due to the glossiness of the surface increasing
the strength of the colours.
Different oil media have different properties, as not all create what many artists
would describe as a ‘strong’ paint film. To learn more about this, consult this post
about different oil painting mediums.
Why follow the fat over lean rule?
When using oil as a medium, you want the previous layer to dry quicker than the one
you add on top.
Oil paints can take up to a week to become ‘touch dry’ depending on how thick and
oil-rich the layer of paint is. However, it can take months, even years to fully cure and
undergo the oxidisation process.
When the paint is polymerising and essentially fusing with molecules to create a
solid paint film, it will expand then contract as the unsaturated fatty acids link up to
absorb oxygen. You want to ensure that the base layers of your painting do not
impose stress on the top layers by changing dimensionally under paint that is
already dry.
In this way, we can think of each new layer being more flexible than the one before
it.
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How to layer your painting using the fat over lean rule
To ensure your painting dries from the lowest layer up, slowly increase the oil
content in your paint mixture in each consecutive layer of paint.
Keep your lower layers thinner (mixed with solvent) and only apply thicker, more oily
paint in the uppermost layers.
There’s no right or wrong way to go about this, as long as you follow the general
guideline. Different artists will have their own methods for layering paint and as you
practice, you’ll find one you like.
The way in which you go about creating your process will be a personal one—it will
depend on your desired outcomes and personal preferences.
I’ll walk you through some methods of layering fat over lean.
Different ways of layering fat over lean
Broadly you’ll paint with turpentine-thinned paint, then neat tube paint, then medium
or oil enriched paint. Or you could choose to paint straight from the tube in each
layer.
It could be that you use only pigment and solvent for your first layer to block in the
basic shapes in your painting. This is called painting imprimatura. Then in your
second layer, you might thin your paint with turpentine. Then add a ratio of 2:1
turpentine to linseed oil mixture to your paint and then on top of that a 1:1 mixture
and so forth.
You could also leave each layer to dry before applying the next. This means leaving
at least one week before painting the next layer. This is an extra measure you can
take to ensure the paint has had adequate time to start the curing process. It’s not
that practical when working to deadlines, however.
You can take extra measures to speed up drying times for oily layers if you’re
working to a tight deadline. One option is to add cobalt naphthenate to act as an
accelerator. It’s best to only add a very small amount of cobalt to the medium you’re
mixing it into—at most 50 drops of cobalt for 1 pint of medium.
Some artists don’t layer their paint at all, they paint alla prima (wet-on-wet) in one
sitting.
There are some artists that opt to paint solvent-free and start with paint straight
from the tube, then increase the oil content in the upper layers of their painting.
Fat over lean mediums
As you can see, the oil painting process is flexible and there are many methods of
painting which adhere to this rule. Just make sure you don’t paint with solvent over
an oily layer, and you should be fine!
The Fat and Lean mediums by Chelsea Classical Studio are made especially for
artists wanting to use this technique. They are made from oil of spike lavender,
damar resin and linseed oil. The unique combination prevents the paint film from
wrinkling and gives a wonderful satin finish. These are fine art mediums and feel
luxurious to use. They’re studio safe and don’t have carcinogenic fumes associated
with solvents like turpentine. To use the Chelsea Classical Studio mediums, start
your painting by adding a few drops of the Lean Medium, then increase the amount
of Fat Medium with each layer. I would especially recommend these mediums for
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artists who like using the glazing technique and use softer brushes to achieve

realistic effects.
Think of the rule in relation to the brands of paint you use…
Not all paints have the same oil content; some manufacturers like Michael
Harding and Schmincke use little to no fillers in their paint. This means that they
have a high pigment and oil content. If you use these brands to paint straight from
the tube in the first layers of your painting, they will dry slowly. If you have a mixture
of student grade and professional grade brands, of course it’s fine to mix them
together. It does make sense to use the professional paints in the final layers of the
painting, as they are more pigmented and oil rich.
What happens if you don’t follow the fat over lean rule?
If you paint over an oily layer with lean, inflexible paint, you are increasing the
chances of there being structural problems with your painting. It will impact the
appearance and permanency of your work.
As soon as it becomes touch dry, a lean layer over an oily layer will appear chalky.
The glossy and well saturated layers below will appear to have a matted film
stretched over the top.
Having reached the end of its curing process before the oily layers below, the lean
paint will shift and crack as it is tightly bound to a moving surface. Parts of the paint
will possibly come off the surface in places.
If you’re aware of the hierarchy of drying speeds and how solvent versus oil affects
this, you won’t encounter any of these problems.
What about other mediums mixed with oil?
Alkyds
The rule differs slightly if you paint with alkyds. Alkyds like Liquin, are resins derived
from acids, alcohols, or oils, so have a different chemical structure and therefore
polymerise differently to oils.
When you add alkyd to oil, it dries quicker. It also makes the layer more flexible.
The flexible part is key here. We shouldn’t think of layering slower drying over
quicker drying, but more flexible over less flexible.
So the rule with alkyds is to increase the amount of alkyd for each consecutive layer.
If you’re using alkyds in your painting, you should use them throughout, in every
layer. Otherwise your painting can be subject to a phenomenon whereby the layers
can just slide off one another and not adhere properly.
Cold wax
When using cold wax as a medium to thicken oil paint, you don’t need to worry too
much about the fat over lean rule. You won’t be thinning your paint with solvent, only
adding wax to create textured impasto effects.
Add the same proportion of wax to paint for each layer and you shouldn’t have any
problems.Fat over lean: Pin it!
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12. How to Varnish an Oil Painting

Varnishing is the final step of the oil painting process. It’s not a necessary step, but
it’s one that many artists take to alter the finish of their painting.
Why varnish an oil painting?
A layer of varnish protects the paint beneath from dust, dirt and most kinds of normal
wear and tear. The layer of varnish sits separately from the painting and can be
removed with solvent. You can restore an old painting that has been varnished
correctly by removing the varnish, along with any dust that has accumulated over the
years. You can restore paintings in this way by applying a new layer of varnish and
giving it a new lease of life.
Aside from protecting the painting and giving you the option to restore it to the
appearance of its original state years down the line, varnish enhances the form of a
painting. It deepens darker values, increases the saturation and gives the surface a
lustrous, unified finish.
An explanation of different types of varnish
There are a couple of options when it comes to deciding what to use as a varnish.
The first is damar resin. This is thinned with turpentine to make a varnish.
The problem with using damar resin is that you have to wait until the paint has fully
cured (which can take up to a year) before applying it.
The second option is Gamvar. This is a synthetic formulation made by the brand
Gamblin. It can be applied as soon as the paint is touch-dry and firm, as the varnish
layer allows oxygen through to layers below. This means that the layers can oxidise
and cure after being varnished. It’s incredibly practical for artists working to
deadlines, or for those who just can’t wait to get a painting finished. This is the
varnish I prefer to use.
What supplies do you need to varnish an oil painting?
Varnish—whichever you choose:
Damar resin: This is a spray version that gives a gloss finish
Gamvar: It goes on like water, you can use it as soon as your painting is touch dry
and it gives the painting a glossy, saturated finish
A large flat brush—if you’re not using a spray you’ll need this
In an in-depth article about oil paint varnish, I explain alternative materials you can
use as varnish (more traditional methods) and give a step-by-step guide showing
you exactly how to varnish a painting.
Cleaning up and taking care of your materials
Oil paint cannot be thinned, or cleaned from your materials with water alone. You will
have to use a solvent, or a brush soap.
If you have a smaller space that doesn’t have good ventilation (two windows you can
leave open for air to circulate), or if you just want to avoid using solvent, I would
recommend cleaning materials with brush soap as it’s much safer. Make sure you
wear gloves when handling messy paint brushes to avoid potentially toxic pigments
getting in contact with hands.
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However, as solvents such as turpentine are commonly used by artists to clean

materials, I will explain how to use them to remove paint from materials.
Using solvent with oil paint
Solvents can be added to paint and then applied to the painting surface. Make sure
you pick an artist-grade solvent, that has been distilled. This way you know it doesn’t
contain impurities, otherwise it could leave residue on your painting. Turpentine and
oil of spike lavender really are unmatchable in their compatibility with oil paint, so
either one of these would be the best option for working into your paintings. If you
are using solvent in the paint film itself, make sure to only use in the first layers.
The other use of solvents in oil painting is to clean materials. First make sure you
contain solvent in a lidded jar to prevent heady fumes contaminating your
workspace while you’re not using it. To clean, swill your brush in the jar and wipe any
paint residue on a paper towel. Repeat this process until no residue is left on the
brush.
Varnishing an oil painting: it’s the final step before finishing your masterpiece. So
it’s not something you want to rush.
A layer of varnish can dramatically enhance your painting, making the colours look
brighter and shadows deeper.
By applying a layer of varnish, you can unify the surface appearance of a painting
and protect it for years to come.
Contents hide
1 Top product pick: Gamvar
2 Why should you varnish an oil painting?
3 When do you varnish?
4 What to use as a varnish?
4.1 Traditional varnish
4.2 Retouch varnish
4.3 Gamvar
4.3.1 Different finishes of Gamvar
5 What tools do you need to varnish a painting?
6 Is your painting ready for varnish?
6.1 Oiling out
6.2 Further preparation
7 How to varnish your painting
8 How to varnish your painting using spray
9 Problems that can arise when varnishing
9.1 Beading
9.2 Bubbles
10 Finally
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11 Varnishing an oil painting: Pin it!

Top product pick: Gamvar
Buy Gamvar here.
Gamvar is incredibly easy to apply. As soon as your painting is dry to the touch, you
can varnish. There are three different types of Gamvar finishes available. Gamvar
Gloss will intensify the colours of your painting.
It’s the most convenient type of oil painting varnish to use and is beginner friendly.
Read on to find out more about the different types of varnishes available, what other
supplies you need, and how to apply the varnish.
Why should you varnish an oil painting?

SaveHow to Varnish an Oil PaintingPublished byFine Art Tutorials
You can change the surface finish to either gloss or matte.
It will increase the intensity and depth of the colours (though this is mainly applicable
to using a gloss finish).
Varnish will protect colours from UV light. UV can cause some pigments to fade over
time. It’s not advised to leave paintings in direct sunlight anyway, but with a layer of
varnish, you can be sure that the colours will be more resistant to fading.
It provides a protective layer for the painting from general wear and tear. Plus, a
varnished painting is easier to clean.
If you varnish a painting, it gives you the option to restore it at a later date. When
applied correctly, the layer of varnish sits separately from the paint below. This
means you can remove it, along with any dust, dirt or wear and tear it has
accumulated over the years with solvent. Applying a new layer restores it so it’ll look
like it did the day it had its first coat of varnish. It’s just like replacing the glass on a
framed picture, the glass absorbs all kinds of impact; it becomes scratched,
smudged and dirty—if you replace the glass for a shiny new piece, the picture below
suddenly looks new again.
When do you varnish?
Oil paintings take a long time to feel dry to touch. If you’ve painted with fairly thin
layers of paint, it should take a few days to be dry enough to handle. But oil paintings
don’t just dry, they cure.
‘Curing’ is simply the oxidisation process that both oil and pigment undergo to dry
and set completely.
If you have thinned any layers of paint with solvent such as turpentine, layers will dry
by evaporation, leaving the oil and pigment behind to react with oxygen and harden
on the canvas.
An oil painting with thin layers should only take a few months to cure. However, in
the case of paintings with thicker layers, it can take anywhere between six months
and a year to cure fully. If you have painted with thick impasto layers, it could take
longer.
Traditional varnishes like damar resin should only be applied after the curing process
is complete.
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The reason you should wait instead of varnishing straight away with damar resin, is
that whilst the paint is curing, it is ever so slightly contracting, meaning that any layer
painted on top that has been thinned with turpentine (the ingredients of picture
varnish is most often damar resin and turpentine) could crack.
Another important reason to wait until the painting has properly cured to varnish with
damar resin is that if varnished too soon, the varnish doesn’t become a separate
removable layer and instead melds to the artwork. Restorers clean oil paintings by
removing the layer of varnish to reveal artwork that nothing has touched since the
day it was varnished. All the dust and grime that accumulated on the surface of the
varnish can be removed with the layer of varnish, and a new layer can be painted on
the surface.
There are ways around having to wait this long for a painting to set though, using a
synthetic formulation such as Gamvar which allows the oil to oxidise underneath, or
by applying a very thin layer of varnish to restore colours and unify the painting’s
surface which allows the painting to continue curing below.
What to use as a varnish?
I’ve outlined three different types of varnish below, there are other types of varnish
that have been used to protect artwork in the past, but these are most commonly
used today.
Here’s a rundown, with product recommendations:
Traditional varnish
Winsor and Newton Damar Varnish Spray: Buy it here.
Chelsea Classical Studio Lavender Varnish (liquid form): Buy it here.
Traditional varnishes include Damar, Copal and Amber.
Copal and Amber have a golden appearance but crack and yellow over time. They
have a very hard coating, but are not ideal to use due to how the surface can change
over the years.
Damar varnish is more widely used, and is considered a ‘soft varnish’. It is similar in
appearance to the more historical varnishes Copal and Amber.
This is a mixture of damar resin that has been thinned with turpentine. You can buy
pre-made damar varnish that you can apply straight to your painting, or damar resin
that you have to dilute yourself. It will become very tacky when it dries so you’ll need
to prop it upright with a cover to avoid dust settling on the surface. Always work in a
well ventilated space too.
Because it’s a natural varnish, it will yellow over time and it becomes brittle when it
dries. With changes in temperature and humidity, canvas can expand and contract,
leaving the layer of damar to crack.
You can use damar as a glazing medium, by mixing it with linseed oil and pigment
and applying it to the final layers of your painting. This will give your painting a sheen
and the linseed oil will provide flexibility in balance to the brittleness of the damar
resin, preventing cracking.
Retouch varnish
Retouching Varnish Spray: Buy it here.
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This is more of a temporary solution. It can be applied to the painting when touch
dry, to temporarily restore the surface. This comes in a spray form. If you are
delivering a painting to a collector and the painting hasn’t fully cured (but is dry and
stiff) you can apply retouch varnish, then around a year later apply the final layer of
varnish.
Gamvar
Gamvar Picture Varnish: Buy it here.
This is a synthetic varnish that goes on like water, and saturates your painting giving
it a unified appearance. The coat is completely clear and won’t yellow over time.
The great thing about Gamvar is that you don’t have to wait until your painting has
oxidised to apply it. You can apply when the paint is touch dry and firm. This is
because the varnish allows oxygen to seep through the film after it has dried, leaving
the lower layers of the painting to cure. This is the varnish I use, and many other
artists do too, just because of its ease of use. It means that if you have commissions,
or need to submit your work to a gallery for a show, then you don’t have to wait a
whole year for the painting to cure.
Different finishes of Gamvar
You can buy Gloss, Satin or Matte. Realist painters usually opt for gloss, as it brings
out colour values and deepens the appearance of your work. Matte varnish can
make the painting appear dull.
Now you know your options—what you can use to varnish an oil painting and when
best to use them in relation to the drying process of your painting.
So now I’ll walk you through HOW you go about varnishing, step-by-step.
What tools do you need to varnish a painting?
A brush for varnishing: here’s our pick.
Your varnish of choice.
Something to prop the painting against (i.e. an easel).
Something to cover your painting with to avoid dust sticking to it.
A board to lay your painting on, or something to stop any varnish dripping onto your
table.
Is your painting ready for varnish?
Oiling out
If you notice dull spots on your painting, it means that parts of the binder have been
absorbed by previous layers of the painting. This can occur if you were painting on
an absorbent ground, or if you thinned your first layers with turpentine (this can
sometimes soak up the oil from the top layers).
If you go ahead and varnish at this point, the varnish can just accentuate the dull
spots leaving an uneven appearance.
To even out the surface, paint on a very thin layer or linseed oil with a soft brush.
Then wipe over with a lint-free cloth to remove most of the oil on the surface. This
process is called oiling out. It will remove those ‘sunken in’ areas, where only the
pigment has been left dry on the surface. Wait for this to dry or cure completely,
depending on which varnish you choose before applying.
This a fairly simple step, but if you want to learn more read about oiling out here.
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Further preparation
Wipe your painting over with a lint-free cloth to remove any dust from the surface.
Your painting should be completely dry. The paint itself and the humidity of the
environment. There shouldn’t be any moisture on the surface of the painting, try to
work in an environment which has a medium temperature and low humidity.
How to varnish your painting
Lay your painting flat on a board. If you’re laying it on a table, you could use a
tablecloth to cover beneath your painting, as you’re likely to get some varnish run-off.
Pour your varnish into a clean dish (make sure it’s free of dust). This way you can
measure carefully how much you need for the painting. Careful not to pour out too
much, you’ll only want to spread a thin layer over the painting. It’s easier to add more
varnish to the painting that to have to remove parts you’ve already poured on.
Make sure your brush is totally clean.
Apply the varnish in long strokes. You’ll need to apply it as evenly as possible. This
requires a minimal pressure, painting in the same direction with the strokes slightly
overlapping.
Make sure to varnish the entire painting in one sitting. You don’t want there to be
visible lines where one layer has dried before another.
You only need one layer.
Assemble the cover. You can get creative with this and use whatever you have
around the house. After the varnish has dried to the point of being sticky (not runny
or wet) I usually prop my canvas up at a 90 degree angle with my easel. I then put a
clean plastic cover over the top (making sure it’s not touching the painting).
Gamvar takes 18-24 hours to dry. Damar varnish will take several days.
How to varnish your painting using spray
Prop your painting up vertically in a dust-free room. It’s ideal for both the room and
the spray to be at room temperature.
Check the nozzle for build up of varnish residue and clean it if there’s any stuck in
there.
Make sure there’s nothing directly behind the painting—you don’t want to varnish
your wall by accident!
Shake the can—read the back of the can, but shake it for between one and two
minutes; this way you can ensure you get an even finish.
Hold the can away from the painting—40cm is a good distance.
Work in a fairly quick motion to get an even and thin coat.
You can apply multiple layers. Each layer will take around 20 minutes to dry fully, but
check the can of your varnish to make sure.
Problems that can arise when varnishing
Whether you’re varnishing with Damar Resin or Gamvar, there are two potential
problems that can arise and they are pretty common.
Beading
This is where the varnish doesn’t stick to certain areas of the painting and collects in
patches, giving an uneven surface finish. The worst case is when you don’t pay
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attention to it as it dries and you return to the painting the next day to find that some
areas of the painting are still exposed and the varnish has dried.
Beading is caused by a slick surface. If you’ve painted in layers that are very oil rich
then this will be the cause. Before varnishing, the paint needs to be ever so slightly
abrasive. You can rub a nylon brush over the surface first and apply a tiny amount of
rubbing alcohol with a soft cloth. This will make the varnish stick better.
I’ve experienced beading a few times and what helped me was scrubbing the varnish
with a bristle brush and as it was drying continuing to scrub the surface every now
and again to ensure even coverage.
If your varnish has dried beaded up, then can remove it with odourless mineral spirit
and apply again.
Bubbles
Bubbles in the varnish occur when you’ve applied too much. With Gamvar especially
it’s better to apply in small amounts and layer if you need to. If you’ve applied too
much and there are bubbles, soak up the excess varnish with a cloth.
13. ‘Oiling Out’ A Painting: How to Restore Dulled

Colours
Oiling out is a technique used in oil painting to restore the colour and finish of a
painting before varnishing.
Oiling out a painting will give it a unified surface, where each section appears to
have the same soft lustre and attractive surface appearance.
It’s a relatively easy step and you should already have the materials you need to
complete the process.
I’ll walk you through how to take measures to prevent the need for this step, how to
spot a painting that needs oiling out and how to go about oiling out a painting.
Contents hide
1 What is oiling out a painting?
2 When should you oil out a painting?
3 How to prevent ‘sinking in’ in an oil painting
3.1 Prevent sinking in using the right gesso
3.2 Reduce solvent use
3.3 Use mediums to prevent sinking in
4 How to oil out a painting
4.1 Supplies you need for oiling out
4.2 Oiling out a painting: in steps
5 Finally
6 Oiling out a painting: Pin it!
What is oiling out a painting?
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Oiling out a painting is the process of applying a small amount of linseed oil to a dry
paint film. Artists will take this optional step to revive a dull or dry looking painting
before varnish is applied.
The step is necessary if areas of the painting appear dull or chalky looking, as oiling
out can provide a more unified appearance to the finished, varnished painting. Oiling
out a painting isn’t necessary if precautions are taken to prevent oil paint from
sinking into previous layers.
When should you oil out a painting?
If your oil painting has become dull in areas, you may have fallen victim to a
phenomenon called ‘sinking in’. This is where the oil in the paint is absorbed and
essentially lost to previous layers of the painting.
This cause of this could be that:
The surface you are painting on is absorbent. It could be that the primer you’ve used
is acting as a porous layer. This layer will soak up some of the oil in your paint
You have thinned the paint in previous layers causing it to soak up all the oil in the
top layers
You’re not using enough medium in the top layers of your painting.
Paints that have varying drying speeds can cause some areas to become more
absorbent than others.
How to prevent ‘sinking in’ in an oil painting
You can of course take preventative measures to ensure this doesn’t happen. The
first would be to check which primer you’re using. Many gesso formulations on the
market are unfortunately very absorbent. Reevaluating the way you prepare a
surface for painting can have a dramatic impact on your results. Or opt to buy
primed artists surfaces such as canvases and wooden panels. These will have
been sprayed evenly with quality gesso, therefore preventing sinking in.
Prevent sinking in using the right gesso
Michael Harding has a solution to this problem. He’s created a formulation for an
acrylic primer that is non-absorbent, but it still provides a strong bond to the layers of
paint with a decent ‘tooth’. It doesn’t suck any of the oil out of your paint, making
your paints remain as vibrant on the canvas as they look on the palette.
If you want to test it out for yourself, I do recommend it—there’s no other primer that
acts in the same way. Buy it here.
Reduce solvent use
The second way to prevent your paint from sinking in is to not overuse paint thinner
when mixing it into your mediums. If you use lots of solvent in your painting, and
build it up in consecutive layers, your painting will quickly take on a chalky and dull
appearance, and this will likely suck the oil from top layers of your paint when you do
eventually increase the oil content of your paint mixture, following the fat over lean
rule.
Use mediums to prevent sinking in
There are mediums you can use to prevent colours from sinking in as well. Linseed
oil mixed with a little damar resin prevents pigment from being absorbed by previous
layers of the painting. It also provides better adhesion for later layers of paint and
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prevents oil beading on the surface. The old masters would have mixed damar resin
into their paint for the properties it provides. Chelsea Classical Studios premix their
own Fat Medium, which is a mix of cold pressed linseed and damar resin thinned
with oil of spike lavender.
How to oil out a painting
Sinking in is very common in oil painting. Even if you take the preventative measures
outlined above, it can still happen. Luckily it’s easily fixed. Here is a method to bring
out the colours and restore the vibrancy in your painting.
Supplies you need for oiling out
Linseed oil
Two lint free cloths
Oiling out a painting: in steps
As soon as your painting is touch dry from your previous painting session, take note
of areas that appear dull and have lost their vibrancy. These are the areas that
should be treated.
Soak one lint-free cloth in a little oil.
Rub the dull areas of the painting in oil.
Use another cloth to soak up any excess oil.
Leave to dry for around four days. The oil may still be a little sticky in areas after this
time, if it is, wait longer until it’s dry to the touch.
If the painting has any further dry areas you can see, just repeat the process until the
painting has an overall sheen.
Wait another few days for the oil to become touch dry—your painting should have a
new lease of life.
Don’t leave oil soaked cloths lying around as they can be a fire hazard. It’s best to
get rid of the oil straight away. You can soak them in warm soapy water, dish soap
should work just fine.
14. Alla Prima (Wet on Wet) Tutorial

Learn all about the alla prima technique. Discover what it is, the artists that famously
used it and how to try it for yourself.
Contents hide
1 What is the ‘alla prima’ technique?
2 Which mediums suit painting alla prima?
3 What supplies do you need to paint alla prima?
4 How to complete an alla prima painting
4.1 Step 1: paint your impression of the scene as a whole
4.2 Step 2: add vivid colours and highlights
5 The best thing about painting alla prima?
6 Alla prima (wet on wet) tutorial: Pin it!
What is the ‘alla prima’ technique?
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Painting alla prima involves layering wet paint to the surface and finishing the piece
before the first application of paint dries.
It can be a fast and spontaneous way of working. The phrase ‘alla prima’ literally
translates to ‘all at once’ in Italian.
This approach has actually been around for centuries. It’s not as old as the Flemish
technique—the traditional layered approach—but it dates back to the 16th century.
The earliest record of this technique being used was in Jan Van Eyck’s ‘Arnolfini
Portrait’. Although it’s clear he didn’t use this technique throughout the entire painting
process. The Baroque painter Frans Hals was famed for using this technique in
many of his works.
Frans Hals: Self Portrait
Hals had a loose, painterly style which seems to diverge from the meticulous layered
approach other painters used at the time.
Alla prima is a direct painting method, meaning that colour is applied to the canvas
as it is perceived from the subject or scene. It encourages the artist to be decisive
about the placement of paint, to rapidly put down spots of colour in the right hue,
value and form. It takes skill and practice to execute well.
This technique lends itself to painting plein air in short sessions, to capture the
essence of the landscape before the light or weather changes. It also makes sense
to paint wet-on-wet on a smaller canvas, as it can be completed quicker. Many
artists favour the immediacy of this painting method, it inspires the artist to be
spontaneous with their brushstrokes, rather than agonising over tiny details.
Which mediums suit painting alla prima?
This technique is most suited to oil painting, but can also be used in watercolour.
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It’s possible to use this technique with acrylic too, however acrylic dries fast. So an
acrylic painter would either use a medium to slow drying time, use slow drying
acrylic paint which can take days to dry, paint in incredibly thick layers or work
quickly. Alternatively, you could spray the surface with water to keep it wet. Just bear
in mind this will dilute the paint.
Oil paint takes a long time to dry when compared with other mediums. This is why
the medium lends itself to this technique so well. The drying time of oil is between
two days and one week, depending on the mediums added and how thickly the
paint has been applied.
This means that you could complete an alla prima painting over the course of two
days in oil. After this point, paint may become more sticky and less malleable.
When using this technique, you don’t need to speed up or focus on how long the
painting is taking you. It’s best to paint at a speed that feels natural, and most
importantly, to have fun with it.
What supplies do you need to paint alla prima?
If you are using this technique with oil, you’ll need the following:
A stiff brush, either hog or synthetic. I recommend these synthetic brushes. Get
one in the flat shape—this will give you ultimate control with the paint and prevent
you from overthinking details. If you prefer stiffer brushes for working with thicker
paint, the Princeton Catalyst brushes are similar in stiffness to hog.
Palette knife and palette.
Smaller round brushes for details.
A pre-primed surface. Smaller canvases and panels work better for alla prima
paintings.
Oil paint and optionally, a solvent or medium.
How to complete an alla prima painting

Step 1: paint your impression of the scene as a whole
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Claude Monet: San Giorgio Maggiore at Dusk
At this stage, you want to focus on covering the entirety of the surface. Start with
dark to mid-tones and neutral colours. Harness the properties of your paint. If you
have pigments that are darker, fast drying, or transparent like earth pigments it
makes sense to apply these first.
Notice the broad and general shapes of your subject and get an idea of how the
subject will fit on your canvas. If you thin an earth pigment with solvent, you could
draw out the shapes first to establish the structure and composition of your piece.
You’ll be looking to replicate the loose forms from your reference and thinking about
the overall effect you are creating with your paint application. You can be quite loose
and gestural with your brush strokes at this stage.
Don’t try and replicate every detail of your subject, such as the branches of the trees
or the windows of a building. You can worry about these details later. The main aim
of this stage is to indicate where the light and dark areas will be and lay down the
colours that form the largest areas of your piece. If you look at your subject, you’ll
notice these colours will mostly be neutral tones of the hue.
Mix neutral variations of the colour, more so than you may instinctively feel. It’s
much easier to increase the saturation of a painting as you go along than to try and
tone it down. You can slowly add vivid accents to your subject to make it pop at a
later stage.
The oil paint could be thinned at this stage, if you wish, so apply a little solvent such
as turpentine or oil of spike lavender to your paint.
You don’t need to apply the paint thickly, as you are not working on details yet. If you
apply thinned paint over fatter paint, you’ll inadvertently wipe the paint you already
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applied straight off the canvas. Always follow the fat over lean rule, even if you’re
not waiting for layers to dry in between.
Step 2: add vivid colours and highlights
After you’ve covered the whole canvas with the broad shapes that your subject is
comprised of in mid-tone values, you’ll want to focus on applying details and
highlights.
Of course, opaque pigments such as titanium white have a high covering capability.
As a general rule of thumb, layer opaque mixes over transparent pigments to avoid
creating muddy paintings. You can check a colour’s transparency by reading the
information on the tube.
Colours will mix together on the canvas and colour values will merge. You will have
to account for this when you apply the first layer of paint. When you are placing
colours on top of one another, if you don’t want them to mix too much, you will have
to load your brush or palette knife with lots of paint to build it up.
Monet is known for mixing his colours straight on the canvas and sometimes not
mixing them at all. This can create a vivid yet harmonious effect. However, you can
mix your colours ready to apply to the canvas on your palette if you’re not confident
in mixing them straight on the canvas.
Remember to vary your brush strokes to create different effects. Don’t thin the paint
for this later stage of the process, it’s best to apply it thick and straight from the tube.
If you make a mistake, just scrape wet paint off. Prominent artists are known to use
the scraping technique and include it as part of their painting process to create
contrast between the thicker more textured areas of the canvas and the paint that
has been removed to reveal details beneath.
The best thing about painting alla prima?
Incredibly vibrant and textured works that seem to portray a feeling of movement are
often created by using this technique. The results aren’t always going to be
predictable painting with this method, but that’s half the fun of it.
15. The Blocking In Technique for Oil and Acrylic

Painting
Blocking in is a popular technique that forms the first stage of the painting process
for those using a layered direct painting approach.
Many painters will already have completed a drawing that they paint over.
Contents hide
1 What is blocking in?
2 What supplies do you need?
3 How to use the blocking in technique
4 Blocking in painting: Pin it!
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What is blocking in?

The purpose of the blocking in stage is to cover the canvas, so none of the white
from your gesso ground shows through. This technique can be used as an aid for the
painter, so that the colours and tones that are established whilst blocking in can be
used as a guide for consecutive paint layers.
When blocking in, you don’t have to worry about the details of your painting yet. The
aim is to establish the loose forms of different elements in your subject. Try to mix
colours to match the tones and value transitions of your subject as you see them.
This way, you will lay down the composition of your piece, so you can get a general
feel for the atmosphere and impression you are creating from an early stage.
A good tip is to squint your eyes so your subject looks blurry, paint the prominent
features you see in this blurry state, then add the details after this layer has dried.
What supplies do you need?
Oil paint, or acrylic paint.
Solvent, such as turpentine, odourless mineral spirits or oil of spike lavender. If
you’re painting in acrylic, thin with water for the blocked in layer.
Stiff brush, such as hog, or these synthetic alternatives.
Your painting surface. You could have an underdrawing already completed.
How to use the blocking in technique
Observe your subject or reference and start by mixing colours as you see them. If
you are fairly new to painting, and you haven’t had much practice mixing colour,
spend a bit of time experimenting with mixing. Alternatively you can read this guide
on mixing realistic looking colours to help.
Don’t apply the colour to the canvas until you are happy you have a match. A good
tip for beginners is to try and neutralise colours so they appear less saturated. It’s
easier to gradually make the painting appear more vibrant in consecutive layers than
to tone it down. Beginners often gravitate towards laying down intensely vibrant
colours if they haven’t yet learned how to neutralise them.
Look in your reference for subtle shifts in value, tones and colour transitions. You will
replicate this on your canvas, maintaining the shapes and forms as you see them.
Generally, you will be applying darker colours first to the shadows in your piece. This
will be done with thinned, fairly translucent paint. If there’s a large area of your
painting that is lighter toned with dark details, then apply the light colour first.
One instance where this may apply is in an ocean scene during midday sun, the
ocean will appear to melt into the horizon, as it appears to reflect more of the sun at
a distance. In this case you’ll block in the light blue colour and add dark accents for
waves when you come to you detail layer.
Some of the blocked in areas may remain exposed once you’ve finished your
painting.
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Blocked in Layer
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Finished painting
16. What Colours Do You Need for Oil Painting?

Finding the right colours for oil painting can feel difficult when there are so many
options of colours available to buy. Especially if you are a beginner and haven’t had
much practice in colour mixing.
Contents hide
1 Colours for oil painting: Where to start?
1.1 The best oil paint brands
2 In summary: colours for oil painting
3 Colours for oil painting: Choose pigments to create hues
4 Pigments to create tints and shades
4.1 Tints
4.2 Shades
5 Additional colours
5.1 Single pigment colours for oil painting can have unique properties
6 Colours for oil painting: Pin it!
Colours for oil painting: Where to start?
Start with the primary colours, then add to them as your skills develop and you
redefine what you need for your practice. Starting with primaries and their warm or
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cool variations will help you improve your mixing skills and understanding

of colour as a whole.
Many experienced artists will have their own go-to base of primary colours (versions
of red, yellow and blue) that they use to mix the majority of their hues and tones. The
colour palette I will show you in this guide will give you the ability to mix the greatest
chromatic range with only six colours.
The best oil paint brands
It’s important, even if you’re first starting out, to buy from paint manufacturers that
are concerned with the quality of paint. Gamblin, Michael
Harding, Blockxand Schmincke all make excellent quality paints. Winsor &
Newton make great artist grade paint, that has a cheaper price point. Learn more
about different oil paints in our brand review.
Top quality paint means that it will have a high pigment content. Tubes will be
composed of mostly single pigments, plus, fewer fillers and binders will be used. The
result of using quality paint is that your colour mixes will be vibrant, cleaner and less
‘muddy’ in appearance. Better quality paint is easier to work with too, with more
buttery consistency and colours that spread further on the canvas.
Start with six pigments for hues and two pigments for tints and shades all from
quality paint brands and you will see how your colour mixing and therefore painting
skills will rapidly improve.
In summary: colours for oil painting
Here is the primary palette, from which you can mix a wide range of tones and hues:
Cadmium Red or Pyrrole Red
Magenta
Ultramarine
Phthalo Blue
Cadmium Yellow or Hansa Yellow
Transparent Yellow
Burnt Umber
Titanium White
In the next section, I’ll go into more detail about the properties of these colours and
how to use them in your mixes.
Colours for oil painting: Choose pigments to create hues
To create the widest range of hues with the fewest colours, you will need six different
pigments.
These six colours are the primary colours and a warm or cool version of each. In
pigment form, the primaries are magenta, cyan and yellow—these can be mixed to
make almost any other colour on the spectrum.
Cadmium Red Light PR108
This is a warm primary red and has a bias towards yellow.
It is an opaque pigment that can create brilliantly fiery mixes with warm yellow but
more neutral purple colours useful for shadow tones when mixed with blue.
Substitute Cadmium for Cadmium Hue, or Pyrrole Red. Pyrrole Red is another
primary red, that has a high lightfast rating but is cheaper than cadmium.
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Quinacridone Magenta PV19
This pigment is closest to primary magenta, PR122 can also be considered close to
magenta, but it isn’t as lightfast as PV19.
Use this pigment with ultramarine to create pure purples.
It can be used to neutralise bright greens.
A quinacridone pigment that has cool undertones in its purest form, but mixes with
yellow to make highly saturated oranges.
If you mix this pigment with white you can achieve a bright pink, something you can’t
achieve with cadmiums.
Ultramarine Blue PB29
A pure blue with a slight red tinge.
The reddish undertones help to make brilliant purples and neutral greens.
This pigment is transparent, lending itself to making glazes.
Mix with white to make a high chroma radiant blue.
Use it in mixes to create sky blues, or inky waters. Use it also to create the colour of
fading hills (mixed with a little yellow).
Mix this with orange to make cool greys and deep blacks. Mix with Burnt Umber to
create pure black.
Phthalo Blue (primary cyan) PB15
Phthalocyanine is considered primary blue (cyan).
It has a very subtle yellow undertone, it can combine to make greenish blues.
Deep colour profile and high tinting strength.
Teal and turquoise are both made from the phthalo pigment.
Use this to create a range of colours used in seascapes, from shallow tropical waters
to deep stormy oceans.
Transparent Yellow PY128
This is a very bright transparent primary yellow
This is will mix with cyan to make cool semi-transparent and clear greens.
Cadmium Yellow PY35
A more rounded, deeper yellow with red undertones.
Mix with cadmium red to get bright oranges.
Substitute Cadmium Yellow for Hansa Yellow, which can be bought from M.
Graham. Hansa yellow is cheaper than Cadmium, more transparent and slightly less
warm in tone.
Pigments to create tints and shades
With the three primaries and three primary variations, you can mostly create
any hue, but you also need to be able to create tints and shades of each hue. It’s not
as simple as lightening and darkening with black or white.
Tints
Titanium White
Titanium white is completely opaque, but it can make mixtures appear chalky.
Zinc White
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Zinc is a translucent pigment. Use this pigment to maintain the saturation of your
mixes—it doesn’t give the ‘washed out’ effect that titanium white can. Over use
of zinc in mixes can create a brittle paint film, however.
Shades
Should you use black paint?
When used for the sole purpose of darkening colours, ivory black can make for some
inharmonious hue shifts. Ivory black is actually a very dark, low chroma blue. So if
you’re working with colours that also have cool undertones, then creating darker
areas with ivory black may be the best option.
Equally, if you are working on grisaille, then ivory black mixed with burnt umber
would be a good choice. Every artist will have their own approach to this.
Personally, I use burnt umber for darkening colours and if I want a purer black, then I
add a small amount of ultramarine to the mix.
Burnt Umber
Many artists use burnt umber instead of ivory black to create shade. This pigment is
usually used in the earlier layers of a painting.
Burnt umber is transparent and warm in tone, so it can be used to create clean
colour graduations.
Additional colours
I’ve outlined the primaries in oil painting and the split primary palette, to give you the
capability to mix the greatest range of tones from just six colours.
After using this palette for a while you’ll come to realise that you can mix the hues of
many of the premixed colours sold by manufacturers with this limited palette. It’s a
cost effective way of painting because you end up needing to buy fewer tubes.
However, there are some extra pigments you can add to your palette to fill the gaps
in the gamut of colours that this palette creates.
If you paint landscapes, adding a colour like viridian green to your palette could be
useful as it could save you time mixing. Red Ochre is great for desert scenes and
brick work.
One pigment that could be added to your palette is crimson. Alizarin crimson
provides a much deeper and intense, transparent red that is suitable for landscape
painting, creating shadows and mixing vivid, dark purples when combined with
ultramarine. Alizarin is a fugitive pigment, meaning that it has a low lightfast rating
and can fade over time when exposed to direct sunlight. For this reason
use Permanent Alizarin Crimson.
Cobalt blue can be a great addition to a palette, to use as the perfect light sky blue,
or to use as a glaze over distant mountains to create depth in the painting.
Earth pigments can provide some benefits to your palette. They dry fast, they are
transparent and dark in colour, so then can provide a full tonal range when thinned
or combined with white. They are useful then, for toning your canvas and
establishing the values in a painting before colour is added. For example, burnt
sienna which is orange in tone works beautifully as an underpainting beneath
seascapes.
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Earth colours are also brilliant for use in transparent shadows over flesh tone.
Another positive about earth pigments, is that they are cheap to buy. So you may
save money in the long run by using just a single cheaper pigment rather than
combining three primaries to make the same tone.
Here are some excellent earth pigments to look at: Mars Brown, Yellow
Ochre, Raw Umber, Burnt Sienna.Single pigment colours for oil painting can have
unique properties
You can also add more colours to your palette for the working properties these
pigments can provide. For example, some colours are transparent, making them
excellent for glazes, some will have a high tinting strength, some will dry quicker.
Once you’ve built up your skills mixing the primaries, explore the vast range of
pigments available and their properties. Check the oil paint tube, or the product page
on the website to understand the individual properties of the pigment you’re looking
at.
17. How to Tone a Canvas for Oil and Acrylic

Painting
You can use this technique to tone many different types of surfaces. For example
paper, wooden panel or canvas.
A toned surface, which is also called an imprimatura, is a stain of colour applied to
a primed canvas or panel.
It is just one way to prepare you surface before you start painting. It provides
painters with a transparent toned ground to work on. Artists often choose to
complete this stage after creating a drawing in charcoal.
Contents hide
1 Why tone the surface?
2 How to choose a pigment for imprimatura
2.1 Pigments to use to tone a canvas
3 What do you need to tone a canvas?
4 How to Create the Imprimatura
4.1 Step 1: Choose your pigment
4.2 Step 2: Mix the Pigment with Solvent
4.3 Step 3: Cover your surface
4.4 Step 4: Wipe away sections to create the illusion of light
5 Tone a canvas, imprimatura technique: Pin it!
Why tone the surface?
An imprimatura has several functions that can improve your painting.
Firstly, it seals your under drawing, making it easier to trace over the lines when you
come to paint the colours and tones.
When light hits the painting, it reflects through the layers creating tonal optical unity.
It can enhance the luminosity and colourful effects of the finished piece.
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Transparent glazes of colour that allow the transparent pigment of the imprimatura
shine through over the gesso ground will be more luminous than any opaque paint
mixture. Each layer is backlit by the previous pigment.
Imprimatura creates a mid tone, making it easier to establish dark and light colour
values and for the artist to see the colours they are using in relation to one another
more clearly.
The most widely used pigments for imprimatura are neutral colours. The artist will
choose either a warm or cool toned pigment depending on what they want the
undertones in the painting to be.
How to choose a pigment for imprimatura
Old masters traditionally used warm earth colours such as burnt umber as their
imprimatura layer. But it’s also good to subvert norms and do something unique.
What is the overall effect you are trying to achieve with your painting? If you want to
create warmth, use a pigment with a red undertone. If you want to emphasise the
cool colours in your painting use a pigment with a blue undertone.
Painting with a pigment that has a yellow undertone can give the appearance of
luminosity and natural light. Colours like Yellow Ochre work well for this.
Imprimatura, as well as providing luminosity in certain pieces, can also be used to
emphasise and deepen areas of darkness and shadow. Use a dark brown or dark
cool grey pigment for this.
Caravaggio: Saint Jerome Writing

Bear in mind that oil paintings become more translucent with age. So an imprimatura
will show through (after hundreds of years). Look at Caravaggio’s paintings—he
often painted with a dark, almost opaque imprimatura and his works have become
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progressively darker with age. This is a reason for why dark opaque layers of paint
should be avoided for imprimatura, as colours can become lost to them.
Pigments to use to tone a canvas
The benefit of using earth colours for the first layer is that they dry quickly. You can
choose any colour, however, although it’s ideal if the pigment is transparent.
Burnt Sienna gives a rusty orange effect. This is good for creating warmth in a piece
and contrast beneath paintings with many blue shades, such as seascapes.
Yellow Ochre is good for creating light in the painting. Think of golden hour light.
Burnt Umber is a warm brown, but has a slightly duller appearance than other
pigments, making it suitable for paintings with low light.
Raw Umber is a brown that has greenish undertones. It would be a good option for
painting plants, moss covered trees, or rolling hills on a rainy day.
Ultramarine Blue can be used for creating cool undertones, particularly effective in
winter scenes and marine art.
Magenta can be used to liven up your painting. This works brilliantly under forest
scenes and highly saturated sunset pieces.
These are just some examples, to learn more about the detailed topic, read
about how to choose pigments for imprimatura.
What do you need to tone a canvas?
Canvas paper (to test colour combinations)
Surface to paint on
Paint
Solvent (for oil paint): either turpentine or oil of spike lavender. If you’re painting in
acrylic, thin paint with water instead of solvent.
Hog brush or synthetic alternative
How to Create the Imprimatura
Step 1: Choose your pigment
The most difficult part is actually deciding on the pigment for your toned ground.
When you’re first starting out painting, it’ll take trial and error to find toned grounds
that work with the kinds of paintings you want to make.
Test them on canvas paper first so that you can be sure your combinations will work
in the way you want them to, to create luminosity and depth rather than muddy
colours. It’s much more difficult to turn back when you’ve already painted the colour
onto the surface you want to work on.
I usually keep these tests in a sketchbook and come back to them at later dates to
inspire different aspects of new works. A combination that I’ve decided won’t work for
one particular painting might be perfect for another. You’ll be able to find some
unique colour harmonies from testing in this way.
Step 2: Mix the Pigment with Solvent
Generously dilute the paint with solvent. You want a consistency that is like ink. It will
be very runny. You want to make sure that the bottom layer of the painting is the
layer that has been thinned with the most solvent. We’re following the layering
process by the fat over lean rule.
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When using solvent, make sure to work in an area that is well ventilated so that the
fumes can dissipate better.
Step 3: Cover your surface
You could do what Rembrandt did and apply dark brown imprimatura to areas of the
canvas that you know you will have dark shadows. Or you could apply a very thin
even coat—creating a wash.
Being quite gestural at this stage with the application of paint can add interest and
liveliness to the painting from the offset.
Step 4: Wipe away sections to create the illusion of light
From the under drawing or reference, you should be able to see where the areas of
tonal contrast are. You can further emphasise the light and dark areas by removing
wet paint to demonstrate where the light source and passages are in your piece.
Wait until the whole canvas is completely dry to the touch before you progress to
your next layer, otherwise the colours will muddy together.
18. How to Choose a Pigment for Imprimatura

An imprimatura is an optional first step in the painting process. The artist’s surface is
toned with a pigment. It can bring many benefits to the appearance of your painting.
A toned canvas can help you to create a particular quality of light and establish warm
or cool tones. By working on a mid toned ground, the artist can perceive the
relationships between different colour values more easily. Imprimatura can also
provide continuity between different sections of your painting. It can create a base
tone so that different areas don’t appear disparate.
Contents hide
1 What effects can you achieve with an imprimatura?
1.1 Create warm or cool tones using imprimatura
1.2 Create luminosity and light with imprimatura
1.3 Create contrast with a toned ground
1.4 Create a harmonious composition using the imprimatura technique
2 Classic earth colours used for imprimatura
3 Imprimatura to complement greens (forest scenes, grass etc)
3.1 Pigments to use
4 Imprimatura to complement blues (seascapes, skies, winter scenes etc)
4.1 Pigments to use
5 Imprimatura to complement oranges, reds, pink colours (desert scenes, florals,
sunsets)
5.1 Pigments to use
6 Imprimatura to complement yellows (flowers, morning light, golden hour)
6.1 Pigments to use
7 Imprimatura to complement paintings with dark shadows and deep blacks
7.1 Pigments to use
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8 Imprimatura to complement portraits

8.1 Pigments to use
9 Have you found a favourite pigment for imprimatura?
10 Pigment for Imprimatura (toned ground): Pin it!
What effects can you achieve with an imprimatura?
When you’re considering choosing a pigment for a toned surface, think about the
effect you want to achieve.
It’s important to understand different properties of pigments and the overall effect
they could have on the outcome of a painting.
Create warm or cool tones using imprimatura
For example, warm toned pigments can be useful for creating sunsets or autumn
scenes. Create an incandescent effect in different areas of your painting.
Imagine an autumn forest with low evening light shining through the trees. A sienna
undertone would work beautifully to create heat from the sun. It would also provide
red tones in the autumn leaves in places where you’ve laid down transparent layers
of paint. The imprimatura will backlight the transparent layers.
Create luminosity and light with imprimatura
Think about where you want to show light in your painting and what the lightest
colours will be. If you are painting yellow morning sun dappled over shimmering
leaves, a golden coloured imprimatura of yellow ochre spread over a white gesso
ground will be far more luminous to show through the top layers of your painting than
any yellow mixture you could make with yellow ochre and white, especially if you are
using titanium.
Create contrast with a toned ground
If you’re trying to create maximum contrast between your imprimatura and the colour
scheme you envision for your painting, be careful when opting for the most obvious
and intense contrasting colour. This can create a muddied effect. As the colours can
cancel each other out, creating a neutralised appearance. Think instead, about how
you can create a more organic complementary contrast.
Create a harmonious composition using the imprimatura technique
You can also use an imprimatura to bring out certain colours or tones that you see
throughout the reference you are painting from. Instead of using an
organic complementary colour, use analogous colours (ones that would sit next to
one another on a colour wheel). These colour schemes match well and make for
serene and harmonious compositions.
Classic earth colours used for imprimatura
Earth pigments dry fast and are usually transparent or semi transparent. They’re also
dark enough to establish light and dark tones at an early stage of the painting
process, which would be useful if you choose to lift colour from your imprimatura in
areas of your artwork that you anticipate will be lighter. All of these properties make
earth pigments especially suitable for the task of toning your surface.
Burnt Sienna gives an earthy orange effect. This is good for creating warmth in a
piece and contrast beneath paintings with many blue shades, such as seascapes.
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Red Ochre combines well with other colours to create a range of natural shades. If
you are doing a cityscape that involves painting brickwork, skin tones, rendering a
desert scene, or even a forest scene, this would be a great option. Vermeer was
known to use red ochre as an imprimatura in his paintings.
Yellow Ochre is good for creating light in the painting. Think of golden hour light.
Mars Brown is a rich brown that has a golden note to it. This can be applied on its
own to deepen shadows in your piece, or mixed with yellow ochre for an effective
light gold.
Burnt Umber is a warm brown, but has a slightly duller appearance than other
pigments, making it suitable for paintings with low light.
Raw Umber is a brown that has greenish undertones. It would be a good option for
painting plants, moss covered trees, or rolling hills on a rainy day.
Imprimatura to complement greens (forest scenes, grass etc)
Create contrast: To create an organic contrast to the colours of foliage consider
using an imprimatura of a warm, reddish brown. You could even create an
imprimatura in pink or magenta to create vibrancy and liveliness—this is especially
effective in winter scenes.
Create harmony: Blues to emphasise deep shadows, or yellows to show bright light.
Pigments to use
Contrast: Mars Brown, Burnt Sienna, Magenta, Red Ochre
Harmony: Prussian Blue, Ultramarine Violet, Naples Yellow
Imprimatura to complement blues (seascapes, skies, winter scenes etc)
Contrast: Nothing makes blue pop more than an orange imprimatura. A dull blue can
appear more intense if the orange tone underneath is similar in value. You can
create simultaneous contrast by applying a neutral blue-gray mix over an orange
tone—it will make it appear a brighter blue.
Harmony: Violet blue for winter scenes, yellow for daylight or burnt umber for stormy
skies.
Pigments to use
Contrast: Burnt Sienna mixed with Cadmium Orange.
Harmony: Ultramarine, Naples Yellow, Burnt Umber.
Imprimatura to complement oranges, reds, pink colours (desert scenes, florals,
sunsets)
A yellow ground under oranges and reds can create an intensity of light. You could
also cool the red tones down with a blue imprimatura.
Pigments to use
Naples Yellow, or Yellow Ochre for warmth and light or Ultramarine for a cooler
effect.
Imprimatura to complement yellows (flowers, morning light, golden hour)
The luminosity of a yellow used as imprimatura, which has been allowed to show
through the layers of a painting cannot be matched. If your painting is going to have
a lot of yellow highlights and tones, I’d advise using yellow as an imprimatura and
scraping or wiping off paint in areas you want the highlights to be.
Pigments to use
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Yellow Ochre will give a dark yellow—an almost golden appearance.

Naples Yellow is a neutral butter coloured yellow.
Imprimatura to complement paintings with dark shadows and deep blacks
Here, imprimatura can help you create deeper, darker shadows. Creating an opaque
black toned ground is an option. Just bear in mind that oil paint becomes
increasingly transparent over the years (even though we’re talking hundreds of
years). This could make consecutive layers in the painting more difficult to see.
Pigments to use
Burnt Umber will provide a mid tone ground of yellowish brown and it will allow you
to work quickly afterwards to establish dark and light values. Burnt Umber is close to
the colour of the imprimatura Rembrandt would have used in many of his paintings.
Imprimatura to complement portraits
If you study a portrait, you’ll notice that areas of natural skin tone are far more muted
than you might have originally thought. Even areas which might appear bright or
dark, such as lips, if you look at them in isolation, you’ll realise they’re quite
desaturated compared to how you may have initially translated them onto the
canvas. Beginner painters who are trying to achieve realistic colour palettes often
make the mistake of using highly saturated colours as a default. A neutral earth
colour can help you to keep the colours toned down, creating subtle and realistic
shifts in chroma.
Think about the earth colour you choose to match highlights in the skin tone or hair
colour. Looking at Rembrandt’s work again, he used the technique of scratching off
paint with the end of his paintbrush to reveal the imprimatura beneath. You can see
this in the hairs of the moustache in the portrait of Nicolaes Ruts, where the hairs he
scratched off are the finest and most luminescent marks made in the painting.
Another interesting thing to note about Rembrandt’s paintings, is that he left
imprimatura exposed in areas of shadow on skin, making the darker areas feel
lighter and more transparent. You can harness techniques like these to give portraits
more depth and definition.
Pigments to use
Mars Brown, Burnt Umber
Have you found a favourite pigment for imprimatura?
The advice above is based on previous experiments I’ve conducted and what I have
learnt. The most important thing is to experiment for yourself. If you find a pigment
you love working with for imprimatura and feel like you want to share, let us know in
the comments!
Pigment for Imprimatura (toned ground): Pin it!
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19. The Glazing Technique for Oil Painting

Glazing is a technique oil painters use to create a transparent layer of paint that
usually just contains a single pigment. The layer of glaze is applied over a dry layer
of paint. Use a high proportion of medium to create a transparent effect.
It’s a technique that is used to alter the colours of a painting and increase luminosity.
A glaze will give your painting depth and form, creating contrast in the colours and
tones.
Contents hide
1 What is glazing in oil painting?
2 Where do you apply glazes?
3 What supplies do you need to create a glaze?
3.1 Mediums to use with the glazing technique
3.2 Pigments to use with the glazing technique
3.3 Glaze recipes
3.3.1 Standard glaze
3.3.2 Ultra-glossy glaze
3.3.3 Solvent-free
3.3.4 Resin glaze
4 How to create the layers of glaze
4.1 Think of how you will layer the oil glazes
4.2 Change colour profiles with the glazing technique
5 Glazing technique in oil painting: Pin it!
What is glazing in oil painting?
Layers of single pigments are applied on top of one another, with each hardened,
glossy film of oil sitting separately from the previous layer. The colour of each
consecutive layer, therefore, alters those that have already been applied.
Some artists use glazing in each layer of their painting, gradually altering the colours
of a tonal underpainting. Others will use it in the later stages of a painting to change
colours and contrast.
By using glazes, you can create subtle shifts in hue, colour temperature, value and
chroma. It will complement the layers below, rather than conceal them. The eyes
perceive light moving through distinct layers of transparent colour, creating a
cumulative final hue. The colours are not physically mixed, but optically mixed
together. A painter can create far more intense hues in this way, when compared to
the effect of mixing opaque colours on a palette then applying them in a single matte
layer to the canvas.
The luminosity is created by light refracting through the layers of glaze, then
reflecting off of the opaque layer beneath. Paintings with multiple layers of glaze will
appear to have an inner glow. Glazing also works to increase the depth of shadows,
as areas will appear darker with each additional layer.
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When rendered with multiple layers of glaze, complex details such as those found in
facial features can be striking. The indirect method of applying colour in separate
oily translucent layers can feel smoother and more considered, when compared with
a direct application of paint where colour is mixed first then applied in opaque layers.
Where do you apply glazes?
It’s rare that an artist will apply a layer of glaze to the entirety of a painting.
Glazes are usually applied in small localised areas, where the artist wants to correct
a colour, or produce a specific detail that would be difficult to achieve with a direct
method of painting. Glazes can be applied to features in the painting, for example to
make a skin tone appear warmer, or to deepen shadows.
You can focus on making small adjustments to one area, do this by localising glaze
to just one section of the painting. A layer of glaze will make fine details in layers
below appear blurry. For this reason, apply details after the glaze layers, or glaze in
very small sections, either enhancing or avoiding details with your colour selection.
What supplies do you need to create a glaze?
To create a glaze, you will need to choose a pigment that is transparent. Take
ultramarine blue for example.
The tube paint will need to be mixed with a medium to increase the transparency and
reduce viscosity.
Mediums to use with the glazing technique
Chelsea Classical Studio’s premixed Fat Medium is perfect for creating glazes with.
Made with linseed oil and damar resin, it makes paint runny, glossier and more
transparent. The damar resin will add strength and gloss to the paint film. It is a high
quality fine art medium. Just add a drop or two to your paint mix and thinly spread
across the area you want to glaze.
Always apply layers with regards to the fat over lean rule. You can
use turpentine or oil of spike lavender in your mix to thin the paint and make it
runnier, but only if the previous layers of paint contain more solvent. It’s fine too to
use oil as your glazing medium without using any solvent.
Another thing to note is that oil of spike lavender has a slightly glossier finish when
compared to turps. It’s a medium I much prefer using.
Check the pigments are transparent before deciding whether they are suitable to
glaze with. Remember, you want to create a transparent layer with the former layers
of the painting shining through.
Pigments to use with the glazing technique
Madder lake, traditional ultramarine, verdigris, yellow lake, indigo, magenta.
There are many more pigments that work brilliantly as glazes—just look for
transparent and semi transparent colours. The information will be on the oil tube.
Glaze recipes
There are many different ways of making glazes, the only rules are that it should be
fluid and transparent and pigment should only be added in very small amounts. Also
that you should follow the fat over lean rule. For example, in glaze recipes that have
solvent in the mix, you should not layer this over paint layers that have a higher oil
content.
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You can add more pigment if you want the colour to be more intense, or reduce the
pigment for subtle colours. Here are a few mixes you can try…
Standard glaze
1 part turpentine or oil of spike lavender
2 parts cold-pressed refined linseed oil
Transparent pigment
Ultra-glossy glaze
1 part turpentine or oil of spike lavender
2 parts stand oil
Transparent pigment
Solvent-free
1 part cold-pressed refined linseed oil
Transparent pigment
Resin glaze
1 part damar resin
2 parts cold-pressed refined linseed oil
5 parts turpentine or oil of spike lavender
Using resin prevents oil from beading on the surface and creates better adhesion.
Buy this glazing medium premixed with oil of spike lavender by Chelsea Classical
Studios here. I can not recommend this medium enough (I use it in every painting)!
How to create the layers of glaze

Think of how you will layer the oil glazes
Apply the layer of glaze to the dried underpainting with a soft brush. The glaze
should be spread thinly across the surface so that it seems barely there. If you feel
like you’ve added too much to your piece, you can dab some of the paint away with a
cloth. This will leave a light coloured stain behind. You may find that you add tens of
layers on top of one another, or just a few.
Bear in mind that the colours of the painting will be visible beneath the layer of glaze.
Glazing works alongside the previous layers, rather than covers them up.
Remember to adhere to the fat over lean rule when glazing. For each layer of glaze
you apply, the layer beneath should be dry to the touch. This way you create
completely separate layers of colour.
You can be reductive in your application too, to areas of glazes you’ve added, simply
wipe sections away when the paint is still wet to reveal the layers below.
Building layers of glaze takes foreplanning—the final chromatic effect of all the layers
of glaze working together is hard to anticipate.
Change colour profiles with the glazing technique
If you have already established your values in an underpainting, it’s just a case of
adding colour.
Depending on the pigment you choose, you can enhance warmer tones, cooler
tones and create overall colour shifts to the whole painting, or localised areas. Each
layer modifies the next, so choose a pigment that you think will harmonise with the
colours already in your painting to achieve the intended effect.
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When altering colour profiles, aim for subtle changes with each layer. You can create
warm or cool overlays, create smoother gradients or create contrast. Add colour to
areas that are completely desaturated and pay attention to the colours in the lighter
areas. Pure white is hardly ever used in painting, change the light areas with very
thin layers of glaze.
Once you have adjusted the light areas, focus on deepening the shadows. To create
very dark colours, lay a complementary pigment over the top of the previous colour,
this should create something close to black.
For a more in depth look at glazing, I recommend this book by Arleta Pech. She
gives five demonstrations which show the complexities of glazing.
The feature image of this guide is my own oil painting ‘Into the Blue’—I used layers
of glaze in the final stages to increase the saturation of the water. If you’re interested
in seeing some of my original paintings, go to my shop where I sell them directly.
20. A Complete List of Oil Painting Techniques

Learn some new oil painting techniques to improve your skills. There are 12 on this
list, ranging from common techniques, to lesser known traditional techniques used
by the old masters.
Contents hide
1 12 Oil Painting Techniques
1.1 1. Glazing
1.1.1 Glazing oil painting technique examples
1.1.2 Why use the glazing technique?
1.2 2. Alla prima (wet-on-wet)
1.2.1 Wet on wet technique: examples
1.3 3. Blending
1.3.1 Use the blending technique to create realistic effects
1.4 4. Scumbling
1.5 5. Impasto
1.5.1 Choose a medium for impasto
1.6 6. Underpainting
1.6.1 Which pigments can you use for an underpainting?
1.7 7. Dry Brush
1.8 8. Blocking in
1.9 9. Imprimatura
1.10 10. Chiaroscuro
1.11 11. Sgraffito
1.12 12. Sfumato
2 Oil painting techniques: the basics
2.1 Paint fat over lean
2.2 Understand the properties of oil paint
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3 Oil painting techniques and materials

3.1 Glazing oil painting technique supplies
3.2 Wet on wet oil painting technique supplies
3.3 Blending technique supplies
3.4 Scumbling technique supplies
3.5 Impasto technique supplies
3.6 Underpainting technique supplies
3.7 Dry brush technique supplies
3.8 Blocking in technique supplies
3.9 Imprimatura technique supplies
3.10 Chiaroscuro technique supplies
3.11 Sgraffito technique supplies
3.12 Sfumato technique supplies
4 Books on oil painting techniques
5 Oil painting techniques for beginners
6 Advanced oil painting techniques
7 Oil painting techniques: Pin it!
Oil Painting Techniques
There are 12 main oil painting techniques, each of which can form the basis of an
artist’s oil painting practice.
Use multiple oil painting techniques in conjunction with one another to achieve a
particular effect. For example, to paint realism, you may want to use a combination
of glazing and blending.
Alla prima and impasto work wonderfully together, to create thick,
textural ‘painterly’ artworks. Read on for more detail about each technique.
1. Glazing
Supplies you need for glazing: transparent pigment, glazing medium, soft
brushes
A glaze in oil paint is the application of a very thin, transparent and oily layer that
usually contains only a single pigment. This is spread over dried areas of the
painting to create subtle shifts in hue. Artists can create warm or cool areas,
enhance detail, deepen shadows and colour contrasts.
Glazing creates an incredibly unique effect in oil painting. When light hits layers of
pigmented oil that sit separately from one another, it reflects off of the first opaque
layer it hits. Then it refracts through consecutive translucent layers of colour.
This means that the colour on the canvas is mixed optically rather than physically.
Due to the multiple layers of hardened oil, the appearance of the painting has
incredible depth and an intensity of colour that a painter couldn’t achieve from mixing
colour on a palette and applying it in one opaque, slightly matted layer.
Glazing oil painting technique examples
This technique has been used for centuries, by the likes of Rembrandt and Vermeer.
Look how this painting seems to glow.
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Joha
nnes Vermeer: Girl With a Pearl Earring
See this compared to a painting where colours are applied directly and opaquely to
the canvas:
Lu
cian Freud: Reflection (Self Portrait)
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Can you see the differences? Vermeer’s Girl With a Pearl Earring has a softer, more
luminous appearance. This is a result of using fine glazes. The colours in Freud’s
painting appear more opaque, due to him applying colour directly without glazing.
They are both masterful paintings, but this demonstrates the contrast in effects a
painting can have on a viewer when different techniques are used.
Why use the glazing technique?
The luminosity that can be achieved by painting with the glazing technique is what
draws artists to paint in this manner. Despite the time it takes to do so.
The glazing method can also facilitate the creation of details that would be difficult to
achieve by applying thick opaque paint. Such as transparent looking thin wisps of
hair.
There are some drawbacks to using the method, aside from having to wait for each
layer to dry, it’s difficult to predict the resulting colour harmony of the painting before
each layer of pigment has been applied. Of course, each layer alters the last, so
paintings can very quickly darken if care is not taken. Also, layers of glaze can blur
the appearance of detail, so details should be applied after, or glaze should be
selectively applied to enhance it.
If you want to try this technique, make sure you select transparent pigment to work
with. Then you’ll need to mix a small amount of the transparent pigment with a
medium until it’s fluid. Find some glaze recipes and further details about the
technique in this glazing guide.
Glaze works well applied over a monochromatic tonal underpainting, to create the
colour layers. However, you don’t have to use the technique throughout the whole
painting, you can apply a layer of glaze or two in the final stages to alter colours and
contrasts.
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2. Alla prima (wet-on-wet)
Claude Monet: Water Lilies
Supplies you need for this technique: oil paint, stiff brush

In contrast to the glazing technique, Alla Prima, Italian for ‘all at once’, is an
incredibly spontaneous, quick and direct method of oil painting. Lucian Freud would
have used this technique in his portrait (pictured above).
The aim of this method is to finish the whole painting before the paint starts to dry.
As oil paint takes around two days to dry, a painting that uses this technique
throughout will be completed incredibly quickly. This technique therefore lends itself
to more gestural and dynamic brushwork, which can evoke a feeling of movement,
which is a signature of impressionists.
You could also choose to paint one section alla prima, leaving previous layers to dry
first.
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It takes great skill to apply paint to the canvas, in the exact colour and form that it’s
intended to be quickly in this way—it’s a skill that takes years of practice.
Wet on wet technique: examples
You can see from the work of impressionists, that vibrancy wasn’t created from the
appearance of light, as it is with artists that use the glazing technique, but by using
contrasting colours next to one another.
Look at this painting by Monet, palettes of complementary colours are used to create
the appearance of light.
Claude Monet: Meules

Singer Sargent’s application of paint was very clean and intentional, with minimal
mixing he created works that appear soft.
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John Singer Sargent: The Mountains of Moab
This technique has been used for centuries, but rose to fame in the 18th century
when more vibrant pigments were available. Artists like Monet would take their
canvases out on location and paint wet-on-wet attempting to capture the scene
before the light changed, using thick brush strokes.
Layering is optional. Some artists choose to start with an underpainting, thinning the
faster drying transparent pigments (usually darker colours like the earth pigments) to
use as their shadows, then gradually laying on thicker more oil rich paint mixtures,
finishing with titanium white from the tube, maybe mixed with another colour to alter
the hue as the highlights.
For a more in depth look at the technique, consult this alla prima guide.
3. Blending
Supplies you need for blending: soft filbert brush, or goat mop brush
The beauty of oil is that it stays wet for days at a time. This means that you can take
time to blend colours into seamless gradients and create incredibly subtle hue and
tonal transitions.
The effects you can get from blending in oil are unlike other mediums such
as watercolour and acrylic. Painting in acrylic, you only have a small window to blend
paint, usually only half an hour or so before it completely dries. This means that the
artist either has to work very quickly, or create a scale of colours in between the two
they are trying to mix to replicate a blended gradient.
Oil paint is usually applied to a surface with a relatively stiff brush, usually made from
hog hair or a synthetic alternative, however this does depend upon the consistency
of the paint. When blending, however, use a soft brush. A brush made from goat,
sable, or a synthetic alternative works incredibly well for this.
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A filbert brush shape is ideal for blending work because it’s relatively stiff and holds
its shape at the ferrule (metal clamp on the paintbrush) but has a round, soft tip
perfect for blending. With this brush you can get a more controlled and precise
blend.
Use the blending technique to create realistic effects
Train your eye to notice hard edges, soft edges and lost edges in a painting. Hard
edges indicate a sharp transition from one element to another, a soft edge is a
smooth transition and a lost edge is so smooth, it’s barely noticed. You can use
blending to vary the edges in your painting and therefore the relationships between
different sections. This way you can achieve realistic effects.
Think about the areas in your subject where the colours seem to blend into one
another, like subtle shifts of warm and cool tones in skin, or graduations of darks and
light in clouds or where the sea seems to fade into the sky on the horizon.
The technique itself is easy, apply paint to the surface with your normal painting
brush. Make sure the colours you want to blend are both wet. Then get a soft, dry
brush and blend the two colours together.
4. Scumbling
Supplies you need for scumbling: stiff brush, tube paint
Scumbling is the technique of layering on an opaque lighter film of unthinned paint to
a dry area of the painting. Because the paint will come straight from the tube, it will
be quite thick on application. The resulting effect is broken brushstrokes. Use a stiff
brush with this technique, as it will pull some of the paint from the surface, revealing
the layer below.
J.M.W. Turner: Snow Storm, Steam-Boat off a Harbour’s Mouth

From this technique, you can achieve a soft or light appearance in your paintings.
Use it to soften the edges of landmarks in the distance, or to make clouds appear
fluffy.
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5. Impasto
Vi
ncent Van Gogh: Irises
What you need to paint impasto: a medium to thicken paint, palette knife, stiff
brush
Create an impasto painting by applying paint to a surface in thick layers. Using this
technique, a painter can achieve incredible texture in their work. A painter may use
a palette knife or stiff brush to apply the paint and the brush or palette knife strokes
are usually left visible.
Many artists apply their impasto brush strokes in swift sweeps, often mixing colours
on the canvas. The overall effect is one of expressiveness and movement through
the use of colour and texture.
Oil paint naturally has a thick and stiff consistency, so the addition of a medium isn’t
necessary. Due to the long open working times of oil paint, especially in thick
applications, impasto painters will add a medium to speed up drying time and give
the paint more body.
Choose a medium for impasto

When it comes to selecting a medium for impasto work, there are many.
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For silky, thick and fast drying properties, add Liquin Impasto medium. Just bear in
mind that this is an Alkyd, not an oil medium. To maximise surface adhesion of the
paint, use Alkyd in each layer of the painting.
The addition of wax to a medium can give a thick matte appearance. This is not to be
confused with encaustic (hot wax painting), as an oil medium, cold beeswax is
used.
Cold beeswax dries fast and is very thick. It stays in the position you place it, as it
doesn’t have self levelling properties and it can create ‘short’ paint, where it snaps
from the canvas in a peak, rather than stretching or trailing. You can create some
interesting effects by using this.
To learn more about this technique, read the impasto guide.
6. Underpainting
Supplies to create an underpainting: earth pigment, solvent
Monochromatic underpaintings can be used to establish values before colour is
applied. The technique is also used to draw out the structure of the painting and the
composition can be determined at this stage too. It’s almost exclusively used as a
first step in the painting process, occasionally a toned ground will be painted before
the underpainting.
Rembrandt: Concord of the State

This technique is commonly used in the indirect painting method whereby coloured
glazes are applied on top of an opaque layer of tints and shaded areas.
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Commonly, earth pigment is used thinned with solvent for this former stage in the
painting process. This is because earth pigments dry faster than any other pigment,
often drying overnight if applied thinly enough.
Because earth pigments are dark, if painted on a light ground, you could rub away
the colour to show the lighter areas of your painting. Some artists will choose to use
titanium white for their highlights.
Underpaintings can be used to create warm or cool undertones in a painting, or add
some vibrancy, depending on which colour is chosen.
Which pigments can you use for an underpainting?
Whichever pigment you choose for the job, make sure it has tonal variety. Meaning
that you can establish the dark and lighter areas with it. Using a colour like yellow
wouldn’t work as it’s too light and can only really show highlighted areas.
You don’t have to use an earth pigment for your underpainting, a transparent
pigment is best, one that can create a value range from light to dark.
Burnt Sienna is a brilliant pigment to use for seascape artists, as it is a deep orange
brown pigment. This creates contrast with blue layers that are applied on top. Burnt
Umber is a popular choice, so is Raw Umber, Magenta and Ultramarine.
Some types of underpaintings have their own names given to them. For example,
Verdaccio is a mixture of black, white and yellow, resulting in a soft neutral green.
This can be used to render a complete monochromatic underpainting before
applying glaze on top.
You may have heard of grisaille, similar to verdaccio, black and white are used to
form a complete monochromatic image. Grisaille is also used to emulate sculpture.
Because black pigment, such as Ivory Black, has blue undertones, Grisaille is
especially effective when layered on top of a warm ground, such as Burnt Umber.
This way, when the paint is layered cleverly to show the ground through, a range of
colour temperatures can be achieved.
7. Dry Brush
Supplies: stiff brush, tube paint, paper towel
This technique gives a distinctive look that can create texture and movement in your
work.
Paint is applied with a brush that is relatively dry, but still holding pigment. This
technique works with paint that is highly viscous and thick, the brush is wiped on
tissue paper before paint is applied to the canvas to remove oily residue.
A painting completed in monochrome with stiff hog brushes can give the appearance
of charcoal.
8. Blocking in
Supplies: solvent, tube paint
Artists use this technique as a way to start an oil painting. By blocking in, you
completely cover your canvas with paint so that no white from your gesso ground is
showing.
To do this technique yourself, study the colours in your reference. You need to
decide the base colours of different areas and shapes in your painting. For the most
part, this will be a single tone to establish loose shapes of your subject. You don’t
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need to worry about painting any details at this stage, the idea is to get a rough
picture, upon which you can layer the highlights, shades and details once it has
dried.
To read more about this technique, take a look at the guide to blocking in.
9. Imprimatura
Supplies: solvent, transparent pigment
Another term for imprimatura is toned ground. It is a stain of colour that is applied to
a prepared surface. This is often the first stage of the process for oil painters,
however many artists leave this stage out.
There are benefits to this technique. The first being that it’s easier to establish light
and dark tones when working from a mid-toned canvas.
Another benefit is that depending on your painting style, not all your paint layers will
be opaque. There may be transparent areas of your painting where you can allow
the imprimatura to shine through.
You can also use an imprimatura to seal your underdrawing, making it easier to trace
over at a later stage.
For imprimatura, just like underdrawings, artists commonly use earth pigments as
they dry quickly. However, any transparent pigment that you can achieve a mid-tone
from would work.
If you want to establish light tones at this early stage of the painting process, you
could wipe away paint in areas where you anticipate that the light sources will be
coming from.
Read our guides on how to choose a colour from imprimatura and how to create
a toned ground to learn more.
10. Chiaroscuro
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C
aravaggio: Saint Jerome Writing
Chiaroscuro is the method of creating high levels of contrast in your painting. It is
Italian for ‘light-dark’ and is a compositional technique. Bold contrasts in shaded and
highlighted areas create drama and affect the composition of the piece.
Leonardo Da Vinci was known for developing this technique, Rembrandt and
Vermeer were known for using it in their paintings. Artists used this technique
throughout the Renaissance and Baroque art movements.
11. Sgraffito
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Rem
brandt: A Self Portrait
Supplies: Palette knife or brush handle
Sgraffito is a technique where decoration is applied to the surface of wet paint by
removing areas of the paint film to reveal the layer below.
Use the end of a brush handle to scratch away at the surface, to achieve very fine
details. Rembrandt used this technique in some of his portraits for very fine
highlights in the hairs of his subjects. To scrape away larger areas of paint, use the
side of a palette knife.
The technique will work differently if you are working on a textured surface, such as
a canvas with a prominent weave. This is because some of the paint will settle in the
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weave, which you won’t be able to remove by scraping. This can give more of an
uneven or grainy effect.
12. Sfumato
Supplies: goat mop brush
The literal translation of Sfumato from Italian is ‘softened’ or ‘soft like smoke’. This
technique was developed by Leonardo Da Vinci, you can see the technique used in
the dark areas of his paintings—look at Virgin on the Rocks.
Leonardo da Vinci: Virgin on the Rocks

The key to this technique is in creating gradual colour and shape transitions.
Outlines appear soft and hazy and shapes seem to blend into one another. The
purpose is to emulate how the eyes perceive subjects that are out of focus—the
artist leads you to focus in on a particular area by making the details sharper rather
than blurred. This is similar to the blending technique, but it is used for stylistic effect.
Oil painting techniques: the basics
If you’re a complete beginner, it’s useful to know some of the basic principles of oil
painting before you try the other oil painting techniques on this list.
Paint fat over lean
Oil painting is a medium which is commonly applied in layers to a surface. Layer lean
paint first (i.e. paint that has been thinned with solvent). Then apply fat layers over
these thinned layers. Fat layers are those that contain more oil. For example, you
might start a painting by thinning your colours with a little solvent, then apply paint
straight from the tube over this layer. Equally, you could apply paint with the same
ratio of oil in each layer, just make sure you don’t apply thinned paint over oil rich
paint.
This application technique is called ‘fat over lean’. it’s a guideline oil painters follow
to create structurally sound paintings of archival quality. If you apply solvent thinned
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paint over an oil rich layer, the paint film will look chalky, dry and it may crack. Read
more about the fat over lean oil painting technique in this tutorial.
Understand the properties of oil paint
Oil paint is a slow drying medium. However, different pigments can dry at different
rates. For example, burnt umber is fast drying and titanium white is slow drying. If
you layer faster drying earth pigments first, the first layers of your painting will dry
quicker. Then you can think about adding slower details and highlights last.
It’s possible to level out the drying times of oil paint with a medium. Oil paint
mediums will alter the properties of paint, changing characteristics like transparency,
drying time, viscosity and finish (glossy or matte). For example, linseed oil will
increase drying time, reduce viscosity and make colours more transparent and
glossy. Cold wax will increase the thickness of paint, make it dry faster and dry to a
matte finish.
Consider getting quality oil paints if you’ve decided that you enjoy oil painting and
want to invest in it as a hobby. Even if you want to take it further and try and make
your works saleable. Brands such as Gamblin, Michael
Harding, Blockx, Schmincke, M. Graham are all professional quality. Their paints
are highly pigmented, perfectly lightfast and use quality binders. Winsor & Newton’s
Artists oils are also a great choice. They are slightly cheaper but have a high
pigment content.
Oil painting techniques and materials
Find the best supplies for each oil painting technique, understand what they are and
what they do.
Glazing oil painting technique supplies
A glazing medium: This ‘Fat Medium’ by Chelsea Classical Studio is made with
Linseed oil and Damar resin. It gives the paint a wonderful satin finish. Or use
linseed oil to increase transparency and reduce viscosity. Discover more glaze
recipes here.
Soft brush: Sable brushes from Da Vinci, or synthetic sable give the ability to
render even layers and precise details.
Transparent pigment: Look at the tube of your oil paint brand. Pigments that are
transparent or semi transparent will work as glazes.
Smooth surface: On surfaces with less texture like smooth primed wooden
panels artists can render details and fine glazes.
Wet on wet oil painting technique supplies
Oil paint: Brands of paint that are stiffer like Old Holland are useful for last thicker
layers of the painting. Opt for a slow drying paint like Blockx or M. Graham to
increase the open working time.
Solvent: This is optional. Thin paint with oil of spike lavender or turpentine in the
first layer to speed up the drying process. Make colours runny when blocking in basic
shapes
Stiff brush: Hog hair, or synthetic hog hair brushes are best at applying thicker
paint. Get a flat brush to create a more painterly style.
Blending technique supplies
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Goat mop brush: The softest brush for seamlessly blending fluid paint
Filbert brush: Use this brush to blend thicker paint
Scumbling technique supplies
Stiff brush: Hog or synthetic brush to create broken brush strokes
Oil paint: Oil paint from the tube
Impasto technique supplies
Stiff brush: Thicker paint should be applied with a stiff brush, like hog or synthetic
hog.
Oil paint: Old Holland paints have a thick consistency compared to other brands
Palette knife: Apply thick paint with a knife for texture and body.
Medium: Add a medium to thicken paint and speed up drying time. Liquin
impasto or cold wax work perfectly for this.
Underpainting technique supplies

Oil paint: Fast drying earth colours are suited to the underpainting technique: burnt
umber and burnt sienna are great options
Solvent: Thin the paint to make it dry faster and reduce viscosity. Use
either turpentine, odourless mineral spirits or oil of spike lavender. You could
also use Chelsea Classical Studio’s Lean Medium.
Dry brush technique supplies
Oil paint: Paint straight from the tube
Stiff brush: Made from hog or synthetic hog
Paper towel: To wipe paint residue
Blocking in technique supplies
Oil paint
Large brush: You don’t have to worry about rendering details at this stage, so get a
brush to cover larger areas of the surface
Medium: a fast drying medium like a solvent or Liquin will allow you to block in
shapes quickly so you can start working on your detail layers.
Oil paint sticks: Shaped like large pastels, oil paint sticks are great for artists who
like to draw on the canvas.
Imprimatura technique supplies
Oil paint: Choose a transparent, fast drying pigment. Earth colours like burnt
umber, burnt sienna or mars brown suit this technique best.
Solvent: Speed up the drying process and thin your colours with solvent.
Chiaroscuro technique supplies
Oil paint: high contrast colours. Darken paint with burnt umber, lighten it with titanium
white. To create black, mix burnt umber and ultramarine
Sgraffito technique supplies
Palette knife: to etch into wet paint
Sfumato technique supplies
Oil paint: Paint that has a lower viscosity and slow drying time works will with this
technique, so you can work seamless blends and gradients for longer. Look at
brands like Blockx and Schmincke.
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Medium: Linseed oil reduces viscosity and slows drying.

Mop brush: Goat mop brushes are perfect for blending, with soft fibres and a round
or oval shape.
Books on oil painting techniques

Oil Painting Techniques and Materials: This book by Harold Speed analyses the
techniques of the old masters, such as Hals and Rembrandt. He covers, at length
subjects related to oil painting, such as materials and drawing from life. This book is
suited to intermediate artists, who want to learn more about techniques, colour
theory, tones and values.
Portrait Painting Atelier: Old Master Techniques and Contemporary
Applications: For those interested in portrait painting, this book provides instruction
on the old masters’ technique of layering glazes on a toned ground.
The Encyclopedia of Oil Techniques: A unique visual directory of oil painting
techniques, with guidance on how to use them: A practical and visual guide of
different oil painting techniques, perfect for beginners.
Oil painting techniques for beginners

If you’re a beginner, think about the styles of art you’re attracted to the most and
experiment with a few different techniques.
Oil painting techniques that feel most intuitive and therefore easy to pick up are
blending, blocking in, sgraffito.
Techniques like impasto are fun because they require spontaneous brushwork and
thick applications of paint. The other oil painting techniques on the list may take a
little more practice to master.
Advanced oil painting techniques

Some of the techniques on this list require more thought, planning and skill to
master.
If you’re applying glazes throughout the entire painting process, you’ll have to think
about how each colour layer will alter the last.
Getting the colour profiles right takes practice. If you’re new to the glazing technique,
try applying layers of glaze to alter colour profiles in smaller sections first. Use glazes
in just one or two layers of the painting when you start out. Then work your way up to
creating more glaze layers as you become more confident.
Alla prima is another more advanced oil painting technique. This is again because it
requires thought, foreplanning and accurate colour mixing. It’s a direct method of
colour application. So it works best when the artist is confident that they have mixed
the right tone and placed it in the right spot on the artwork. Wet paint on the canvas
can soon look muddy if overmixed.
For beginners wanting to try the wet on wet technique, I’d advise working on a small
scale first. Or starting by painting wet on wet, then letting the paint dry if you feel like
the colours are looking muddy. Remember oil paint is a forgiving medium, you can
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cover previous layers with opaque colours. When paint is wet, scrape or wipe away
mistakes.
If you’re a beginner, think about the styles of art you’re attracted to the most and
experiment with a few different techniques.
Oil painting techniques that feel most intuitive and therefore easy to pick up are
blending, blocking in, sgraffito.
Techniques like impasto are fun because they require spontaneous brushwork and
thick applications of paint. The other oil painting techniques on the list may take a
little more practice to master.
21. Oil vs Water Mixable Oil Paint: A Guide

This guide shows you the difference between water mixable oil paint and regular oils.
Discover the pros and cons of both to help you make an informed decision about
which one to get. Also, find out how to use water mixable oil paint.
Contents hide
1 What is water mixable oil paint?
2 How are the two types of paint similar?
3 What’s the difference between regular oil and water mixable oil paint?
3.1 The properties of water mixable oil paint
3.2 Drying time of water mixable oil paint
3.3 Use solvent with oils, water with water mixable oil paint
3.3.1 Thinning water mixable oil paint
3.3.2 Cleaning up water mixable oil paint
3.4 What materials should you use with water mixable oil paint?
3.4.1 Mediums for water mixable oil paint
3.5 Can you mix regular oil and water mixable oil paint?
3.6 How does the finish of water mixable oil paint differ from regular oils?
3.7 Can you varnish water mixable oil paint?
4 What are the best brands of water mixable oil paint?
4.1 Daniel Smith
4.2 Holbein Duo-Aqua
4.3 Royal Talens Cobra
4.4 Winsor & Newton Artisan Oils
4.5 Grumbacher Max Water Miscible oil paint
4.6 Daler Rowney Georgian Water Mixable Oils
5 Overall, which should you get?
6 Oil paint vs water mixable oil paint: Pin it!
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What is water mixable oil paint?

Water mixable oil paint is also referred to as ‘water soluble’ or ‘water-miscible’ oils.
It’s an oil based paint that contains pigments (colour), and binder (linseed or
safflower oil). It differs from regular oil paint in that it contains an emulsifying additive.
This additive allows the oil binder and pigment to bond to water. The tiny particles of
oil and pigment will become evenly dispersed in water when it is mixed in.
Regular oil paints are hydrophobic, so they won’t mix with water. This means that
you will need to use a solvent such as turpentine, odourless mineral spirit or oil of
spike lavender to thin your paint.
How are the two types of paint similar?
Before we talk about the differences between the two types of paint, I’ll first outline
the similarities.
The pigments used in water mixable oil paint will generally be the same. However
pigments used can vary brand to brand. Generally though, colours with the same
names from the same brand will contain the same kinds of pigments, regardless of
whether they are oil or water mixable oil. You can guarantee that there is no
difference in the quality of water mixable oil pigments.
Another similarity is in the studio equipment you will use. You don’t need different
brushes, surfaces, easels or palettes for water mixable paint. Plus
the techniquesyou will use are exactly the same. You can create glazes, or use
impasto to create different effects and the type of paint generally won’t affect your
brushwork.
What’s the difference between regular oil and water mixable oil paint?
There are several differences between the two types of oil paint. There are
differences in how the paint handles, how the dry paint appears on a surface, which
mediums you can use and how you clean up.
The properties of water mixable oil paint
When deciding between water mixable oil paint and regular oils, it’s important to
understand how it feels to paint with water soluble paint.
The handling properties of water mixable oils are slightly different when compared
with regular oils. Straight from the tube, paint can feel thinner, stickier and more
transparent than regular artist oils.
Just like acrylic paint and regular oils water mixable oil paint isn’t resoluble once dry.
However, paint can be rewetted and altered while the initial paint film still contains
water (it takes about 10-15 minutes for water to evaporate from the paint film
depending on how hot and humid it is where you live).
When thinned with water, water mixable oil paint behaves a bit like watercolour or
gouache. It feels runnier and more watery than regular oil paint.
You will still be able to achieve thick brush strokes if you wish. Paint from the tube, or
with a thickening medium to achieve texture.
Drying time of water mixable oil paint
The drying time is much less than regular oils at around 1 day.
However this depends on how much the paint has been thinned, or whether a
medium has been added. If you add a lot of water to the paint, it could dry in less
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than an hour. However, if you add a water mixable medium like linseed with the
paint, you could increase the drying time.
The shorter drying time can work as an advantage for artists who prefer to work
quickly and in layers. Or for those who don’t want to wait days for regular oil paint to
dry.
As the paint is oil based, it doesn’t just dry, it cures. The water from the paint will
evaporate quickly, leaving the oil to cure on the surface. This means that you will
wait around a day for the paint to become touch dry and solid, but it could take a few
months for the oil to oxidise with particles in the air to reach its final form. You won’t
notice the oxidisation process happening, however. If you want to varnish your oil
painting with a traditional varnish, you will have to wait until the oil has finished its
curing process before applying varnish.
Use solvent with oils, water with water mixable oil paint
The way that you thin paint—either to make it runnier when applying to your canvas
or to clean up differs between the two mediums.
One of the main concerns beginners have when considering taking up oil painting is
that they will have to start using solvent in their home or working space. Without the
correct ventilation, solvent fumes can get pretty heady and pose a health risk. Really,
a painter should have two windows they can leave open to allow air to circulate in
the room they paint when using solvent.
It is possible to paint solvent free with regular oils and there are non-toxic
solvents you can buy too. However, if you’re still considering which type of oil paint
to buy, it may seem like a more straightforward choice to start with water mixable oil
paint.
With water mixable oil paint, you clean up and thin paint in much the same way as
you would when painting with watercolour, acrylic or gouache. You simply add water.
It makes it a much more accessible medium.
Those transitioning from painting with acrylic to painting with oils might find that their
cleaning up and paint thinning process is much the same with water mixable oil
paint.
Thinning water mixable oil paint

With regular oil paint, you will need a lidded jar to safely contain the solvent or
a brush washer. This prevents fumes from escaping. Solvent for washing brushes is
kept separately from the solvent that is added to thin paint. The solvent is only mixed
into paint in the first layers of a painting. Painters adhere to the fat over lean
rule whereby layers become more oil rich with each consecutive later. This means
that the ratio of oil to solvent will be higher in the later paint layers. Regular oil paints
straight from the tube are easy to work with. They feel buttery and glide onto the
canvas, so thinning the paint with solvent isn’t actually necessary.
The consistency of water mixable oil paint is a little different to regular oils. Some
artists claim they don’t like working with them as much as it feels more sticky or
gooey. Some brands will feel more buttery from the tube, however. Royal Talens
Cobra water mixable oils are renowned for being close in texture to regular oils.
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You can add a little water mixable medium to your paint to make it runnier, then add
some water to make it a nice consistency. You will need to follow the fat over lean
rule when using water mixable oil paint too. Lean paint is paint that has been thinned
with water and fat paint has more oil in the mix. Lean paint (water-thinned) is great
for creating underpaintings.
It’s possible to paint in very thin washes with oil paint. You can get it to a consistency
of watercolour to use in the first layers of your painting. These layers will dry quickly
though. It’s not good practice to use too much water in your paint mixture, however,
as if the water content is too high, pigment and oil will be spread so thinly across
your surface that it will form a brittle paint film. This can make for a painting that will
not last long.
Cleaning up water mixable oil paint

Cleaning up with regular oil paint usually involves dipping the brush in solvent,
swilling it around then wiping any residue on a paper towel. However, you can
remove regular oil paint from your materials with brush soap. I have a guide about
oil painting solvent free that goes through the cleaning process in detail here.
Water mixable oil paint can be removed from brushes with water, but using a brush
soap will clean, condition and preserve bristles much better than water alone. I
recommend the Master’s Brush Soap. Your brushes will remain in good as new
condition for years using this.
What materials should you use with water mixable oil paint?
You can use regular canvas, oil paper, wooden panel and Gessobord with water
mixable oil paint. Surfaces should be prepared for water mixable oils in the same
way as they are prepared for oil painting—with a sealer and a few coats of gesso.
Any surface, brush, palette, palette knife or easel that you use with regular oils can
be used with water soluble oils. You don’t have to use solvent with water mixable
oils.
However, any medium that you mix into the paint, will be different. Mediums can
transform the working properties of water soluble oils. They can change the texture,
transparency, viscosity, drying time and finish of paint. You will need to select oil
paint mediums that have been altered to bind with water. Winsor & Newton’s Artisan
range contains a few different medium options that you can mix into water soluble
paint. I’ve outlined some options below.
Mediums for water mixable oil paint

Artisan Linseed oil: you can increase the amount of oil in your paint to make it flow
better, increase the transparency and sheen and increase the open working time.
Royal Talens quick drying medium: This increases flow, transparency and speeds
up drying time.
The Royal Talens Glazing Medium: This increases the flow, gloss, transparency of
paint.
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Royal Talens Painting Paste: this thickens paint. It’s a brilliant medium for working
with the impasto technique.
Schmincke makes oil paint water mixable: Schmincke have created a medium
that can turn your regular oil paints into water mixable oils.
Can you mix regular oil and water mixable oil paint?
The two types of paint are intermixable. You can paint with both oil and water
mixable oil in different layers on the same painting. The two will also mix together.
When using both types of paint in different layers on the same painting, I recommend
painting with water soluble oils for the first layers. This is because it dries faster and
the oil content in individual tubes is less than in regular artists’ oils. This can actually
be a great way to work, thinning water mixable oils with water to create a thin, fast
drying film for an underpainting, that you can then layer your regular oils on top of.
When mixing the two types of paint together, if you want to maintain the water
soluble properties, only add tiny amounts of regular oil to the mix. If you mix a large
amount of regular oil with the paint, it will lose its water mixable properties. I would
advise to keep the two types of paint separate.
How does the finish of water mixable oil paint differ from regular oils?
Water mixable oils dry more matte than regular oil paint. This is probably due to the
emulsifying additive in the paint and the fact that by adding water you are reducing
the oil content. The oil is what gives regular oil paint its satin-like finish. So the more
water you add, the more matte it will dry.
Because it dries slightly more matte than regular oil, it can also make colours look
more dull when dry. The oil in oil paint enhances the saturation of the pigment by
creating a glossy film. You can prevent the colours from becoming matte, dry and
dull by adding a glazing medium, or by varnishing your painting.
Can you varnish water mixable oil paint?
Brands such as Royal Talens, Winsor & Newton and Schmincke
manufacture purpose made varnish for water mixable oils. When using these
varnishes, you will have to wait for the oil paint to cure fully, which can take up to 6
months.
If you use Gamvar by Gamblin, you won’t have to wait this long. This varnish can be
used with either water mixable oil paint or regular oil and it can be applied to the
painting as soon as it is touch-dry. Read more about how to varnish.
What are the best brands of water mixable oil paint?
Daniel Smith
Buy here.
Daniel Smith’s range of water mixable oils has 43 different colours. 41 of these
colours have an excellent lightfastness rating, meaning that the colour will remain
stable for 100 years. They are creamy in texture and have a deep, saturated
appearance similar to their regular oil range.
This brand uses high grade water soluble alkali refined linseed oil as a binder. The
refining process prevents the oil from yellowing over time.
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It’s recommended to use up to a 20% water ratio in your oil paint mixtures. Beyond
that the paint film could become brittle.
Holbein Duo-Aqua
Buy here.
With 80 colours in the range and a series of 17 ‘Elite Colours’, Holbein offers a
variety of hues to add to your palette.
The range is high quality and the colours have a uniform drying time.
Royal Talens Cobra
Buy here.
There are 70 colours available in this range, including labelled primaries so you can
form a limited palette.
These oils are buttery and similar to regular oils in their handling properties. They
have a longer drying time than other brands of water mixable oil paint at around 3-5
days.
Winsor & Newton Artisan Oils
Buy here.
Winsor & Newton stock 40 colours in their range, with most of the essential colours.
They also make a range of mediums and solvents specifically for water soluble oils.
Grumbacher Max Water Miscible oil paint
Buy here.
There are 59 colours in this range. They are great quality–they use high grade
linseed and the pigments are finely ground. Due to the high pigment load colours
appear high chroma and lightfast.
Daler Rowney Georgian Water Mixable Oils
Buy here.
These student grade paints are cheaper to buy and come in sets of colours. The
colours are smooth in texture and don’t shift between wet and dry states.
Overall, which should you get?
In summary, artists find water mixable oil paint trickier to handle, but easier to clean
and transport. Oil painters find the cleaning process easier, especially
when painting outdoors.
Working with regular oils will give your paintings a more saturated sheen, whereas
water mixable oil paint can appear more matte. Thinning paint in the early stages of
an oil painting is easier with water mixable oil paint, as you don’t need to use solvent.
Water mixable oils dry more quickly, which is better suited to artists who like to work
by quickly layering paint. When it comes to choosing brands of paint and mediums,
there is less choice for artists who use the water mixable variety of paint.
The cost of buying materials and the amount of materials you need to buy for each
medium is pretty much the same.
Both oil and water-soluble oils are good to use, it just boils down to whatever suits
you better.
22. How to Mix Colours: A Guide for Artists
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Learn how to mix colours. Discover which pigments to use to achieve the greatest
range of colour mixes. Plus learn how these colours combine to make different hues
and tones on the spectrum. To improve your colour mixing skills—I outline a process
to help you accurately mix the colours you intend from your tubes.
The first port of call is to learn a bit about colour theory and from this, choose a
palette that will give you the ability to mix the largest range of colours with pigment.
The next step will be to learn how these colours relate to one another using a colour
wheel and how this corresponds to the pigments you are using. Then, learn how to
study and perceive colour from your reference, mix, match and incorporate it into
your painting. I’ll also give some mixing recipes for particular colours.
Contents hide
1 Colour theory: the basics
2 Choose a palette of colours
2.1 To create hues & tones
2.2 Create values (light or dark)
2.3 Additional extras
3 How to approach colour mixing
3.1 Hue
3.2 Saturation
3.3 Value
3.4 Opacity
3.5 Colour bias
3.6 The relationships between colours
4 Colour groups
4.1 How to mix yellow
4.2 How to mix orange
4.3 How to mix red
4.4 How to mix pink
4.5 How to mix purple
4.6 How to mix blue
4.7 How to mix green
5 How to mix neutral colours: toggling the saturation
5.1 How to mix grey
5.2 How to mix brown
6 How to mix colours: the process in steps
6.1 Step 1: Study your reference and isolate the colour you want to paint
6.2 Step 2: Find its place on the colour wheel
6.3 Step 3: Mix the corresponding pigments
7 Applying colour to the canvas: how to mix colours to create contrasts and
harmonies
7.1 Colour mixing: use a colour scheme
7.2 How to mix colours from a limited palette
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8 How to mix colours: Pin it!

Colour theory: the basics
By mixing the primaries, burnt umber and white, artists can create secondary and
tertiary colours. They can also neutralise colours and make tints, tones and shades.
Combine the three primary colours in different quantities to make any other shade on
the spectrum; primaries cannot be made by mixing other colours together.
In applications where people are mixing pigment to make different colours, it’s
standard to use cyan, magenta and yellow as the primary colours.
Here are these primaries visualised and mapped on a colour wheel:
This colour model is far from perfect. From it, you get a varied range of shades, more
than you would do from mixing just red, blue and yellow, but there are plenty of
colours that are omitted from it. In other words, it does have a limited colour gamut.
For example, colours such as deep crimson and rich cobalt blue—the alternatives
look muddy, not bright like they should.
Cyan, magenta and yellow are the three primaries that many artists use as a base,
but to make the widest spectrum of highly saturated colours, you should use a warm
and cool version of each primary. This way you can achieve clean mixes of your
secondary colours, tertiary colours and other subtle tonal transitions.
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Colours that are available in pigment form, whether they have been found in natural
environments, or synthesised don’t perfectly correspond to all the colours we are
able to perceive. However, we can find pigments that come close.
I have a more in depth guide on colour theory if you’re interested in learning
beyond the basics.
Choose a palette of colours

The palette I suggest using is the split primary palette. The palette consists of six
pigments to make hues and two (or three) to darken or lighten colours.
It includes pigments that closely correspond to the primaries cyan, magenta, yellow.
This split primary palette also includes a deeper more rounded opaque red, a blue
with cool violet undertones and a warm yellow.
To create hues & tones

Cadmium Red
This is a warm red that leans towards yellow on the colour wheel. A cheaper
alternative to Cadmium Red is Pyrrole. It has a similar colour profile and can be used
as primary red.
Quinacridone Magenta
A primary red, it appears to have cool undertones straight from the tube, but mixes
with yellow to make intensely vibrant oranges.
Ultramarine Blue
This points towards red on the colour wheel, you can use it to create highly vivid
purples.
Phthalocyanine Blue
This is close to primary cyan, but mixes with transparent yellow to make high chroma
greens.
Transparent Yellow
This is a very bright, primary yellow.
Cadmium Yellow
A deep yellow with warm undertones. Use Hansa Yellow from M. Grahaminstead of
Cadmium Yellow, if you want a cheaper option.
Create values (light or dark)
Titanium White
Zinc White
mixes—it doesn’t give the ‘washed out’ effect that titanium white can. Over use of
zinc in mixes can create a brittle paint film, however.
Burnt Umber
Many artists use burnt umber instead of ivory black to create shade. Ivory black can
make your colours look dull, desaturated and grey. Whereas burnt umber is
transparent and warm in tone. So it can be used to create clean colour graduations.
Additional extras
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As mentioned before, there are limits to the CMY mixing model and colours such
as crimson. You can substitute these colours if you feel like they would be essential
to your palette.
Certain pigments have unique qualities that could be beneficial to your personal
painting practice. Earth colours have transparent qualities and they dry fast, which is
useful for painting the base layers of a painting. Burnt sienna is a useful pigment for
painting a toned ground for all manner of subjects.
How to approach colour mixing

To mix a colour, you need to know how to describe it and its relationship to other
colours on the spectrum. This way, when you come to pour paint onto your palette,
you will know the approximate quantities to make the colour you want to make.
Hue
First identify the hue. This is, in a broad sense, the dominant wavelength of a colour,
like red, orange, yellow, green, blue or violet.
The hue is a description of a colour in its purest form without taking into
consideration other attributes such as tone and value. Any shade of colour can fall
into one of the wavelength categories.
When you mix colour, the hue is decided and selected from your palette by first
deciding which pigment is most appropriate to be the dominant colour. You may then
add another colour to the mix. Then you decide what extra primary to mix in to create
the colour bias. It may be a combination of all three.
Saturation
Next determine the saturation. This is how vivid the colour you are trying to match
appears.
Look at the overall effect of the scene or subject you are trying to replicate, colours
hardly (if ever) appear in their most saturated and primary form in real life settings,
colours are often ever so slightly muted, even in the most brilliant light settings.
If you want to reproduce a realistic looking colour palette in your paintings, take this
into account and make your colours more muted by adding an amount of the
complementary colour to the mix.
Value
Then determine the value. This is how light or dark the colour appears. You can
lighten or tint colours by adding white and darken or shade colours by adding burnt
umber.
Opacity
An extra factor that you may need to consider, especially if you are using a medium
like oil paint is the opacity of the mix. If you want your mix to be completely opaque,
choose a pigment with low transparency, otherwise the colour of the top layer will be
affected by the colours in the layers below.
Using oil, transparent colour is often layered beneath opaque pigments, to allow for
more coverage and colour clarity in the top layers. However, transparent pigments
can be used as glazes.
Colour bias
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Every pigment has a colour bias. What this means is that when the colour of the
pigment is plotted on a colour wheel, it will lean towards another colour. This is true
of all colours we see around us. It’s a good exercise to describe colours you see in
terms of their base tone and then the colour bias.
The relationships between colours
Use a colour wheel as a loose guide, to determine the relationship between
different colours. The colour wheel will tell you the hue, the colour bias and how
saturated the colours are.
The primary colours lie around the edge of the wheel and the hues in between are, in
differing quantities a mixture between two or even three primaries. By working out
the position of a colour you are trying to create on the colour wheel, you can roughly
determine the quantities of each primary that are needed to make that colour
mixture.
Colour groups
How to mix yellow
Yellow is a primary colour. You can’t mix colours to make a true primary.
You can however, alter the tone and bias by adding in other primaries or secondary
colours. For example, you can make a cool, acidic lemon yellow by adding a touch of
phthalocyanine blue and white.
Buttery yellows have a bias towards red and are slightly muted in colour. Mix in small
proportions of red or magenta to achieve warm yellows.
Yellow mixed with burnt umber make earthy, brown yellows.
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How to mix orange
Orange is a tertiary colour, made with primary yellow and secondary colour red. You
can make some brilliantly fiery oranges by mixing magenta and cadmium yellow.
For deeper oranges, mix cadmium red light and cadmium yellow.
For more muted oranges, mix lemon yellow which leans towards blue on the
spectrum with either magenta or cadmium red deep. Or combine with a touch of
cyan.
Create warm, ginger coloured oranges by mixing magenta with yellow lake pigment.
How to mix red
Red is a secondary colour not a primary according to the CMY colour model.
Mix two parts magenta to one part cadmium yellow to create a red hue.
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Create a deep red similar to alizarin crimson by mixing magenta with transparent red
oxide.
Mix with cyan to neutralise red.
To create fiery hues, mix cadmium red light with white and a little yellow.
How to mix pink
Mix magenta with white to create a range of cool, shocking pinks. Use zinc white
mixed with a little titanium for the best results, as using titanium on its own can
create a chalky, less saturated pink. This would be useful, however, if your aim is to
make pastel pinks.
White and a red that leans towards yellow like cadmium red will make more salmon
coloured pinks.
How to mix purple
To make brilliant purples, mix magenta and ultramarine.

Increase the amount of ultramarine for blue-purples. For dull purple mix with a small
amount of yellow.
To mix deep, rounded purples, mix cadmium red and ultramarine together. Burnt
umber is a warm earth colour that will both darken and neutralise purple for shadow
tones. Alizarin crimson will mix with ultramarine to make dark, muted purples.
For example, to make the colour of lilac, mix a slightly higher proportion of magenta
compared to ultramarine. Then neutralise it with a tiny amount of lemon yellow, then
lighten the colour with titanium or zinc white.
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Purple is a versatile secondary colour—use it in the highlights of florals or in deep

shadows.
How to mix blue
Cyan, a type of blue, is considered to be primary. The closest pigment you can find
to this is phthalocyanine PB15.
Mix blue with yellow to create blue-green hues and with red to create blue-violet
hues. You can mix with orange to create grey.
How to mix green
A mid green can be made by mixing three parts transparent yellow with one part
phthalo blue. This will allow you to begin with a light, cool mix.
From this you can make a range of green shades. Make bright greens by mixing in
more transparent yellow and change the saturation by adding a tiny amount of
magenta to the mix.
To get sap green, a deep leafy green that’s useful for colouring plants, the addition of
more transparent yellow is required, a long with a touch of cadmium red. Keep
adding the red until you have reached sap green. Alter this mix with burnt umber to
achieve more earthy green shades.
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To achieve a darker, more neutral and warmer green from the offset, mix yellow
ochre or cadmium yellow and ultramarine.
How to mix neutral colours: toggling the saturation
Identifying the saturation of a colour is possibly the most difficult part of isolating and
correctly identifying a colour. Colours are often more neutral in tone than we initially
perceive.
In the subtractive model of colour, when the primaries (cyan, magenta and yellow)
are combined in equal parts, an achromatic mix is created, close to black.
You can see in this subtractive colour wheel, that the nearer a primary colour gets to
its complementary colour, the more muted in tone it becomes. Eventually, you could
describe it as being more grey-blue than muted blue, for example.
To mix neutral colours, you mix complementary colours together. From this,
depending on the amount of warm and cool colours you’ve added to the mix, you
can slightly neutralise a hue to tone it down, or make cool greys, or warm browns.
Make black by mixing all three colours together. Deepen this black with Burnt
Umber.
By mixing ultramarine, cadmium red and yellow together, a crisp and dark black can
be made.
If a neutral colour looks more like grey, this means it is a cool neutral and that it has
more blue in its mix than red or yellow. A colour that looks more like a brown will
consist of more yellow or red than blue.
How to mix grey

Grey is simply a desaturated colour that leans towards blue, and appears cool.
‘Warm greys’ lean ever so slightly towards yellow on the spectrum.
Create grey by mixing ivory black with white. Alternatively you could use one part
ultramarine, one part burnt umber mixed with white to make grey.
How to mix brown
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You can make brown from primary colours by mixing all three together and then
adding extra red and yellow.
You don’t need to mix your own earth tones, you can buy a variety of earth pigments
in varying warmths and tones. Burnt sienna, for example, leans towards red.
How to mix colours: the process in steps

Step 1: Study your reference and isolate the colour you want to paint
The colour mixing process requires the painter to study the reference and isolate the
colour they want to reproduce in their work. A colour in context is actually pretty
difficult to isolate, as the surrounding colours can alter the appearance of the colour
in question. This effect is called simultaneous contrast.
To make it easier, you could use a tool like Photoshop, or another photo editing
programme. Use the picker tool to sample the colour from your photo reference. Just
make sure that your document is in CMYK mode first.
If you aren’t painting from a photograph—you’re painting from life or on the field, or if
you don’t have photo editing software, then you can use a tool to physically isolate
colour. Use a viewfinder tool to look through to see the colour in isolation.
Another option is to focus on the colour and describe it. What’s the general colour
category? How saturated is it? How dark or light is it? Doing this can advance your
natural skills in colour perception.
Step 2: Find its place on the colour wheel
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Locate your colour on the wheel. Its coordinates will inform you about the colours
you should mix to make it. Describe its position on the wheel.
Step 3: Mix the corresponding pigments

You need to decide which pigments to use to, in the most efficient and cleanest way,
get to your intended colour.
With the teal example above, the corresponding pigment to cyan would be
phthalocyanine, with the pigment code PB15. For the yellow bias it would make most
sense to use transparent yellow PY128 as it is the primary. This will make the
cleanest mix.
Magenta PV19 could be used to neutralise the mix.
To create the value of the colour—in the case of the teal example, we had to
increase the chroma—use a mix of titanium white and zinc white. Too much titanium
would wash the colour out and make it chalky, but zinc is so transparent that it will
not increase the chroma of the colour to what we need it to be, it would remain a
deeper teal.
It’s only by using pigments that you will get to understand their working properties
better. Also by looking at the tubes of paint, you can glean from them certain
attributes like transparency and tinting strength.
Applying colour to the canvas: how to mix colours to create contrasts and harmonies
You use colour in art to create special effects, to evoke emotions from the onlooker.
One colour combination may unsettle the viewer and the next could make them feel
peaceful or energised.
To create order, or to achieve a particular stylised effect in your painting, you could
choose a colour scheme.
Colour mixing: use a colour scheme

Use a split-complementary colour scheme gives strong visual contrast, but is more
harmonious than using complementary colours. It uses the two colours either side of
the complementary colour of the base colour you have chosen. For example:
Analogous colours are three situated next to one another on the colour wheel, for
blue, green and yellow. Use this combination to create harmony in a painting. As the
colours are so similar, create variation in the saturation and values of the colours.
How to mix colours from a limited palette
Another way to create contrast and harmony in your work is by limiting your palette
to just a few colours. Pick colours that give variety in warm and cool tones to give
the appearance of variation.
The colours you pick for your limited palette should resemble the primaries to give
you a full range of colour contrasts when you paint. Using too many colours in a
painting can be overwhelming for the onlooker.
By limiting the colours in your palette, you can tie different sections together, overall
giving a more muted appearance. You won’t be able to mix any shade on the
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spectrum by using a limited palette, but the colours you do choose will relate to one
another more.
To create landscapes, still life or portraits with realistic tones, you will hardly ever
need to use grey or black for shadows. Simply use contrasting colours already on
your palette that you have used throughout your painting. It’s possible to make a
variety of warm and cool greys for your shadows that will harmonise with the colours
in your painting.
23. How to use Colour Schemes in Art

Designers plan the colour schemes they want to use before they start designing, to
create consistency, evoke emotions from the onlooker, or to showcase their
signature style. Fine artists can use colours schemes in their work too—a well
thought through palette can take a painting from looking good, to spectacular.
If you don’t paint realistically by matching colours from a reference, it can be useful
to select and plan colours before you pick up your paint brush. This way you can
control the outcome of the piece and to an extent, the effect it will have on the
viewer. Even if you do paint realistically, you can subvert norms and create a more
painterly look by choosing a more surreal but harmonious colour scheme.
This is an interesting approach to creating an artwork—most artists won’t fore plan a
colour scheme before they start painting. However, you can create a pleasing effect
by choosing colours that harmonise, or try and hold the onlooker’s attention by using
complementary colours.
Using colour in this way, you can create a piece that is completely unique and
evocative of a mood you are trying to portray. By understanding the different colour
schemes, it can help you to be much more intentional when mixing and combining
colours in your artworks and aware of the effect your work might be having on
people.
A colour scheme is a set of different colours, which are defined by their arrangement
on the colour wheel. Each scheme can have different uses and different effects, and
these schemes have been used by famous artists throughout history.
I’ve outlined below some of the most commonly used and popular colour schemes…
Contents hide
1 How to use colour schemes effectively
2 Colour schemes
2.1 Monochromatic
2.2 Analogous colour scheme
2.3 Complementary colour scheme
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2.4 Split complementary colour scheme

2.5 Tetradic colour scheme
2.6 Triadic
3 How to paint with a colour scheme
3.1 Method 1: Create a colour scheme using Photoshop
3.2 Method 2: Using a colour wheel
4 Colour schemes in art: Pin it!
How to use colour schemes effectively
Although you will be limiting the colours you use in your painting, you don’t have to
limit the tonal range. By this I mean that you can alter each colour to make areas
less saturated, darken them to make shades or mix them with white to make tints.
When working with a bold colour scheme, experiment by using different amounts of
each colour type. You don’t need to use each colour in equal parts. For example, if
you are using a complementary colour scheme of blue and orange, by making the
painting mostly shades of blue (dominant colour), then having one orange feature,
you will make the orange feature more salient—it stands out because there is less of
it. Play with effects like these and see what you like.
Colour schemes
Monochromatic
In a monochromatic colour scheme, the artist will use just one colour to create a
piece. You can use the extended range of the colour to create contrast in your
artwork. The colour can be altered so that it varies in saturation, tone, tint and shade.
Use titanium white to lighten the colour, and its complementary colour to create
shades and neutral tones.
I used a monochromatic colour scheme in this mountain painting. By mixing
ultramarine, burnt umber and white I created a deep indigo blue and all its tonal
variations. I added white to create tints and burnt umber to create the shadows. The
shadows in the reference photo were more grey in colour, but I increased the
saturation to make them more blue so that these areas would harmonise with the
colours in the sky.
Analogous colour scheme
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These are the three colours that are located next to one another on the colour
wheel.
Because the colours are so close to one another, the effect will vary depending on
the side of the wheel you pick the colours from. For example, you can create quite
an intense effect by choosing warm colours such as red, orange and yellow, or a
serene effect by choosing purple, blue and green.
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Alfred Sisley: Walnut Tree in a Thomery Field

The colour scheme in this painting by Alfred Sisley is analogous. He uses
neighbouring colours of greens and cooler blues to the cyan blue of the sky and
lake.
Complementary colour scheme
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Directly opposite each other on the colour wheel, these are complementary colours.
Use this to grab the viewer’s attention and create contrast. You can create strong
and vibrant effects by using this colour scheme—it’s certainly the most arresting, so
try to tone down the colours to create more neutral variations of each hue.
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Van Gogh: The Starry Night

The dominant colour here is blue, with pops of bright orange to create contrast. Van
Gogh has increased the saturation of the yellow in the moon, stars, lights and yellow-
green of trees to complement the purple-blue of the night sky.
Split complementary colour scheme
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Analogous colour scheme, with the middle colour missing and the contrasting colour
in its place. In other words it uses a base colour with two colours either side of its
complementary colours. The two colours at the opposite end of the colour wheel.
This is a colour scheme that creates harmony whilst also creating contrast.
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Claude Monet: Banks of the Seine at Jenfosse – Clear Weather

Yellow-green and cyan are close to each other on the colour wheel, but not next to
each other. Claude Monet pairs these two harmonious colours in the foreground and
background (the acidic green of the grass and the cyan hill) to create depth. The
contrast of the red trees livens up the painting. The impressionists really were the
masters of creating attractive colour schemes.
Tetradic colour scheme
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Four colours evenly spaced around the wheel to make a square shape. Use this
scheme to create a feel of balance in your painting.
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Van Gogh: Blossoming Almond Branch in a Glass With a Book

Here Van Gogh creates a sense of balance by avoiding the use of complementary
colours, but instead using colours spaced evenly around the wheel. The red and
magenta of the book and blossoms balance with the yellow-green and blue-green of
the table and wall. This particular painting is more muted, rather than saturated
which creates a calming effect.
Triadic
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The three colours that are equidistant from one another on the wheel to make a
triangle shape. This scheme also creates balance, but with a more limited palette.
Koloman Moser: Landscape in Semmering
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The red, yellow and purple-blue colours in the top third of the painting form a triadic
colour scheme in this work by Koloman Moser. Colours used in this way catch the
attention of the viewer, it’s not as harmonious as other schemes, but striking.
How to paint with a colour scheme
If you want some tips on how you could go about planning a successful colour
scheme in your painting, here are just two methods you could use.
Method 1: Create a colour scheme using Photoshop
By using Photoshop, you can achieve the most accuracy when creating your colour
scheme.
Have a play around in Adobe Color, you can adjust colour harmonies in the colour
wheel. If you like a selection you’ve made, save it to your libraries.
Upload the photo reference you want to paint to Photoshop. Then you can go and
pick colours from your reference and replace them with colours you’ve chosen in
Adobe Colour by using the Image>Adjustments>Replace Colour tool.
Or go to filters>camera raw. Use the colour grading tool to toggle the dominant hue
in the highlights, shadows and mid-tones. Once you know where the tools are in
Photoshop and their function, using the program feels intuitive.
You can also use the colour mixer tool to increase the saturation, luminance and
colour itself.
Method 2: Using a colour wheel
Buy a colour wheel here.
If you don’t have Photoshop, or if you’re painting from life, you can use a colour
wheel as a reference point to choose and mix colour.
Even if you’re painting from life and want to change the colours of what you see in
front of you, I would recommend taking a picture of the scene with your phone, then
putting the image in greyscale. This is so that even if you change the colours when
mixing, you can still gauge the value (the relative light or darkness) of the colour to
create your tones.
Mix tonal variations of the colours you selected—which will be lighter, darker or less
saturated. Look at your reference and try and distinguish these lighter, darker and
less saturated areas. On your canvas, place the colours with the corresponding
values.
The most important aspect of a painting, to achieve a realistic likeness is value.
Portray the tones, shades and highlights accurately and your painting will come
together nicely. If you only think about creating accurate hues, rather than their
relative light or darkness, your painting will likely not work as well.
Colour schemes in art: Pin it!
24. Realism Painting 101: How to Mix Colour

Realistically
The essence of realism painting is in the colour. By capturing the light of a scene
with realistic value and tonal shifts, you can create an illusion of realism before
adding in any detail.
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1 Realism painting: How to get started

2 What are some common mistakes beginners make in using colour?
3 Learn a colour’s extended range
3.1 Saturation
3.2 Tone
3.3 Tint
3.4 Shade
4 Start a painting with neutral colours
4.1 How to mix neutral colours
5 Create colour values
6 Use colour to create distance
7 Simultaneous contrast: how colour can play tricks on us
8 Learn how to mix colour and match it to your reference
9 Read up on colour theory
10 How many colours do you need?
10.1 Create colour
10.2 Create values
11 Adjust values and tones at the end
12 Mix colours realistically: Pin it!
Realism painting: How to get started

If you want to paint realistically, it’s a difficult feat. There are many different
components that you have to tie together. The first is rendering a scene with realistic
proportions, the next is mixing colours realistically and painting them in the correct
place on your canvas, then finally you have to create the details.
Luckily, there are some things you can do to improve the way you use colour
quickly and therefore improve at realism painting.
The key to painting with realistic colours is in creating subtle transitions in tone and
value. By acquiring this skill, you can paint freely and spontaneously without
worrying about the structure or detail too much and still produce an aesthetically
pleasing painting. Many artists who have a mastery of colour paint loosely and omit
detail once they have the foundations of their piece down. They still manage to make
their paintings look realistic from afar.
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John Singer Sargent: Cypresses and Pines

Before you learn how to use colours realistically, it’s useful to understand the
fundamentals about colour mixing. If you haven’t already, peruse the guide, then
come back to this article—it will help you to develop your expertise.
What are some common mistakes beginners make in using colour?
One of the most common mistakes that beginner painters make when trying to use
colour realistically is that they use colours in a more saturated form compared to how
they would appear in life. Colours in real life settings are much more neutral than we
may initially perceive.
Another mistake is overusing titanium white. Or using titanium white without mixing it
with other colours in highlighted areas of the painting. Titanium white washes out
mixes, it can make colours take on a more pastel appearance and even make them
look chalky.
Be conservative with your application of titanium white. If you’re trying to mix colour
for a lighter area, start with zinc white first, then slowly add in titanium. Of course,
titanium will be necessary for some areas, but almost never applied straight from the
tube onto the canvas. To achieve realistic high key tones, add a tiny bit of the mid
value colour to tone the white down a little.
Learn a colour’s extended range
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There are many ways to alter a single colour to change its appearance.
Saturation
The saturation of a colour is how vivid it is. A colour with high saturation could be
described as a colour in its purest form.
The hue of a colour describes its dominant lightwave. So for example, the pigments
ultramarine, cobalt and cyan would all be described as blue.
Tone
The tone of a colour can vary in lightness or darkness and saturation, but it won’t
represent a colour in its purest or most saturated form.
Tint
Create a tint by adding white to the colour. The tints are the lightest areas of a
painting and are normally a colour mixed with titanium white.
Because titanium white is an opaque pigment it will alter the opacity of the colour. It
brings the tone forward in the painting as the light will reflect directly off of the first
opaque paint layer.
Shade
This refers to the relative darkness of a colour. The value of a colour is how light or
dark it is.
A shade is a colour mixed with either its complementary colour, or with black to
darken the mixture.
When a colour is mixed in equal parts with its complementary colour, it makes an
achromatic colour, but it will be more of a dark grey than black. To darken the mix,
you can add extra black.
Start a painting with neutral colours
It’s easier to start with the more neutral tones and shades in your painting, then
gradually increase the saturation and brightness as you progress.
If you start with your brightest colours, you can instantly overdo it. It’s more of a
struggle trying to tone a whole painting down, and you’ll feel like you will have
wasted a lot of paint by the end trying to cover the intense areas up. It feels much
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better to carefully add in highlights and bright areas as you go—you’ll realise with
realistic painting that less is more when it comes to saturation. Plus, painting on a
vivid backdrop for too long can strain your eyes and make you feel tired.
How to mix neutral colours
To create neutral tones and reduce the saturation of a colour, you mix
complementary hues together. Complementary colours are those that appear directly
opposite each other on the colour wheel.
Complementary colour pairs consist of one primary colour and one secondary colour
(a secondary colour is made of two primaries). This means that a neutral mix will
contain all three of the primary colours, in equal measures.
Using this knowledge, you can add a tiny amount of a complementary colour to the
mix to tone it down. Add a little more to make cool greys, or warm browns.
If a neutral colour looks more like grey, this means it is a cool neutral and that it has
more blue in its mix than red or yellow. If a colour looks more like a brown then it
consists of more yellow or red than blue.
It’s important to note that you can reduce the saturation of a colour by adding grey or
black to the mix, but this will likely give you some unwanted results. The result of
your colour mix depends on the pigment you use for black and grey, but if you use
Ivory Black, which is actually a very dark neutral blue, it will make your mixture
muddy. This is because it has a high tinting strength, so the appearance of your
mixture will be completely taken over by this pigment.
Create colour values
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We’ve touched upon tones, tints and shades and how they relate to colour. What
these terms have in common is that they describe the value of colour, or in other
words how light or dark a colour is.
In a painting, value is relative. This means that the value of a colour in a painting can
be judged based on the relative tones of the colours that surround it. The lightest
colour in a low key painting (painted entirely in dark colours) may be the same as the
darkest colour in a high key painting (painted entirely in lighter colours).
Think of the areas in your painting as transitioning in value and notice how these
areas relate to one another.
Use colour to create distance
When looking at a landscape scene, you’ll notice that elements in the foreground
appear bright and saturated, whilst elements far in the distance appear to take on a
neutral blue tone that seem to fade as they get further away. You will have probably
noticed this if you have been to any mountainous or hilly area, where the landmarks
are large enough to be visible when they are miles away.
The reason for this is light scattering. As light passes through air, some of the light is
intercepted and bounces off the molecules in the air.
Light that is high frequency such as blue or violet is more likely to be reflected by
molecules than low frequency light waves such as red. Light refraction in the air also
explains why we perceive the sky is being blue.
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We don’t see violet because our eyes are far less sensitive to violet light than blue.
When we look at distant mountains or hills then, we are not seeing blue mountains,
but instead you are seeing the scattered blue light coming from the air between you
and the mountain.
You can see how painters have understood the physical properties of light, air and
land and portrayed it in their paintings for centuries.
J.M.W. Turner: Grenoble from the River Drac with Mont Blanc in the Distance
So how can you use this in your paintings? Firstly, you could create mixes of dark
grey-blue for distant landmarks. Remember, the further away the landmark is, the
lighter it will appear. If you are using the glazing method, you could create a very
thin glaze of cobalt blue over the areas where you want to create distance.
For objects or subjects in the foreground, use a greater range of brighter colours.
Create sharper details to bring them forward into view.
Simultaneous contrast: how colour can play tricks on us
Often, when we look at colours around us, optical illusions take place. A single
colour or value in a reference is hard to pick out. The surrounding colours and values
affect how we see it. This effect is called simultaneous contrast.
A colour that is dark in tone can be made to appear darker when a light colour is
placed next to it. A neutral blue tone can be made to appear bright and vivid when its
complementary colour orange is placed next to it. In addition, warm colours appear
warmer when placed next to cool colours.
Here is an example of simultaneous contrast in action.
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Painters can utilise this illusion to increase the appearance of colour and value
contrasts in their work. By being aware of how our eyes can change the true
appearance of colour, it will give you more command over using colours yourself.
Learn how to mix colour and match it to your reference
The biggest challenge when painting from a reference such as a photo, or from life is
matching the colours you see to your canvas. It takes a lot of practice to simply look
at something and be able to mix that exact colour each time.
There are steps you can take to aid you in the colour matching process, refer to
the colour mixing process in steps to find out how.
Read up on colour theory
To really understand colour, how it relates to pigment and how colours interact with
one another, read up on colour theory. It’s not essential to know all of the technical
details surrounding colour theory, but having a basic understanding can revolutionise
the way you use colour in your paintings.
How many colours do you need?

You don’t need too many colours for realism painting.
Try your hand at a limited palette, it will encourage you to learn how to use and mix
colour better.
A limited palette can lay a good foundation for the colour you use in your art practice.
To achieve realistic colours, you will need to be able to create the maximum range of
hues that is possible to make from pigment. This means creating contrast in colour,
value and temperature. Starting with the split primary palette will give you the most
freedom in colour mixing, as you will be able to mix the greatest range of tones.
Here’s the split primary palette to help you mix realistically.
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Create colour
Cadmium Red
This is a warm red that leans towards yellow on the colour wheel. Pyrrole red is a
good substitute for Cadmium, as it’s a primary red that is cheaper to buy.
Quinacridone Magenta
A primary red, it appears to have cool undertones straight from the tube, but mixes
with yellow to make intensely vibrant oranges.
Ultramarine Blue
This points towards red on the colour wheel, you can use it to create highly vivid
purples.
Phthalocyanine Blue
This is close to primary cyan, but mixes with transparent yellow to make high chroma
greens.
Transparent Yellow
This is a very bright, primary yellow.
Cadmium Yellow
A deep yellow with warm undertones. Hansa Yellow from M. Graham is a good
substitute for Cadmium, as it’s cheaper.
Create values
Titanium White
Zinc White
mixes—it doesn’t give the ‘washed out’ effect that titanium white can. Over use of
zinc in mixes can create a brittle paint film, however.
Burnt Umber
Many artists use burnt umber instead of ivory black to create shade. Ivory black can
make your colours look dull, desaturated and grey. Whereas burnt umber is
transparent and warm in tone. So it can be used to create clean colour graduations.
Adjust values and tones at the end
Realism painting involves layers of adjustment. When the whole painting is finished
and colours are dry, you may take a step back and notice areas that you want to fine
tune. It is quite common for areas of the painting to appear duller and darker. This is
where oil has ‘sunk in’ to the previous absorbent layers of dry oil, leaving pigment at
the top, making it appear less bright and the values less contrasted.
What you can do at this stage is ‘oil out’ your painting. This refreshes the colours
and reveals values in darker areas. This will make you see the painting more clearly
before you go on to make any further adjustments.
Once the painting has a fresh veneer of oil, you can work to increase saturation,
highlights, opacity or deepen shades. Whatever you see fit to make the painting
more harmonious—consider the balance of the painting as a whole rather than the
detail of single elements.
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25. Indirect painting Technique
1.1 What does the indirect painting technique involve?

1.2 How does the indirect painting approach work?
1.3 Where did this approach originate?
1.4 Learn the Venetian painting technique
1.4.1 Paint an imprimatura
1.4.2 Layer glazes
1.5 What are the benefits of this method?
2 Direct Painting Technique
2.1 What does the direct painting method involve?
2.2 Direct painting technique 1: Alla Prima
2.3 Direct painting technique 2: blocking-in colour then working in detail
2.4 What are the benefits of this approach?
3 Direct and indirect painting techniques: Finally
4 Direct and indirect painting techniques: Pin it!
Indirect painting technique
This is a painting approach that has been used for centuries. Many academic
painters who have been classically trained will have at some point painted in this
way.
What does the indirect painting technique involve?
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The indirect painting method involves the artist applying layers of glaze onto a
drawing or underpainting to subtly alter the colours and tones.
Both the drawing and underpainting will be accurate, detailed and the light and dark
areas will be established at both stages.
This is so that when it comes to applying the glazes, otherwise called the coloured
layers, the artist only needs to change the saturation and harmony of the piece.
In doing this, the painter can render details and tweak values to achieve smoother
transitions. Artists use complex colour palettes and better than realistic looking
compositions.
The paint will be made into a translucent glaze with the addition of a medium. The
medium should increase the transparency and fluidity of the paint. Chelsea Classical
Studio’s Fat Medium is perfect for using with this painting method.
What’s essential when using this approach is that in the resulting painting, some of
the previous layers and occasionally even the toned ground show through the
surface.
The layers of glaze all sit separately from one another. This requires the oil paint to
be touch-dry and solid before the painter applies the consecutive layer. Oil paint can
take up to a week to feel dry to the touch. Although this depends on how thickly it
has been applied. For this reason, an indirect painting will take time and patience to
complete.
The separate layers of pigments interact in a distinct way—they appear combined
but they have not physically been mixed. The intensity of colour that can be achieved
from this is more than if you had mixed the colours together on the palette. As on the
palette, the colours start to muddy together and create a dull appearance, as if some
of their individual qualities are lost.
This painting method requires foreplanning. The artist will interpret the light and
tones of a scene or subject before thinking of colour. When it comes to applying
coloured pigments, the painter will have to think about how they will relate to one
another, before applying it. They should have an awareness of how colours alter
one another and change when applied over different hues.
The technique gives little margin for error. When direct painting, if you make a
mistake you can cover it with titanium white or another opaque colour and no
evidence of the mistake remains. With the indirect method, because colours are
transparent, if you use the wrong colour glaze for example, it would be difficult to
remove that layer, or to paint over it would create an obvious incongruence.
How does the indirect painting approach work?
The interplay of light on the surface of an indirect painting is pretty spectacular.
On a direct painting surface, the light would hit the topmost opaque layer of paint and
then reflect straight back, so what you see is the basic colour combinations.
On an indirect painting, the light hits the surface and travels through the layers of
glaze.
It reflects off of an opaque layer below—the first opaque layer it comes to might be
the ground. When the light travels back through the hardened oil layers, it refracts,
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disperses and diffuses through different areas of the painting surface. The overall
effect is optically complex.
Using this method, luminosity can be achieved in a way that makes it appear as if
parts of the painting are glowing, shadows look deep but transparent
and scumbles create soft transitions between compositional elements in the visual
plane. The opaque areas of the painting stand out.
With knowledge of the physical properties of oil, the way in which colour pigments
interact and a significant amount of experience working with the medium, a painter
can intentionally create these extraordinary effects to give the illusion that the light is
coming from within, instead of creating a representation of light from opaque colour.
Where did this approach originate?
The first ever oil painting process that was devised and commonly adopted is ‘the
Flemish technique’. It was developed in Flanders and is an indirect painting method.
The Flemish technique is an approach that has been tweaked slightly and
continuously over the centuries. The method has stayed much the same. It was
adapted from egg tempera to oil in the 14th century. Then wood panel to canvas in
the 15th century.
By the 15th century artists such as Giorgione had begun to use stiffer brushes and
incorporated an underpainting as one of the stages in the process. The resulting
works were softer in appearance.
Rembrandt, Rubens and Vermeer all adopted this specific technique of the indirect
method—the Venetian technique which is what is most commonly associated with
and used as an indirect approach in oil painting to this day.
Learn the Venetian painting technique
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Rembrandt van Rijn: ‘Concord of the State’. In this oil sketch you can see evidence
of the underpainting
If you’ve read the guide on the fat over lean rule, you know that paint that has been
thinned with solvent should be layered underneath paint that has come straight from
the tube or had oil added to it.
If you like the structure and form of your paintings to be set out first, or if you’re
executing a realistic or ultra-detailed work, first create a drawing. Charcoal, or
even oil pencil work best for this.
Paint an imprimatura
The imprimatura is painted first, over the drawing. This is a layer of single pigment
(usually an earth pigment) thinned with solvent, then spread across the surface’s
ground in a wash.
The right colour for imprimatura will depend on your scene. You could choose one
to contrast with the colours in your scene to liven it up, for example burnt
sienna under a seascape, or magenta under a forest scene.
I usually use a colour that corresponds to the hues of the lightest areas of the
subject. While the imprimatura is still wet, it’s optional to wipe away areas that you
anticipate will be light, to establish the light source and passages in the piece.
Then the tones are painted in, usually with a thinned monochromatic layer. This
involves painting with a single pigment and white to establish where the dark and
light areas of the painting will be. This is the underpainting. If greys are used this is
called grisaille if you use white, black and yellow or green, this is called verdaccio.
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Traditionally painters would have used flake white, but titanium white mixed

with zinc white is a good substitute if you don’t want to use lead.
Layer glazes
Layers of glaze, scumbles, semi-glazes, velaturas or washes are applied to the
dried underpainting. Pigments are mixed with linseed oil, damar gum and turpentine
mediums to create the glaze. Luckily, you can buy premixed glazing mediums.
The purpose is to create multiple separate layers of colour. It will involve applying a
translucent layer of glaze to your painting that has a pigment dispersed through it
then waiting for it to dry before adding the next layer. Often, single pigments will be
used to alter the tones of the underpainting, as this keeps the appearance of the
hues clean, pure and rich looking. This means that each subsequent layer of paint
will alter the previous colour.
The way that these layers of single pigments interact is quite unique—the values of
layers beneath are used to complete the appearance. Shadows will darken, light
areas are emphasised and the chroma will start to deepen. Opaque paint should be
avoided as it hides underlying values. By using glazes, the complexities of detail in
certain subjects become possible to portray, such as subtle variations in skin tone.
Highlights are added when the final layer of glaze has dried. The paint used for this
step will be thick, fat and opaque. Often the whites are mixed with other pigments to
alter the colours slightly. Titanium white mixed with zinc white works perfectly as an
opaque white, or lead. The impasto technique is popular for this stage, as it creates
the most opaque passage. Light will reflect straight back off the painting.
What are the benefits of this method?
With a touch dry surface to work on at the point of starting each layer, you can get
clean lines and hard edges that are distinct from the other colours. This is especially
useful when working on a highly detailed piece. Artists that create hyper-realistic
works usually gravitate towards this method of painting.
The oil-rich glazes give the previous thinner layers depth and luminosity that cannot
be achieved with layers of opaque paint.
26. Direct Painting Technique
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Claude Monet: The Cliff and Porte d’Aval

This is a fairly modern approach that was pioneered by Flemish painter Frans Hals.
More recently, famous painters that have used this technique include many of the
impressionist painters of the 19th and 20th centuries, such as Monet.
What does the direct painting method involve?
The direct painting approach involves laying down colours opaquely on the canvas
with the same hues and tones as are perceived from the subject. The aim is to cover
the canvas’ ground so that no whitespace remains. Then the aim is to match the
colours from the reference scene from the offset. Build in details and light with layers
and the addition of titanium white paint.
There are two different techniques that you can follow with this approach—the
choice will depend on the artist and the session.
Direct painting technique 1: Alla Prima
Using the direct approach, you don’t have to wait for paint layers to dry before
applying more paint. A technique you can use to get a painting finished in just one
session is called alla prima (wet-on-wet). This way of working is incredibly fast and
you could even get a painting finished in one session. It’s a spontaneous way to
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paint. You can swap the planning and scrutinising over detail for a fun, fresh and
creative session.
Many artists that paint alla prima also use the impasto technique. Where paint is
layered thickly to create texture.
The challenge of this method is determining the value relationships between subjects
and mixing colours to match these. Also if you are painting alla prima, values can
muddy together and you will have trouble creating sharp, defined lines. For this
reason you should work with thin paint first. Then apply thicker paint in later stages
with light colours applied last.
Alla prima sounds like it may be easy in comparison to the indirect approach.
However, it takes practice and finesse to do it well.
Place a spot of paint, in the exact colour, correct shape and placement as it is
perceived from the subject. This is the aim of the direct painting method.
Look at the work of John Singer Sargent for some alla prima inspiration.
John Singer Sargent: By the River

Up-close the colours seem to swirl and muddle into one. With next to no hard edges
defined, when you take a step back, the subject becomes clear and the colours
seem to merge in harmony. Painting in this way, using thick paint, alla prima with
impasto brush strokes is like creating an optical illusion.
A common way to start a painting alla prima, is, after having drawn out the structure
of the piece in charcoal, to paint earth colours thinned with paint thinner, then fill it
out with dabs of colour as you see fit.
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Direct painting technique 2: blocking-in colour then working in detail

Another direct technique is blocking-in, whereby the basic colours of the scene are
applied to the canvas, then the painter waits for this to dry before working in layers of
detail.
This is probably the easiest way to create a painting.
The purpose of the blocking-in stage is to create a composition of colour and form,
without worrying about details. If you look at a scene with squinted eyes, so that your
vision is blurred, this is what you should aim to paint at the blocking-in stage. Loose
forms, but colours that are more precise.
If you are a beginner oil painter, a good tip is to paint colours that you see in the
subject as being less saturated that you feel like you want to.
A mistake beginners often make is over saturating the paintings so that colours don’t
harmonise. Learn how to mix a neutral palette and apply these toned down colours
at the blocking in stage. It’s easier to increase the saturation as you go along,
rather than the other way around.
In detailed areas, usually the darker tones are applied first, with thin, fairly
translucent paint. Light areas are built out as highlights with thick white opaque paint
mixed in consecutive layers.
Think of the leaves of a tree, the shaded areas are painted first. Then the leaves that
catch the light are applied after. The light colours mixed with opaque white should be
at the very top of the piece. This gives the illusion of light.
What are the benefits of this approach?
This is an attractive approach for newcomers to oil painting to use, as it is immediate
and it feels intuitive.
Paintings can be completed in a much shorter time frame. Using the alla prima
technique, a painting could even be completed in a matter of hours. For this reason,
this approach is well suited to painting plein air.
Colours are separate and distinct. Often paint is opaque rather than transparent,
which lends itself to creating more vivid combinations and colour contrasts. Also,
with the tendency to use thicker, opaque paint throughout the process, a greater
surface texture can be achieved.
27. Painting With a Limited Palette: A Guide

There are lots of options when choosing colours for your limited palette.
The set of colours you choose will depend upon the effect you want to create, your
subject matter and your chosen medium.
Using a small but diverse selection of pigments in your paintings can bring many
benefits to your art practice. A limited palette will enable the viewer of your piece to
see organisation and harmony in your work.
You can use a limited palette in oil painting, acrylic, watercolour and just about any
medium to mix a diverse range of values and tones.
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Contents hide
1 What is a limited palette?
1.1 What are the primaries in painting?
1.2 Should you use a limited primary colour palette?
2 Why use a limited palette?
2.1 Use a limited palette to create harmonious colour combinations
2.2 Use a limited palette to cut art supply costs
2.3 Painting with a limited palette improves colour mixing skills
3 What are some examples of a limited palette?
3.1 The split primary limited palette in oil paint
3.2 How to paint with a palette of three colours in oil
3.2.1 Primary triad
3.3 One warm, one cool pigment
3.4 Monochromatic
3.5 Limited palette for portraits
3.6 The Anders Zorn palette
3.7 Limited palette for seascape paintings
3.8 Limited palette for landscape paintings
3.8.1 Landscape limited palette demonstration
3.9 Monet’s impressionist palette
3.10 Using extra pigments for special purposes
4 Finally
5 Limited palette: Pin it!
What is a limited palette?
Painting with a limited palette can mean selecting the fewest paint tubes possible to
create the widest range of tones on the spectrum.
It can also mean choosing the smallest quantity of pigments that are required to
create a range of colours that fit with effect you want to create in your artwork.
Usually, no more than six different colours will be included in a limited palette. This
doesn’t include the pigments that create tints (white) and shade (black or burnt
umber).
The pigments you select for your palette will depend on your aims for the piece. For
example, if your aim is to create muted tones, but intense contrasts in colour
temperature for use in portraiture work, you could use the Anders Zorn palette of
yellow ochre, blue black and light red.
However, if you want to create as many colour and tonal variations as possible using
the fewest tubes of paint, you will need to select variations of primary colours.
What are the primaries in painting?
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The primary colours in pigment form are types of blue, red and yellow. They are
cyan, magenta and yellow.
With these three primaries, you will still only be able to achieve a limited range
(gamut) of colours.
There are many deep and vibrant colours that will be omitted from the mixing range
of these three pigments.
This is why many artists start with a limited palette, then augment it by adding
colours they would not otherwise be able to mix from the primaries, such as crimson.
The six colour limited palette then, is each primary colour in its warm or cool form.
This includes: blue that points towards red (warm), blue that points towards yellow
(cool), red that points towards blue (cool), red that points towards yellow (warm),
yellow that points towards red (warm) and yellow that points towards blue (cool).
By using six pigments, you use the fewest colours possible to create the greatest
range of hues. Therefore enabling you to make better colour contrasts than you
would be able to if you were using fewer than six.
Limitations start to occur by using fewer than six different pigments.
Even with six primary tubes, artist will be limited by this palette choice. Not every hue
can be made in its most vibrant form.
All of the palettes listed in this guide use a colour that has a dominant hue of a
primary, either blue, red or yellow. As from this, you can create contrast in hue,
shade and temperature. For example, the Anders Zorn palette is vermilion (red hue),
ivory black (blue hue) and yellow ochre (yellow hue).
Should you use a limited primary colour palette?
If you want to achieve realism in your work, using the six colour limited palette would
probably be the most helpful to you.
It would also suit you if you like to create many variations of vivid colours and don’t
want to be constrained in any way by the colour you can create.
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However, many artists work in a far more reductive manner, using colours which give
them a smaller, more restricted colour wheel to play with, but allow them to capture
mood and emotion, rather than using colour realistically.
The use of alternative limited colour palettes can also unify areas of the artwork that
might otherwise appear separate. For example, in this piece:
Regardless of the palette you select for your painting, the colours will give you a
contrast in warm and cool tones.
This is so that even if your colours don’t create true representations of how your
subject appears in real life, it will emulate their effect.
Instead, the painter will use value (how light or dark a colour is) to elucidate the
structure of the piece. This way, the artist can be creative with their palette choice,
but still create the definition of their subject.
Why use a limited palette?
Use a limited palette to create harmonious colour combinations
You can create wonderfully harmonious paintings with a limited palette.
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As fewer pigments are being used, the colours mix to produce a visual combination
that seems to come together seamlessly.
You’ll look at one part of the painting and see how it relates to another completely
disparate section, by using the contrasting colours on your palette to neutralise one
another.
With a limited palette, the artist is encouraged to use more subtle colour
graduations.
Use a limited palette to cut art supply costs
Another benefit of using fewer paints is that, aside from it costing you less, the tubes
themselves take up less space. If you’ve ever wanted to venture outdoors and paint
plein air, you will need considerably less space in your bag for paint if you use a
limited palette.
Painting with a limited palette improves colour mixing skills
Using fewer pigments to create a wide variety of colour is a great training exercise.
You learn so much about colour and the relationship between different objects and
their corresponding values from mixing different tones and hues from scratch.
It actually forces you to plan the composition of your piece in relation to the colours
you are using, thinking carefully of each tone and value transition. You can create
the colours you want by mixing, meaning that you don’t have to compromise and just
opt for the closest manufactured tube.
Doing all the mixing yourself won’t just improve your skills at colour matching from
your reference, but it will actually transform your perception of colour in what you
see around you.
An artist’s palette is personal to them and is usually a signature of their practice and
style. For experienced artists, they will often have started using a standard limited
palette to learn how to mix colour, then added a unique set of colours that work for
them.
If you’re considering trying to paint with a limited palette, there are some standard
colours you can use to begin to work from, then you can alter this palette as your
skills develop.
I’ve outlined a number of different palettes you can choose from below, with
examples of the range of colours you can achieve from each.
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What are some examples of a limited palette?
This can vary depending on your chosen medium and subject. Also on the effect you
want to create.
For almost every palette, you will need the addition of white and burnt umber or
black to create values:
Titanium White or Zinc White
Titanium is opaque and has the strongest covering power.
Zinc is translucent, can be brittle used on its own, but doesn’t make colours ‘chalky’.
Use the two in combination for more balanced highlights.
Burnt Umber
Burnt Umber is preferred by many artists over ivory black. The reason for this is that
the earth pigment, which has reddish and yellow undertones can be mixed with
ultramarine blue to make an intensely deep black.
To create a warm or cool shadow, just add either more burnt umber, or ultramarine.
Another reason to use burnt umber over black is that the colour is more transparent.
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In creating transparent, fast drying shadows, you apply this as part of your first layer
of paint.
Ivory Black
Use this with the Anders Zorn palette, or cool monochromatic palettes.
Ivory black has cool, bluish undertones. It is more difficult to modify the colour profile
without making it appear darker, whereas there’s more leeway in modifying burnt
umber.
If you’re looking for a cool, solid black, this is the one to go for.
It can actually be used as a neutral blue in some palettes that don’t require vivid blue
hues.
The problem with using black is that it can make colours appear dull, whereas burnt
umber won’t do this.
The split primary limited palette in oil paint
The most widely used limited palette is this. From it you will be able to create the
greatest range of hues when compared to other limited palettes. This is called a split
palette, whereby the artist uses a warm and cool version of each colour, to achieve
high chroma and a range of hues—using this palette will mean you can create a high
amount of colour contrast in your paintings.
Quinacridone Magenta PV19: (primary magenta—cool in form but mixes to make
vibrant oranges)
Cadmium Red Light PR108: (deep red, leans towards yellow, more rounded in
mixtures) substitute this for Pyrrole red
Phthalo Blue (primary cyan) PB15: (primary cyan, mixes to make vibrant greens)
Ultramarine Blue PB29 (blue that points towards violet)
Transparent Yellow PY128 (primary yellow)
Cadmium Yellow PY35 (deep, rounded yellow) or substitute this for Hansa Yellow
from M. Graham
28. How to paint with a palette of three colours in oil

The concept of using only three primary colours is imperfect in painting. There are no
pigments that have been found, or made that sit exactly in the place of a true primary
on the colour wheel.
If you’re using just three colours, keep in mind, you won’t be able to mix them to
make any colour you want. Some hues, like oranges and purples may not come out
as being as vibrant as they could be. That said, there are pigment mixes that come
close.
This three colour palette has other drawbacks, namely in the sense that you will
have to do a lot of mixing to achieve the colours you want.
The focus of finding a limited palette to suit your painting practice is not in attempting
to use only colours that are closest to primary colours, but in finding the colours most
suited to what you’re trying to achieve. Different combinations of primaries can give
equally appealing results, no matter if the combination you are using is close to
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being true primary or not. Think about what will make a good painting, not which
colours are closest to primary.
The primary triad is a high chroma palette, so if you’re looking for a palette with more
harmonious colours, then look to either the landscape or portrait sections.
Primary triad
A seascape painting created with primaries, burnt umber and white

Transparent Yellow PY128
This comes in as a mid yellow when mixing with both reds and blues to make
oranges or greens.
It creates incredibly clean mixes and is, as the name suggests, transparent.
Quinacridone Magenta PV19
This is your primary red colour as it is the most versatile pigment which creates
vibrant oranges and equally vibrant purples. It leans towards blue in its pure form
and can create vivid pinks when glazed over white.
Phthalo Blue (primary cyan) PB15
A pigment with high covering power.
This is a mid value blue.
One warm, one cool pigment
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An oil study created with burnt umber, ultramarine and white

This palette is surprisingly versatile. You have one warm and one cool colour, both
pigments appear dark in their purest forms, but are transparent.
Rich values and tonal variations can be created that give the illusion of colour and
depth.
You can choose any combination of cool and warm pigments, but the following three
palettes work well:
Palette 1:
Burnt sienna
Ultramarine
White
Palette 2:
Burnt Umber
Ultramarine
White
Palette 3:
Viridian Green
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Alizarin Crimson
White
Monochromatic
Here I used the same palette of burnt umber, ultramarine and white to create a
monochromatic effect.
You can choose any single pigment and pair it with black or burnt umber to achieve
a range of values.
Limited palette for portraits
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Anders Zorn: Omnibus Study

To paint a portrait, it’s possible to use a primary palette. Skin tone is hard to mix and
beginners often oversaturate their tones.
A tip for beginners is to make their tones much duller than they might think.
Often new painters will try to paint a cheek or lips with red pigment that hasn’t been
neutralised and it turns out looking artificial. If however, you want to achieve softer
skin tones then there is a palette that you can create a nice base tone with and use
darker neutrals to tone it down.
Portrait painting requires a more muted colour palette, so using a muted red, muted
yellow and two different pigments to balance the colours and tone them down works
well.
Portrait palette:
Yellow Ochre
Yellow ochre can be used along with titanium white and cadmium red to create a
base tone for the skin.
Raw Umber
Raw umber has blue-yellow undertones, so this can be used to cool the mixture
down and in the shadows of the piece.
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Cadmium Red
This can be mixed with titanium white and other neutralising colours to create
highlights and accents.
Ivory Black
Ivory black has blue undertones, mixed with titanium white it makes a neutral blue.
Mix this with the cadmium red to neutralise tones in the lips and more colourful parts
of the skin.
An alternative palette, that uses muted colours for a softer effect is:
Naples Yellow
A warm yellow that’s brighter and more intense in colour than the earth pigment
yellow ochre
Vermilion
A brilliant orange-red. Perfect for lip colour. Add it to brown tones to create warmth.
Titanium White
Ivory Black
The Anders Zorn palette
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Anders Zorn: Martha Dana

Anders Zorn, the Swedish artist famously painted with a limited palette. The
interesting thing about his palette choice was just how few colours he chose to paint
with. His palette wasn’t vivid, but he achieved pure colour mixes. His palette choice
was:
Yellow Ochre
Ivory Black
Vermilion
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Titanium White
He reveals his palette in one of his paintings:
Anders Zorn: Self Portrait

Limited palette for seascape paintings
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I paint mostly seascapes and I mostly use the primary triad palette. Sometimes I
incorporate some Cobalt Blue for the sky, or use Ultramarine to achieve more
intense violet-blues. See some of my paintings here.
Here’s an alternative seascape palette:
Transparent Yellow
Primary yellow mixes with cyan to make turquoises and teals.
Cadmium yellow light
The colour coordinates of this variation of cadmium yellow point towards green,
making it suitable for mixing sharp and clear greens in combination with the blues in
this palette.
Alizarin crimson
Mix with blues to create violet blues and violet blue-greys. It is useful for sunset sea
paintings.
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Cadmium red light

Mix with yellow to create a muted orange that can be used to neutralise blues to
make a blue-grey palette
Phthalo blue
This may be the most essential colour for seascapes and the one you will use the
most.
Ultramarine blue
Study the sea carefully and you’ll find that sometimes the light plays on it to make it
look as if it has purple undertones, especially in deep water.
Ivory Black
Ivory black will work better than burnt umber to mix with and darken blues and also
to create a range of muted blues.
Limited palette for landscape paintings
Your palette will depend on the landscapes and seasons that you are painting. If you
are painting plein air in the summer, you will want to have colours that enable you to
create a variety of greens and have brighter colours for flowers. For landscape
painting, you won’t need black, but burnt umber to achieve muted earthy tones.
Here’s a limited palette for landscapes:
Cadmium Yellow
This is an ever so slightly warm pigment in its medium value, similar to butter. This
colour is great for summer flowers, fields of hay or creating warmth.
Transparent Yellow
Mix to make varying shades in foliage. This is a transparent and clean in masstone
and bright in tint.
Cadmium Red
Use this for warm sunsets, bright flowers. Red is the least necessary colour in
landscape painting for the most part. Other reds such as Quinacridone Magenta or
Vermilion can be used in its place.
Alizarin Crimson
This is a transparent red that points towards blue on the spectrum. It’s especially
effective when used to neutralise greens in foliage or in the shadows.
Cobalt
Ever so slightly cool blue, brilliant for use in sky, snow and lake scenes.
Ultramarine
Use this warm blue to create dark and grey coloured greens, also for use in deep
lake scenes or intensely blue skies.
Some optional extras for landscape painting, that can be beneficial to facilitate in
mixing greens and deep earthy reds are:
Burnt Sienna
This one is for desert painters. Burnt sienna also works wonderfully in autumn
scenes, forestry and as an imprimatura for almost any subject. It’s an incredibly
bright earth pigment that you could also use as a replacement for red.
Sap Green
Deep, earthy and mossy transparent green that leans towards yellow.
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You can mix this colour using your base palette, but it can be useful to have a
premixed tube on hand.
Yellow Ochre
Beautiful in golden sunsets and autumn scenes.
Landscape limited palette demonstration

Monet’s paintings are brilliantly colourful and luminescent. He seemed to pick up on
the subtle tones in the shadows and light of a landscape and emphasise them with
his vibrant mixes. The vibrant colour mixes he was able to achieve was mainly down
to the fact that he used a limited palette, mixing the fewest pigments together to
achieve a particular tone.
Cadmium Yellow Light (cool)
Cadmium Yellow Medium (warm)
Alizarin Crimson (cool and transparent)
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Cadmium Red Light (warm)

French Ultramarine (cool)
Flake White
It is also suggested in James Heard’s book Paint Like Monet, that he would have
used secondary green pigments such as Viridian to facilitate the mixing process in
some landscape pieces.
Using extra pigments for special purposes
Certain pigments have particular unique qualities. In using them, you can achieve an
effect that you would not be able to achieve by mixing two colours together. For
example, if you are using the six colour warm and cool palette, you might not have a
transparent deep red suitable for glazes. In this case, you could use alizarin crimson.
The variation in transparency and drying times of pigments, and even the binder they
have been mixed with can make them more favourable to use.
Although many artists have been famed for using limited palettes, such as Anders
Zorn, it’s important to note that their practice wouldn’t have always been restrictive.
There’s evidence to suggest that Zorn used a multitude of different colours across
his painting career, as reported by the Museum Director of the Zorn Collection in
Mora, Sweden. In his studio, tubes of cobalt blue were found and in a few of his
paintings, it’s clear that he used a mixture of different blues and greens.
So whilst he would have used his limited palette for some of his works, he would
have strayed from doing this at times too.
The best thing to do is experiment to find what works best for your practice and most
of all, to have fun with it.
29. How to Create an Underpainting in Oil
The underpainting technique can be used to establish composition, structure and
values before applying colour in an artwork.
Artists use an underpainting to create opacity in areas they know will have darker
colour values.
Once the underpainting is complete, glazes (application of transparent colour) can
be applied to subsequent layers to alter hue and saturation.
Rendering values in oil serves to define where there will be areas of contrast
between light and dark.
The underpainting will enhance the depth of the shadows in the upper layers of the
painting.
In areas of an underpainting you plan to be lighter, simply avoid painting over the
canvas, or wipe paint away, letting the lightness of the ground shine through.
Alternatively, you could fill in the lighter areas with a white pigment.
There are several different ways of doing an underpainting. Monochromatic
underpaintings use only a single pigment with the optional addition of white and
black (or burnt umber). I will go through these different underpainting methods later
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Contents hide
1 Which colours are suitable for underpainting?
2 What materials do you need to create an underpainting in oil?
2.1 Supply list
3 Methods of underpainting
3.1 Method 1: Toned ground
3.2 Method 2: Monochromatic
3.3 Method 3: Underpainting & blocking in
4 Underpainting tutorial: Pin it!
Which colours are suitable for underpainting?
Any pigment that can display a good range in value will be suitable for underpainting.
Earth pigments are especially good for the technique, as they are generally dark,
have some level of transparency and dry very quickly.
The most commonly used earth pigments for this task are: Burnt Sienna, Mars
Brown, Burnt Umber and Raw Umber. Ultramarine Blue would also be suitable to
create an underpainting with.
Colours that are very light, such as yellow, wouldn’t work for this technique, unless
used in combination with white and black. You can choose the colour for your
underpainting to work in contrast, or in harmony with the colours you know you will
be using throughout the painting.
You can add white and optionally black to create tonal contrast in your
underpainting, although this will make the paint layer opaque. For this reason, the
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underpainting stage is sometimes called the dead layer, as it can lack translucency
and liveliness.
Traditionally lead white, or flake white would have been used for highlights. If you
want to avoid using lead in your painting, then you can use a mix
of titanium and zinc whites for the light areas.
I avoid the use of black in under paintings and instead opt to use an earth pigment,
working it in to establish deep shadows where I want the dark areas to be and
adding white for the light passages.
The benefit of this is that the shadows remain translucent. The addition of white is
optional, you could instead wipe away paint to reveal the ground beneath for your
highlights.
What materials do you need to create an underpainting in oil?
Supply list
Paint: this is your chosen pigment and white if you choose to include it.
Solvent: either turpentine or oil of spike lavender. You’ll need this to thin the paint.
Remember when painting in layers, you should adhere to the fat over lean rule.
A bristle brush: the brush needs to be a little stiff at this stage of the process.
Kitchen roll, or a lint-free cloth. This is to wipe excess paint away in areas where you
want to show light.
Methods of underpainting
Method 1: Toned ground
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A toned ground or imprimatura is a layer of transparent colour spread across the

canvas.
Thin your chosen colour with solvent, until it’s runny. Then spread it across your
canvas or panel until it’s all covered.
You don’t need to be too neat about this. Gestural brush strokes can work to create
dynamism from the first layer. If you want your toned ground to be lighter, you can
wipe away the colour from the surface with a lint-free cloth, so that it leaves a stain
as one block colour. Don’t leave oil soaked rags lying around though, put it in soapy
water straight after use, as it can pose a fire hazard.
There are a few benefits to creating a toned ground like this. Working on a mid-tone
value is easier on the eyes, it also helps you to establish value relations between
colours better.
Method 2: Monochromatic
By responding to the impression of colour and light that you see in your reference,
choose a pigment for your underpainting. You can choose one that either
harmonises with the colours in your reference, or contrasts with them. It’s completely
up to you.
Neutral colours like burnt and raw umber work brilliantly for monochromatic portrait
underpaintings.
There are names for different types of monochromatic underpaintings, depending on
the colour that it has been completed.
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Grisaille is the name given for when the painting is completed in shades of grey
(using black and white). Underpaintings completed in shades of brown are called
brunaille (brown and white) and a green underpainting is called a verdaille.
After the monochromatic layer dries, the artist might choose to add layers of glazeto
add colour to the face and hair. A coloured glaze on top of a monochromatic
underpainting works to create the appearance of luminosity.
Method 3: Underpainting & blocking in
A two colour underpainting using Burnt Sienna, Ultramarine and White

You can use multiple colours to complete an underpainting. You could start by
drawing out the structure of your piece and wiping away lighter areas using one
pigment. Then in sections where the canvas is blank, adding variations in tone.
Another option is to use two complementary colours to create an underpainting. After
laying down two contrasting colours, which will often be a warm and cool mix,
corresponding to light and shadow, you will have a better idea of the direction your
painting is taking.
As the complementary colours blend and mix together, you will create neutrals—
greys and blacks.
In the example above, I’ve used warm and cool contrasting colours to create an
underpainting. Although I only used two pigments, I could still achieve a large tonal
range.
Two-toned paintings like this can often look like a finished piece in their own right.
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30. The Grid Method: How to Create an Accurate

Drawing
I’ll outline two different methods you can use to create an accurate drawing on
paper, canvas or whatever surface you choose for your artwork.
The first method is best if you want to scale up your reference image and create a
larger drawing on your canvas. Choose the second method if your reference is the
same size as the artwork on your canvas will be.
Both methods involve transferring a picture (either a photo you’ve taken, or a picture
you’ve drawn) from paper to the surface you will paint on.
Contents hide
1 Method 1: The grid method to create an accurate drawing
1.1 What supplies you need for the grid method?
1.1.1 Why use Photoshop to create a grid?
1.2 How to choose the best reference image
1.3 How to transfer an image using the grid method
1.3.1 Step 1: Set preset details and preferences in Photoshop
1.3.2 Step 2: Make the grid in your photo editing program
1.3.3 Step 3: Scale your grid and draw it onto your canvas
2 Method 2: Paper Transfer
2.1 The benefits of this method
2.2 What you’ll need
2.3 How to transfer a drawing from paper onto a canvas
3 Tips to create an accurate drawing
4 Transfer a drawing to canvas: Pin it!
Method 1: The grid method to create an accurate drawing
This method involves creating a grid over a reference image, then drawing a grid
with the same proportions but scaled up to fit onto your canvas.
It allows you to create an accurate drawing by reproducing an image at a larger size
than your reference photo or drawing.
It’s important that the ratios are the same, so for example if the reference image is
4×6 inches, you could scale it up to a surface of 8×12 inches.
This method is for artists that want to work on a larger canvas when compared to
their reference picture. However, if you were drawing on a canvas that was the same
size as your reference, this would work too.
It works well for artists that draw and paint with realism and accuracy—to ensure that
no detail is lost when transferring the reference to the canvas.
What supplies you need for the grid method?
Polychromos or charcoal: Polychromos are oil pencils. It’s what I use to create
under drawings as I find the marks they make to be softer than charcoal and less
likely to show through in the finished piece. This is especially important if you are
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using thin glazes on top of an underpainting and imprimatura—a technique that

relies on a certain degree of transparency.
If you’re creating a digital grid on a photo, you’ll need your computer
and Photoshop or a free photo editing software.
If you’re not working from a digital photo, you’ll need a print out of your reference or
a drawing you’ve done.
A ruler to measure out the grid on the surface.
Your surface primed and ready to draw onto.
For this tutorial, I’ll show you how to create a grid using Photoshop, but the
principles are the same whether you’re working on a free alternative software or from
an image you’ve printed out (you’ll just need a pen and a ruler to draw a grid on a
printout).
If you’re looking for a free alternative software to Photoshop, in GIMP you can create
a grid too. Follow these steps, they’ll work regardless of whether you’re using GIMP
or Photoshop.
Why use Photoshop to create a grid?
Photoshop is an awesome tool which can be useful for traditional artists. I use it to
edit photos of my artwork and get them ready for print, plan painting compositions
and speed up various other processes.
Creating the grid in Photoshop is so easy, it takes about two minutes to make.
How to choose the best reference image
The image needs to be high resolution, if you’re working from a photo. This is so that
you can zoom into various different areas while you’re working to see detail. The
higher the resolution, the more you’ll be able to zoom in without it losing quality.
If you’re using a drawing you’ve made, take a high res photo to upload it to your
computer. Make sure the camera is pointing straight at the artwork so that the image
isn’t skewed in any way.
How to transfer an image using the grid method
Step 1: Set preset details and preferences in Photoshop
The first step is to open up Photoshop. You can set preferences when you open a
new document. Set the units to inches, as inches are most commonly used to
measure canvas sizes. Remember to size the art board so that it is the same
dimensional ratio as your canvas.
For this example, I’m using a canvas that is 12×9 inches. So I’m going to make my
art board 4×3 inches, then scale the image up by three times.
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Preset details for Photoshop document

Step 2: Make the grid in your photo editing program
To make a grid in Photoshop, go to Preferences>Guides, Grids, Slices.
Go down to the Grids section and select the grid line interval number. I set mine
to .33 inches; when I came to scale the image up to 9×12 inches, I multiplied the grid
line interval placement by three, so I had a gridline every inch.
Here’s what my dialogue box looked like:
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You can make your grid any colour you like. I made mine magenta so it stood out in
front of the tones of the image reference I was using.
Make sure that when you go back to your art board, the grid is visible. If it’s not, go to
the menu and select View>Show>Grid.
Here’s what my grid and image looked like:
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If you’re working from a photo print or smaller drawing you’ve done on paper, all you
have to do is divide your reference photo, then divide your canvas by the same
number of grid squares.
So if you divide your photo with a 5×5 grid, divide your canvas by the same amount.
Remember that the dimensions of the photo reference need to be roughly
proportionate to the dimensions of your canvas. Otherwise when you come to
complete your drawing, elements will appear skewed.
Creating a grid in free editing software GIMP is pretty simple. You need to use the
grid plugin. Follow the steps here.
Step 3: Scale your grid and draw it onto your canvas
You have your grid ready on your reference. Now you have to scale it up. For
example, I knew my canvas was three times bigger than my reference, so I
multiplied the dimensions of each grid square interval by three. From .33 inches on
my reference to a square every one inch on my canvas. You don’t have to be this
precise, if you’re working from a print out, you could just divide your canvas by the
same amount of squares as you divided your reference by.
Once you’ve done this, start drawing the grid on your painting surface.
Place your ruler on the bottom side of your canvas with the inch measurements
pointing inwards, like this:
Make a mark at every interval (on my canvas I marked every inch). This is where you
will place the guides:
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So now you have marks on every inch or interval of your canvas, you can draw your
grid straight on. Simply draw a straight line where each point you’ve marked is. This
will evenly divide your canvas.
I recommend drawing lightly as you don’t want your grid to be too visible past the
drawing stage.
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Here’s my grid:
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Now you can start drawing, using each square of the grid as a reference point for
your drawing. After using this technique, you’ll see your drawing accuracy improve
rapidly!
Here’s my finished drawing compared to my photo reference:
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Photo reference
Here’s the finished oil painting:
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Method 2: Paper Transfer

This involves drawing on paper and then transferring it onto the canvas.
The drawing you do on paper will be the same size as the one you do on canvas if
you choose this method.
It works well for artists that want the drawing of their painting to be preplanned, with
clean lines on the canvas.
The benefits of this method
Making a drawing on paper gives you more room to make mistakes. Rubbing out
pencil or charcoal marks from a canvas can make a smudgy mess, therefore it
makes sense to plan the drawing on paper first where you can rub out marks easily
or discard it.
It can also feel easier to create detailed drawings from the angle of the paper being
flat on a table, rather than directly on a canvas propped up against an easel. If you’re
drawing straight on a surface that has a texture i.e. a canvas that has a weave that
hasn’t been sanded down, then you could have a hard time drawing details straight
onto it. Your pencil lines could get lost in the surface grain.
What you’ll need
Charcoal
Stylus or similar blunt object (like the end of a paintbrush)
Tracing paper
Masking tape
Transfer paper
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Your surface, primed and ready.

How to transfer a drawing from paper onto a canvas
Sketch the outlines of your drawing on tracing paper with a charcoal pencil. You
could start by drawing freehand, or tracing a previous drawing you’ve completed. If
you’re drawing freehand, it helps to work with a solid, light background, so get some
masking tape and stick the corners of the tracing paper over some plain white card
or paper.
Stick the tracing paper with the drawing on to the canvas with masking tape. Tear
two small pieces of tape and put one in each of the top corners. You’ll need the
bottom of the tracing paper to remain unattached so that you can slide the transfer
paper underneath. Make sure it’s in the right place and that the side you drew on is
facing you.
Place the transfer paper beneath the tracing paper and trace over the lines you drew
with a stylus.
That’s it. You should see crisp and neat lines on your canvas from where you drew
over the tracing paper. Your canvas will be ready to paint onto.
Tips to create an accurate drawing
If you want to improve at creating accurate drawings without the aid of a grid, it’s
useful to commit to a daily drawing practice.
In your underdrawing, it’s possible to establish tones, shadows and highlights before
you start painting. Using willow charcoal, spend a bit more time on the drawing filling
in areas of shadow and leaving blank areas that will be light. To keep the drawing
intact before painting, you could seal it.
31. How Long Does Oil Paint Take to Dry?
How long does it take oil paint to dry? Paint that has been applied to a surface
straight from the tube (without additives or mediums) will feel dry to the touch after
around two days.
However, the drying time depends on a few other factors. You can roughly predict
how long a paint layer will take to dry based on these other variables.
Contents hide
1 What factors affect drying time of oil paint?
1.1 The thickness of the paint
1.2 The type of oil used in paint
1.3 The temperature of your room
1.4 The surface you choose
2 How does oil paint dry?
3 Does drying time vary between oil paint brands?
3.1 M. Graham
3.2 Blockx
3.3 Michael Harding
3.4 Winsor & Newton
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3.5 Winsor & Newton Griffin Alkyd Oils

4 Can you change the drying time of oil paint?
4.1 How to make oil paint dry faster
4.2 How to make oil paint dry slower
4.3 Why do artists like the slow drying time of oil paint?
5 Oil paint drying time: Pin it!
What factors affect drying time of oil paint?
The thickness of the paint
The first is how thickly paint is applied to the surface. A thicker layer of paint will dry
much slower than a thinner layer of paint.
The type of oil used in paint
Another factor that influences how long oil paint takes to dry is the type of drying oil
that has been used in the paint. Paints that have linseed as the main binding agent
will take around two days to feel touch dry, whereas paints that use poppy oil,
safflower oil or walnut oil may take longer—around three or four days to feel fully dry
and not sticky. Linseed is the most commonly used binder in oil paint, however.
The temperature of your room
The temperature and humidity of the environment in the space you paint in will affect
drying time. Colder temperatures prevent oil from drying quickly, as do more humid
atmospheres. If you’re painting inside in a room that you feel comfortable in, the
chances are your oil paint will dry at a normal rate. If you’re running a humidifier or
similar device, the paint may dry slower.
When painting plein air (outside), your painting will likely dry much quicker on a dry,
hot sunny day, than if you were painting on a clear crisp day in winter.
The surface you choose
The absorbency of the surface you are painting on can affect the drying time. If you
paint on oil paper, that hasn’t had an extra coat of primer, it’s pretty absorbent.
Paper will suck some of the oil from the paint layer, reducing the drying time. An oil
painting on paper can dry within a few hours for this reason.
Painting on a non-absorbent surface like wood that has been primed with Michael
Harding’s non-absorbent primer will dry more slowly.
How does oil paint dry?
The interesting thing about the drying oils, like linseed, walnut, safflower and poppy
that are used as binders in oil paint, is the way that they dry. They dry by curing and
setting. This of course differs from water based mediums which dry when the water
evaporates from the paint mix. In contrast, oil paint dries by an oxidation process,
where the oil reacts with oxygen in the air to cure and reach its final form.
There are essentially two stages to the drying process. It first becomes touch dry in
around 2 days. Then it continues to cure and react with oxygen in the atmosphere to
fully set. You won’t notice the oxidation process taking place. Whilst it’s setting, it’s
actually contracting and moving ever so slightly. This whole curing process that
drying oils undergo to reach their final form can take months, even up to a year if
paint is applied thickly.
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It’s important to know about this drying process because it informs how you should
layer paint on a surface. Paint rich in oil that has a slow drying time should be
layered on top of thinner paint (i.e. paint that has been mixed with solvent). This is
because paint that takes longer to cure will be shifting slightly, and if a brittle layer of
thinned paint is applied on top of it, it will dry first then potentially crack. This layering
technique is called the fat over lean rule, and is one of the main foundations of oil
painting.
Don’t let the idea of the curing process throw you off, it’s not something you have to
worry about (other than making sure you layer slow drying oil rich paint over fast
drying paint).
You can even varnish a painting while it’s curing, as long as it’s completely touch
dry, if you use Gamvar. This synthetic formulation of varnish allows oxygen particles
to pass through the film, so that the painting can cure beneath.
Does drying time vary between oil paint brands?
Drying time of oil paint varies from brand to brand. This is because each brand of
paint uses their own unique recipe of pigment, binder, fillers, dryers and additives.
Most quality paint ranges will make their oil colours with a high pigment content and
binder, without adding in dryers and additives which can reduce the quality of the oil
paint. Often, the higher end paints will dry slower due to the lack of fillers. By milling
paint with a large proportion of pigment and quality binder (without the additives) it
improves the appearance and handling of paint too.
Another thing that varies from brand to brand, is the type of drying oil used as a
binder. Most brands used refined linseed oil, but some brands use oil that dries
slower.
Bear in mind that the drying time of colours will vary within brands of artists’ quality
oil colours (that don’t use dryers and additives). This is because different pigments
require differing amounts of oil to make a stable paint film. Earth colours like Burnt
Umber are usually fast drying, whereas Titanium White will dry more slowly.
I’ve listed some of the most popular paint ranges, in order of slow drying to fast
drying.
M. Graham
Buy here.
Slow drying: 3-4 days
This brand of artists’ quality oil paint uses walnut oil as a binder which dries slowly.
The colours are highly pigmented and have a wonderfully rich finish. Expect paint to
take an average of three to four days to dry.
Blockx
Buy here.
Slow drying: 3-4 days
Handmade professional quality paint that uses poppy oil as a binder.
Poppy oil is slow drying, non-yellowing and is more expensive than linseed or
safflower oil to buy. The colours are pigmented and vibrant and the consistency of
the paint is smooth like soft butter. Similar to M. Graham, paint will take around three
or more days to dry.
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Michael Harding
Buy here.
Medium drying time: 2 days
These luxurious oil paints are handmade using maximum pigment. Some colours dry
fast (i.e. earth colours) and some dry slower. Overall, as Michael Harding uses
mainly linseed as a binding agent, paints will take around two to three days to dry.
Winsor & Newton
Buy here.
Medium drying time
A similar drying time to Michael Harding (around two days), these paints are a mid-
range option that use linseed oil as a binder.
Winsor & Newton Griffin Alkyd Oils
Buy here.
Fast drying time: 18 hours
When using these oil paints, use them in each layer of your painting to ensure better
adhesion, as alkyd oils behave slightly differently to regular oils. The drying time will
be around 18-24 hours. These paints come at a budget-friendly price point.
Can you change the drying time of oil paint?
The drying time of paint can be altered with a medium. Mediums are used to alter the
working properties of paint. This includes consistency, finish, transparency and
drying time.
How to make oil paint dry faster
Use a fast drying medium to decrease the open working time of paint.
By incorporating a solvent such as turpentine, oil of spike lavender or odourless
mineral spirits into your paint mix, you can cut drying time to less than 12 hours,
depending on how much solvent has been added. Take care when using solvent and
ventilate your space properly. Read here for safe studio practices when using
solvent.
My recommendation is to use oil of spike lavender, or odourless mineral spirit,
instead of turpentine. This is because turpentine is strong and the fumes can be bad
for your health if not handled properly. Another tip if you choose to use solvent in
your painting, is to only use it in the first layer(s) of your painting. Decrease the
solvent to oil ratio in consecutive layers to create a structurally sound painting. Learn
more about this in our guide to the fat over lean rule.
Liquin is another fast drying medium. It is an alkyd, which has a slightly different
chemical structure to oil. Paint will dry in 12-24 hours using this medium. Ensure you
use Liquin in each layer of your painting to create optimum adhesion of the paint film.
How to make oil paint dry slower

Add an oil medium to your paint mixtures to slow drying.
Linseed oil, poppy oil or walnut oil can all increase the open working time of paint
by a day or so, depending on how much has been added.
On top of making your oil paint dry slower, oil mediums will make paint runnier, the
finish glossier and strengthen the paint film.
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Why do artists like the slow drying time of oil paint?

Many artists love the slow drying time of oil paint. This is because it gives them more
time to work on each layer of their painting.
Due to the drying time, oils are especially conducive to techniques
like blendingand alla prima (wet on wet).
Paint can be stored for longer too, meaning that less is wasted. Oil painters will often
use a tempered glass palette and squeeze colours around the edge, leaving the
centre to mix. These squeezed colours can stay wet on a glass palette for days,
even weeks at a time. To store the palette, place it in a sealed container like
the Masterson’s Palette Seal. This prevents oil from oxidising. You can even put
your sealed palette in the fridge to slow drying even further, as the cold prevents oil
from hardening.
32. How to Create a ‘Loose’, ‘Painterly’ Style in

Artwork
The term painterly applies to both the approach and technique that the artist uses
when painting. Paint is applied in a loose, spontaneous manner.
A painterly approach puts less of an emphasis on realism and more on creating
appealing colour combinations and composition.
The viewer may see visible brushstrokes in the finished painting with colours that
meld together. In a ‘painterly’ painting, details may not be distinguishable, but tonal
graduations and texture are used elegantly to create the illusion of detail. The term
‘loose’ is used interchangeably with ‘painterly’ to describe the style of the painting.
Many famous artists have used this approach, including Lucian Freud, Singer
Sargent, Francis Bacon, Matisse, Cezanne, Van Gogh and Monet. Abstract artists,
expressionists and impressionists could all be described as having a painterly style.
This technique and approach is perfect for beginners. To create striking painterly
effects, it’s useful to have a grasp of some basic painting techniques and colour
theory.
Contents hide
1 Supplies needed to create a painterly effect
2 Techniques you can use to create a ‘loose’ painting style
2.1 Impasto technique
2.2 Alla prima (wet-on-wet) technique
3 Tips for painting more loosely
3.1 Thicken your paint
3.2 Stand up at an easel
3.3 Get brushes with long handles
3.4 Paint with large brushes
3.5 Plan your colour palette
3.6 Plan composition first
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3.7 Be decisive when applying paint

3.8 Be selective about which details you want to include
3.9 Spontaneous brushwork
3.10 Create transitional shades
4 Loose painting style: Pin it!
Supplies needed to create a painterly effect
A painterly style can be achieved with any kind of painting medium. You can even
create a loose style with oil pastels.
There are a few tools you can get which can make the process feel smoother.
Paint: oil, acrylic, watercolour, oil pastel
Consider using a limited palette
Easel
Surface: canvas, paper, wooden panel
Large brushes, stiff brushes, flat shaped brushes, palette knives
Thickening mediums: for oil, for acrylic (optional)
Techniques you can use to create a ‘loose’ painting style
Impasto technique
Cuno Amiet: Winter auf der Oschwand

The impasto technique involves thick applications of paint that retain visible brush
strokes and texture on the canvas. Apply paint with a stiff brush or a palette knife.
Wonderfully dynamic effects can be created by using this technique.
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This technique applies to oil and acrylic painting. To create an impasto effect, paint
can be thickened with a medium (cold wax or Liquin impasto for oil, thickening
gel for acrylic).
Van Gogh often painted in short, impasto, loose brush strokes, varying in colour.
When you get up-close to his work, you can appreciate the textured effect.
Van Gogh: Wheat Fields with Cypresses

Read more about this technique in our impasto guide.
Alla prima (wet-on-wet) technique
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John Singer Sargent: Simplon Pass

To paint alla prima (wet-on-wet), build layers of wet paint on your surface. The aim of
painting alla prima is to finish the piece, or the section of your painting, before the
first application of paint dries.
This technique suits oil and watercolour painting perfectly. If you want to use this
technique with acrylic, you will have to get a slow drying medium.
Oil paint takes around 2-3 days to dry, so as long as you paint fairly quickly, it’s
achievable to finish the painting before it starts drying. However, if you want to paint
more slowly, get a slow drying medium to delay the drying process of oil.
Painting wet-on-wet is a fast and spontaneous way of working. Some brilliant
painterly effects can be achieved from working in this way. Colours meld and swirl
together.
Singer Sargent favoured this technique, as you can see in his painting ‘Simplon
Pass’ above.
To use this technique, I’d recommend getting some stiff brushes for acrylic and oil.
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Joh
n Singer Sargent: Corner of a Garden
Another thing to keep in mind is the way in which colours are layered in the painting.
Start with fast drying, transparent colours like earth pigments such as burnt umber,
that you might use in darker areas of the painting. Titanium white is slow drying, so it
makes sense to apply this later in the painting process, use it in mixes to create
highlights.
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Tips for painting more loosely

Thicken your paint
Supplies: Thickening medium for oil, thickening medium for acrylic.

A distinctive element of many paintings painted in a loose style, is that the texture of
the brushstrokes are often visible on the canvas. Of course, this is only possible with
viscous mediums such as oil or acrylic. To create thick textures, paint impasto. Mix a
medium such as Liquin Impasto, or cold wax into oil paint. Choose a thickening
gel if you are working with acrylic. Mediums can help add body to the paint and
speed up drying time.
By using a medium, you can extend the paint mixture, creating a much larger volume
of colour. This can allow for thicker applications as you won’t have to worry about
using as much of the paint itself (which can be expensive to buy).
Use texture to create areas of interest, express the salience of objects and subjects
and establish perspective (make objects appear closer by painting with thicker
texture). All these elements will come together to add another dimension to your
artwork and make it stand out to the viewer.
Stand up at an easel
Supplies: easel, hand held palette
Again, this tip doesn’t apply to watercolour painters as much, but more to those
working with acrylic, oil or pastel.
Standing up at an easel gives you the freedom to move around and encourages you
to be much more gestural with your paint applications. It is something that helps to
loosen your painting technique. By standing, you will be encouraged to stand back
more often and look at your painting to see the whole picture. You’ll be much less
likely to lean in and focus on tiny details whilst ignoring the composition of the piece,
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which painters tend to do more when they’re sitting down. Focussing on the
composition rather than the details really is the objective of the ‘loose’ painting style.
The type of easel you choose will depend upon the amount of space you have and
your budget. If you like to paint large, a H frame easel is the most durable option that
can hold the largest canvas sizes.
With a hand held palette, you can move around with your colours, making it feel
easier to stand up at the easel.
Get brushes with long handles
Supplies: long handle brushes
For oil and acrylic painting, long handle brushes balance in your hand when you’re
standing up to paint, giving you better control.
You can choose where to hold them in your hand. Hold the brush nearer the bristles
for precision, or nearer the end of the handle to make large sweeping strokes.
Paint with large brushes
Supplies: Large, flat brushes, palette knives
One rule that people are often taught in art school is to paint with a brush as large as
they can manage for the subject they are painting. Square shaped brushes are great
for painting large areas, they also simplify the painting, preventing you from
agonising over detail.
With a few strokes of the brush, you can create a representation of your subject. Opt
to use a palette knife instead for a choppier look, or use it to remove paint.
Plan your colour palette
Be as expressive as you like with your colour mixing. The aim isn’t always to copy
the colours you see in real life. There can always be an element of artistic
interpretation when it comes to mixing your colours. If you want to evoke a feeling
from your painting, you could opt to choose a colour scheme before getting started.
In this oil painting by Monet, only greens and blues were used, with a small pop of
yellow. This limited, cool palette creates a feeling of harmony, peace and calm.
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Read up on limited colour palettes if you’re not sure which colours to select to start
mixing.
Another tip is to mix all your colours before you start rather than as you go along. As
stopping to mix colours can disrupt the flow of painting.
Plan composition first
One tip that might suit your painting practice is to plan how all the elements fit
together on your canvas before laying paint down. By preparing certain elements like
mixing colours and having the composition established prior to painting, it saves you
from having to consider composition as you go along. So you can just focus on the
process of applying colour and on your brushwork.
When I plan composition, I’ll have several reference photos that I will use as
inspiration, then draw thumbnail sketches in my sketchbook until I find a composition
that I think will work. Then I sketch out my composition on canvas. Sometimes I will
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spend time creating an accurate drawing, other times I’ll sketch very roughly—
especially if I can’t wait to get started.
Having a good foundation, by mixing colours that harmonise with one another and by
creating an aesthetically pleasing composition, you will have more time and space to
get into the flow of painting, create wonderfully interesting brushstrokes and perfect
your brushwork and technique.
Be decisive when applying paint
To achieve that painterly effect, be decisive, intentional and confident about applying
paint. This is about knowing which colour to apply to the right section on your
canvas.
The aim is to analyse the reference closely before actually putting any colour down
on the surface, then applying the paint in the right spot to create the desired effect. It
takes practice to achieve this, however. The best way to practice is by spending
time looking at a reference, soaking in the light and colour and details you want to
include before deciding how to translate this to canvas.
Many artists, such as John Singer Sargent using a loose painterly style are reported
to have painted in this way.
Be selective about which details you want to include
Although a loose painting style is characterised by a lack of detail, that doesn’t mean
you have to omit all detail from your painting. Study your reference and consider if
there are any details that make the scene appear unique, or could add interest to
your painting.
Spontaneous brushwork
The key to spontaneity is letting go of the fear of making mistakes and your vision of
perfect results. Have fun with the process of applying paint to the canvas,
experimenting with different effects and taking risks. If you do make a mistake, you
can always scrape thick paint away with a palette knife.
Create transitional shades
One technique you likely won’t be using much of if you’re trying to create a painterly
effect is blending. So, to create realistic tonal transitions and the appearance of
gradients, mix transitional shades between colours to apply in impasto-like strokes.
The more transitional shades you mix, the more realistic your colours will appear in
your painting. Transitional shades between colours also work to create harmony in a
painting.
feature image: Cuno Amiet: Blumengarten
33. Cotton vs Linen Canvas: What are the
Differences?
There are two main types of canvas available to painters, cotton and linen. Each is
made from different fabric—cotton is made from the cotton plant and linen is made
from flax. Aside from what they are made out of, there are some notable differences
between the properties of the two types of canvas.
In this guide, learn the differences between the two fabrics and discover which would
better suit your painting practice.
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Contents hide
1 Cotton vs linen canvas: product picks
1.1 Winsor & Newton Cotton Canvas
1.2 Linen canvas
2 Cotton vs linen canvas: Which is more durable?
2.1 What is the longevity of the two materials?
3 Cotton vs linen canvas: which is more suitable for oil painting?
4 Cotton vs linen canvas: is the texture different?
5 Cotton vs linen: how do you prepare the canvas for painting?
6 Cotton vs linen: which is more expensive?
7 Cotton vs linen canvas: Pin it!
Cotton vs linen canvas: product picks
Winsor & Newton Cotton Canvas
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Buy Cotton Canvases

This professional grade cotton canvas has been hand stretched for optimum tension
with kiln dried wooden stretcher bars. The texture provides a great absorbency and
tooth. Cotton is an affordable option for artists.
Linen canvas
Buy Linen Canvases

Linen is strong, durable and favoured by professional artists.
Cotton vs linen canvas: Which is more durable?
Linen is the canvas of choice for artists who want their paintings to stand the test of
time. Cotton is more flexible, while linen is more rigid. This means that linen is much
less likely to warp or dent.
It’s possible for stretched cotton canvases to become loose and dent over time.
Fixing dents is relatively simple. Spray a tiny amount of water on the back of the
dent, and leave it to soak. To fix sagging corners of the canvas, reinforce with the
wooden bars that come in the pack.
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If you are painting on a large scale, then linen should be your surface of choice, as
it’s less likely to dip or warp in the centre after a painting session. For rigorous
painting techniques, I would recommend linen as being the tougher choice.
What is the longevity of the two materials?
Linen will stand the test of time, whereas cotton won’t to the same extent. It’s an
investment if you want to sell your artworks, or pass them down through the
generations.
The threads that make the linen fabric don’t expand or contract as a result of the
moisture content as much as cotton. They are more stable in a variety of
environments, be it humid or dry. Linen fabric also contains oils in its fibres, meaning
that it stops the canvas from becoming brittle with age. So if you’re looking to sell
your artwork, advertise it as ‘fine art’, price it higher or send it to a gallery, I would
recommend painting on linen.
Cotton vs linen canvas: which is more suitable for oil painting?
Linen is more suitable for oil painting than cotton, as it is more rigid and less likely to
warp. When oil dries, the paint film becomes inflexible. If a cotton canvas, warps too
much the rigid oil paint film could crack.
If kept at a stable temperature and in an environment that doesn’t have extreme
fluctuations in humidity, cotton won’t warp. So it’s not a common feat for a cotton
canvas to lose its shape, but it is more likely to happen with cotton than linen. It’s the
durability of linen that makes it more attractive to professional artists.
Acrylic paint dries to a flexible film, so if you don’t have to worry as much about the
potential of the paint film cracking when using cotton canvas. For a comprehensive
product review of the best canvases for painting, check out our guide.
Cotton vs linen canvas: is the texture different?
Cotton has a more consistent but prominent texture. This is less suited to fine detail
work as small brushes and fine lines can get lost in the weave.
Linen has a unique texture. It’s finer and more suited to painting in details, but also
has a more natural look to it. The surface texture of linen makes it perfect for oil and
acrylic paint, as both mediums need a slight surface texture to adhere to the surface.
You can buy both linen and cotton canvases in a range of textures from smooth to
rough from Winsor & Newton, that have been smoothed and primed by the
manufacturer.
Cotton vs linen: how do you prepare the canvas for painting?
In order to paint on canvas, be it cotton or linen, the fabric first needs to be stretched
around wooden bars, then primed ready for paint.
There are many ready made options available to artists who want a surface that they
can take out of the box and paint straight onto. Manufacturers such as Winsor &
Newton and Belle Arti will prime canvases with gesso so it is ready to paint onto.
The preparation process for raw canvas is the same, despite whether you are
working with linen or cotton.
If you buy a ready made canvas, make sure you read the product description. It will
tell you if gesso has been applied already or not. A canvas that is labelled as
‘universally primed’ will have been prepared with acrylic sealant and gesso.
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Choose to paint with acrylic or oil on universally primed canvases. On ‘oil primed’
canvases, however, stick to painting with oils.
For a smoother surface, which is better for painting in fine detail, sand your primed
canvas with fine tooth sandpaper, then apply a few extra coats of gesso.
Cotton vs linen: which is more expensive?
Professional painters often opt to buy linen canvas as it is more sturdy and hard
wearing, however it can be more expensive. Fewer brands supply linen canvases.
You can opt to buy fabric yourself, then stretch and prime it. Painters who do this like
the control they have over the outcome of their painting substrate.
Cotton is more readily available and easier to make. It’s easy to find various brands
that stock super cheap cotton canvases. Artist grade cotton is more tightly woven
and therefore stronger, but this will come at a slightly higher price point.
Look at your budget and the options available. If you’re wanting to get an
inexpensive surface to practice on, go for cotton. It is still a high quality surface to
use with a range of mediums. Get used to how it feels to paint on canvas by
practising on cotton before you invest in linen.
If you plan to work large, sell your paintings, or if you prefer something more rigid
and high quality, linen is a worthwhile investment to make.
34. Composition in Art

Composition in art is defined as the planning and arrangement of various visual
elements. It describes how these elements relate to one another to elicit a particular
effect.
The visual elements that can be arranged are line, shape, colour, value, texture,
form and space. Arrange these visual elements within the structure of the artwork to
communicate meaning and intent.
Composition in art is subjective. However, artists can use compositional techniques
to create unity, balance, rhythm and movement to establish context and convey
meaning. Consider how you want to compose the painting before you begin. The
finished artwork will likely appear more harmonious and you will be more likely to
achieve the desired effects.
Contents hide
1 Why plan composition in art?
2 Compositional elements
2.1 Balance
2.2 Focus
2.3 Movement
2.4 Contrast
2.5 Pattern
2.6 Proportion
2.7 Rhythm
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2.8 Unity
3 Compositional techniques
3.1 Geometric composition
3.1.1 The rule of thirds
3.2 Rule of odds
3.3 Think of negative space
3.4 Simplifying the image
3.5 Symmetry
3.6 Framing element
4 Interpreting the reference
4.1 Editing a photo reference to improve composition
5 How to plan composition in a painting
5.1 Notan and value studies
5.2 Thumbnail sketches
5.3 Create a small mockup
5.4 Create a grid
5.5 Start with a sketch
5.6 Start with the abstract
5.7 Begin with an underpainting
6 Look at the whole picture
7 Plein air composition tips
8 Colour composition in art
9 Rules are there to be broken
10 Further reading & courses
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Why plan composition in art?
A good composition draws the viewer in and catches their attention. Typically, artists
will naturally have a ‘good eye for design’ and position elements in an aesthetically
pleasing way. Whether that is at the point when they are taking a reference photo, or
drawing the outline for a painting.
There are many instances where planning a composition first can be helpful. For
example, you can change the photo by editing it in a program like Photoshop. One
quick tactic I occasionally use is that I crop images so that the top two thirds of the
photo is dominated by the sky, leaving a strip of land or sea in the bottom third.
Alternatively, make a series of thumbnail sketches. Shuffle elements around in
each little sketch, until you settle on the most attractively composed version.
When drawing or painting from imagination, or when combining multiple references,
it’s essential to plan the composition to make the piece as successful as it can be.
Not only will you have to unify the subject with the surroundings and the light source,
you will have to map out how it will all fit together. By creating a few thumbnail
composition sketches first, it will save you from making potential mistakes in your
final artwork.
Compositional elements
First we’ll look at the different elements that make a composition. These elements all
elicit certain effects that can be achieved by arranging shape, space, colour, line,
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form and texture in different ways and by employing certain compositional

techniques.
When artists are aware and mindful of these particular elements when planning a
piece, they begin to have much more control over the design and impact of the
finished painting.
Balance
Van Gogh: Irises

This concept describes how elements are spaced to create a sense of harmony. If
the subjects of the painting are all concentrated in one area, it creates a sense of
imbalance. If you were to move one of these elements to the other side of the
canvas, it would balance the elements out. A symmetrical arrangement of elements
will create harmony, whereas asymmetry will create dynamism.
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Focus
Anders Zorn: Omnibus Study

A focal point is probably the most important compositional principle to consider
before starting a painting. What will the most dominant feature of the painting be and
which element will immediately demand the viewer’s attention?
It could be that this element is made salient through its placement (i.e. where our eye
is automatically drawn). The salient element could have a contrasting colour to make
it stand out. Alternatively, the element could have more texture than all the other
elements in the painting.
An obvious thing to do is to place the focal point in the foreground, compared to all
other elements that appear distant. The illusion of distance can be created by
making foreground lines and details sharper and more contrasted. This is compared
to more distant objects which will have soft edges and colours that are similar in
value.
Movement
How do you turn a painting from looking flat, to looking full of life? You need to add
movement.
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Van Gogh: A Road in St. Remy with Female Figures

Create movement with geometry and form—Van Gogh’s trees always appeared as if
they were swaying in the breeze. Lines radiate from objects, making them appear
alive and as if they are connected to other elements in the piece.
Other devices that can create a sense of movement are, body position of a figure,
texture, or a geometric composition, such as elements being arranged in a triangle
formation.
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Contrast
Caravaggio: Saint Jerome Writing

Contrast is the difference in tone, value and colour between different elements. Use
high contrast between values to create dramatic effects, or keep the differences to a
minimum to create a sense of subtlety. Chiaroscuro is an Italian technique
developed by Leonardo da Vinci, whereby bold contrasts are used in shadows.
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Pattern
John Singer Sargent: Garden Study of the Vickers Children
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Symmetry and repetition of lines or colours creates patterns in artwork. By repeating

elements, you can tie components that may otherwise appear disparate together.
Pattern creates cohesion in artwork. In this painting by Singer Sargent, harmony is
created through the repetiton of the flowers.
Proportion
How elements are spaced—this includes scale, distance and size. It describes how
elements relate to one another in terms of their size. The mountains in my painting of
the French Alps appear smaller when receding into the distance, for example.
Rhythm
This is to do with how dominant elements fit together and the pace at which each of
these components is viewed.
Edgar Payne: Arizona Mesa

Leading lines direct the viewer around a painting. Shape, positioning and colour
creates flow and tempo. In this painting, Arizona Mesa by Edgar Payne, rhythm is
created by directing the viewer from the red rocks of the canyon, to the figures in the
foreground. The brightly coloured rocks force eyes to linger and eye movement to
slow. Foreground figures are placed in the bottom left third, where eyes are
automatically drawn, causing our attention to shift. This is the effect of a painting’s
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rhythm. It’s how elements are combined to consecutively grab the viewer’s attention
and create an order of dominance.
Unity
How do the visual elements fit together? You can create contrast and unity
simultaneously in a painting. A lack of unity is more to do with feeling like a
component is out of place.
Childe Hassam: Couch on the Porch, Cos Cob

In this artwork, Hassam creates unity with the quality of light, use of values, a triadic
colour scheme and with the consistency of line and form.
Compositional techniques
So how do you put all this information to practice and create an aesthetically
pleasing composition in art? A compositional technique is a description of how the
artist manipulates these compositional elements to create a unique image.
There are certain ways of using these compositional principles to arrange visual
elements that have been proven to create pieces that appear aesthetically pleasing.
Use compositional techniques to sharpen your perception of some of the devices at
work within different artworks. This will in turn give you the tools you need to help
create a more powerful composition. However, don’t let these rules dictate your
process or stop your creative flow! Sometimes it’s just as important to create based
on intuition as it is to create images based on predetermined frameworks.
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Geometric composition
This relates to the idea of arranging elements in such a way to bring structure and
order to an artwork. The canvas is divided into sections, such as thirds and elements
are then arranged to fit into the intersections. The purpose of a geometrical
composition is to draw different elements in a picture together. This is how artists
can show the relationship between subjects and objects and demonstrate salience to
a viewer.
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Joh
n Singer Sargent: Dorothy Barnard: Sargent frames the portrait with the flowers and
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lamp in a triangle shaped formation.

A common facet of a geometric composition is the use of spatial dividers. The
dividers are used to create distinct but linked sections of an artwork. This can work
well for a composition that lacks a single focal point.
Claude Monet: The Seine at Bougival in the Evening: The lake forms an S-curve
which has been used as a spatial divider.
Some examples of spatial dividers are triangles that are used to segment areas of
the canvas. Other spatial dividers are arcs, S-curves, straight or diagonal lines.
The rule of thirds
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Van Gogh: Starry Night Over the Rhone: The reflections in the water dominate the
bottom 2/3 of the painting, while the figures appear 2/3 to the right.
The rule of thirds is perhaps the most common compositional technique in art and
photography. An artists’ surface is divided into thirds, both vertically and horizontally.
Then the subject is placed at one of the points where the lines intersect.
Edward Hopper: Nighthawks
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This technique serves to bring order to an artwork, create balance and adequate
negative space around a subject. The focal point of the painting can be placed at the
point where eyes are naturally drawn. Canvases can be divided mentally, or
measured and drawn on. This particular technique can be used with any subject—an
example might be to line up the horizon with the bottom third intersection of the
surface, then place a tree on the left-side vertical third.
Paul Delvaux: Loneliness

The golden proportion is a geometrically constructible ratio that frequently appears in
nature and it also has influences in art. It’s a little more complex than the rule of
thirds, but if you enjoy taking a mathematical approach to art, it’s an interesting
concept to read up on. Check out this article from Draw Paint Academy for more
about how to use the golden proportion to design your artworks.
Rule of odds
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Isaac Levitan: Peonies

This is the idea that the composition will appear more visually pleasing if there are an
odd number of elements, rather than an even number of elements.
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Think of negative space
Anders Zorn: Martha Dana
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Negative space in art is the empty space surrounding the subject or an object. This
could be the background colour, an area of sky, or landscape that is out of focus
behind the main subject.
M.C. Escher: Development II

By simplifying an artwork and using negative space effectively, paintings can exude
dramatic minimalism and emphasise the focal point. Paintings with too many
elements can appear busy and confusing for the viewer, with the focal points not
obvious.
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Simplifying the image
John Singer Sargent: A Landscape Study at San Vigilio, Lake of Garda

Simplify an image by taking out all that is unnecessary. Scenes in real life often
appear cluttered. Simplifying is quite a nice concept for us artists, as it means less
time spent detailing every single object in sight! Analyse your reference or scene
carefully and consider which elements have the greatest impact on the overall
design of the piece. For example, if you are painting the ocean, you may decide that
painting just one surfer on the barrel of the wave instead of three, would allow the
viewer to focus on a single person’s experience.
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Symmetry
Claude Monet: Fishing Boats at Honfleur

A symmetrical composition has inherent beauty. This could be a natural symmetry,
for example, a still lake reflecting a sunrise. However, pure symmetry can sometimes
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make an image appear unvaried and monotonous, so artists can opt to break the
symmetry by placing a subject, like a bird or boat off centre on the water.
Framing element
Paul Cezanne: The Sea at l’Estaque

A framing element acts to lead the viewer’s eye to the focal point of the piece. The
frame usually takes up at least one or two corners of a canvas and the intent is not to
distract from the main subject. It almost acts as a negative space, usually darker,
more blurred or more muted in tone than the primary focus. A framing element can
have textures of its own, a good example is a tree framing a distant mountain view,
where the mountain is the main subject.
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Interpreting the reference
With knowledge about the different rules and techniques in composition, interpreting
the reference to create a painting will feel more intuitive, whether your first step is
taking a photo, or finding a spot outdoors to set up your plein air easel. For
example, you can photograph a scene to give adequate space around objects to
create a feeling of balance, or you can point the camera at a subject, so that the
subject is framed to make for a more interesting composition. When painting en
plein air, you can spend some time looking at your scene and moving around until
you find the best lighting, angle and composition.
Editing a photo reference to improve composition
If you’re working from a photo reference that looks off balance and askew, there are
ways to edit it in Photoshop. Having a more accurate photo reference can help you
to better envision the appearance of your final painting.
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Photo before cropping

The simplest way to alter the composition is to crop the image. For example, by
cropping this photo, balance is achieved.
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Photo after cropping

In the first image, there was too much space on the left, but by cropping, the image
looks more symmetrical. It’s a subtle difference, but I chose to simplify the scene by
removing unnecessary snow and aligned the tree and fence with the rule of thirds. It
makes for a standard composition. Another more advanced method to fix a
composition by filling in blank space, is by using the content aware tool.
You could also use the blur tool, or clone stamp tool to remove clutter from an
image, to simplify its appearance.
How to plan composition in a painting

There are a number of methods to plan and test compositions before you commit to
applying paint. Then there are more methods you can employ to implement them in
your final piece. It’s useful to plan the composition carefully for larger works and
commission pieces to ensure that you will be as happy as you possibly can with the
final outcome.
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Notan and value studies
Vincent van Gogh: Café Terrace at Night and two value notan
Notan can help you to reduce your image to just black and white values. By creating
a notan, you can see the broad shapes, values and masses in the image, without
colours or tones confusing the picture. This will allow you to arrange the line, shapes
and spacing accordingly, to create a more balanced design. For example, from this
notan study of van Gogh’s Café Terrace at Night, the focal point of the terrace areas
is created with light values. Then, the viewer’s eye is lead in towards the sky and the
darkest values in the distance. It’s this arrangement of the shape and form that
creates the rhythm in the piece.
‘Horizon‘ painting: notan and value study
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A value study is different from a notan study. The artist will draw the image with a full
value range. This can be helpful in determining the accuracy of the values and the
contrast and whether the contrast should be increased or toned down to create a
more harmonious image.
Thumbnail sketches
Grab a sketchbook and roughly draw out a series of small boxes (a few inches in
diameter) in the same proportions as your canvas. Then fill the boxes with the main
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elements that will feature in your artwork. You could do this in a sketchbook, with
some graphite pencils, or coloured pencils.
Feature your main subject and secondary subjects and any other important features
like horizon lines. Omit small details and instead focus on positioning, proportion,
values, whitespace, balance and other compositional devices you want to include.
Looking at the broad picture, you can consider whether to include a geometrical
composition, like a triangular, or S formation.
Create a small mockup
Another way to create a mockup of a painting, is creating a digital painting. With a

program like Photoshop and a graphics tablet making digital paintings is easy—
create a new artboard, pick your colours and brushes and start sketching! You
could also use an app like Procreate with an iPad to quickly mockup the painting and
test colour combinations.
Create a grid
If you have created the perfect mock-up sketch, or if you’ve spent time editing a
reference photo and you want to ensure accuracy in your final piece, create a
grid and scale it up to the painting. Use grid lines and reference points to guide how
you place different elements in the image.
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For example, you could use Photoshop to create a mockup and set the artboard to
have the same aspect ratio as the canvas you will be working on (i.e. 2:3). Then
create a grid in Photoshop of four segments width ways and six segments vertically.
Next, draw a grid with the same proportions out on the canvas, with four segments
going across and six segments up. The squares in Photoshop will act as reference
points for all the major parts of the drawing or painting.
Start with a sketch
Before committing to laying down the paint, or heavy pencil lines, complete a light
sketch. This way, you can be sure about the structure and proportions of the piece
before you think about colours, values, edges, details and all the other features that
make for a good painting. The placement of elements is like the skeleton, once you
know everything is in the right place, you can fill it out in a way that makes it come
alive.
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Start with the abstract
To approach turning the reference into a painting, start by looking at the abstract
masses in the reference or your composition sketch. It’s important to consider how
shape and colour will interact before painting detail. It can be helpful to start with
the blocking-in technique, where painters start by blocking out the abstract shapes
and colours they see in their reference, which keeps the focus on the big picture and
the composition as a whole, rather than focussing on disjointed details from an early
stage.
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Begin with an underpainting
An alternative method to starting a painting with the blocking in method, is starting

with an underpainting. The purpose of the underpainting is to establish values
before colour is added. The relative light and darkness of areas of a painting help to
create focal points in the composition. For example you can create areas that are
similar in tone, that will fade into the background for the viewer, but the subject may
have features that appear more contrasted against this background. The
underpainting is a great opportunity to map out the structure of the piece. It doesn’t
have to be detailed—many artists will complete an underpainting as a sketch for
example, with thinned oil paint.
The underpainting technique can be more detailed too, as some artists will paint a
background colour of a neutral earth colour, then paint where the shadows and
highlights will go with titanium white and burnt umber.
Look at the whole picture
A good tip to focus on the effect of the image as whole rather than focussing on
unnecessary details is to regularly step back from the artwork. Look at how the
different elements in the piece relate to one another. Question whether the eye is
drawn to the focal point effectively, if the piece is well balanced and if the proportions
are right.
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35. Plein air composition tips

When out painting on location, it can be much trickier finding a good composition in a
scene. This is due to changing light and weather conditions. A good tip is to take a
photo of the scene you want to paint outdoors. If you don’t get to finish it, you can
come back to it and finish it in the studio.
Another tip is to get a ViewCatcher, which can help frame an image and give a
sense of focus and perspective when looking at a scene.
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Nothing compares to the feeling you can get from painting en plein air. Colours, light
and extra sensory information can contribute to you creating a more atmospheric
piece.
Colour composition in art
Claude Monet: Banks of the Seine at Jenfosse – Clear Weather

Considering how a painting is structured can greatly improve the overall effect of the
artwork, but colour and value are just as important. Plan the colour composition by
considering how different colours interact, whether they harmonise or contrast. If
you’re fairly new to painting, check out our guides on colour theory, colour
mixing and how to create colour schemes in art.
Create a sense of peace, or a sense of dynamism by carefully selecting or altering
colour combinations. Use colour temperature, or saturation to unify elements in a
painting. Alternatively you could paint in a high key (light tones) to bring elements
together. Use contrast between light and dark, or similar values and different values
to create emphasis and rhythm.
Rules are there to be broken
Rules in art aren’t supposed to be constraints, they are there to guide artists. Once
you have practised creating artworks with typically ‘good’ composition, try flouting
some of these maxims. You can do this to create unease and tension in a piece.
Think of works by Hieronymus Bosch, his paintings are notoriously cluttered, chaotic
and dark. However, he used art to create a sense of unrest, to shine a negative light
on behaviours, practices or systems he saw as immoral.
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https://arthistoryproject.com/essays/the-elements-of-art/
36. Advanced Composition Techniques
We've talked about some common techniques for creating pleasing compositions,
like the rule of thirds, and the rule of space, but throughout history artists have
developed and followed increasingly complex systems and rules for creating
compositions. It's important to note when investigating composition in historical
artworks, that there is no 'secret formula' that all great art follows. The golden
rectangle isn't hidden in every masterpiece. Cultures and art movements develop
composition techniques that reflect their taste. "Good" composition is subjective and
tied to the unique cultural values of a time and place. Over time, many delightful and
esoteric systems were invented, expanded on, and eventually thrown out by the
generations that follow. Composition techniques are a kind of fashion, they come
and go, but they're all interesting.
Below we explore a handful of composition systems from the last 500 years in
Western Art. Most of these examples come from the brilliant book "The Painter's
Secret Geometry" by the artist and historian Charles Bouleau. We'll expand on
compositions found in non-western art in another essay, since we still have much
research to do.
Rabatment of the Square
Every rectangle contains two implied squares, the height and width of the short side
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of the rectangle. By rotating the short sides of the rectangle, you can find the two
lines of rabatment in the rectangle. Placing focal points along these lines creates a
strong composition.
The Rabatment of the Square is similar to the rule of thirds—a relatively simple way
to find a pleasing location for a focal point within a rectangle. In theory, the rectangle
is a primal geometric form, and that when viewing a rectangle, the brain
subconsciously creates the line of rabatment, finding the square within the rectangle.
If this is true, then placing a focal point on one of the two lines of rabatment meets
the viewer's expectation and rewards their subconscious behavior. Artist's have used
the rabatment since at least the Early Renaissance, with Giotto's St Francis Before
the Sultan providing an extremely literal example.
Armature of the Rectangle
Every rectangle contains an inherent geometry. Lines from corner to corner, the two
lines of rabatment, diagonals from those lines to the corners, lines drawn from the
intersections of those lines, and so on. This is called the Armature of the Rectangle.
The Armature of the Rectangle looks like a conspiracy theory—a network of lines
and intersections so dense that you could probably slap it on top of any artwork and
find some element that aligns. And that's exactly the point. The Armature is not a
recipe for creating a pleasing composition, it's a tool to help the artist become aware
of the geometry of their canvas. The Armature has been used in many ways over the
centuries. Artists typically placed focal points at critical intersections, aligned figures
to diagonals, or blocked out space using vertical and horizontal divisions. The beauty
of the Armature is that it is not chosen, it is innate. No matter if the artist knowingly
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engages with it, knowingly thwarts it, or creates in blissful ignorance or it, the
armature is always there.
Golden Triangle
Dividing a rectangular space by its diagonal and drawing lines down from the corners
to intersect perpendicularly with this diagonal forms an aggressively dynamic
composition.
The Golden Triangle rarely appears in discussions of composition, and examples of

its use are few. However, we wanted to include it here since it is simple to construct,
and creates a dramatic flow within the space. Also, the name 'Golden Triangle'
sounds enticingly esoteric. If you find or create an artwork that uses this unusual
composition, let us know.
Symmetrical Balance
Perfect vertical or horizontal symmetry can be frustrating to the eye (see basic
composition) but balancing an equal weight of forms on either side of a central focal
point can form a pleasing composition.
Strictly symmetrical compositions fall in and out of fashion through history, from the
formal religious symmetry of medieval altarpieces to the complex radial symmetry of
Islamic patterning, to the geometric symmetry of modern minimalism, but one form of
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symmetry can be found in almost every era and culture: symmetrical balance. If
there is a central focal point in a composition, and the visual weight of figures or focal
points on each side of this center appear equal, the composition is symmetrically
balanced, even if the central focal point is not in the exact center of the overall
composition.
The Medallion
Divide a circle in half through the center, then divide it again and again into eight
'slices'—from each point where the dividing lines intersect with the circle's edge,
draw lines to intersect with the other intersection points. This armature of the circle
provides useful structure when creating compositions within a circular space.
The medallion composition has been used in decorative art for thousands of years,
appearing with many variations in Islamic patterning, romanesque tilework, and
stained glass. In western art, the medallion begins appearing in figurative artwork in
the 13th century, when the rose windows of Gothic architecture began influencing
medieval manuscript illuminators. Didactic examples of composition using
medallions appear in the Psalter of Blanche of Castille. Since the Middle Ages, the
medallion has been used in round compositions like tondos, and inserted into
rectangular compositions, though rarely with the formality found in the Gothic
illuminations. More often compositions will imply circular movement, but without the
rigidity of the medallion armature.
Albertism
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In music theory, the difference between two notes on a scale is called an interval,
and according to Italian artist, architect and author Leon Battista Alberti, the intervals
between harmonious notes could be visually harmonious as well, when used as
ratios in composition.
If the armature of the rectangle looks like a conspiracy theory, Albertism looks like
full-on black magic. Even if you are well-versed in music theory it’s difficult to get
your mind around how Alberti and the renaissance artists used musical ratios to
construct and divide their canvases. Alberti drew his ratios from the length of the
strings required to play complimentary notes, picking and choosing from wide array
of musical scales, focusing on the following ratios:
The Diapason, or Octave: 1/2
The Diapente: 2/3
The Diatessaron: 3/4
The Diapason-Diapente: 1/3
The Tonus, or Sesquioctave: (1/8)
Alberti’s theories were obtuse even when he wrote them, and artists adapted his
ideas in a wide variety of esoteric and disconnected ways. So why are we talking
about a seemingly arbitrary composition method? Because it helps us understand
why some very strange decisions were made in one of the most famous paintings of
all time.
In 1484, Sandro Botticelli painted one of the most famous artworks of the Italian
Renaissance, The Birth of Venus. And this particular painting is absolutely
confounding in its composition. Traditionally the composition would be symmetrical,
venus in the center of the canvas. Botticelli places her ever so slightly off-center,
leaning toward the right side. The subtle asymmetry is infuriating, and without
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knowing that artists during this phase of the Italian Renaissance were obsessed
with Albertism, it's seemingly inexplicable.
Here's how Alberti's cryptic musical ratios could be applied to a canvas. According to
Charles Bouleau, one of Botticelli's favorite ratios was the double diatessaron, or
9/12/16. To see how Botticelli may have composed the Birth of Venus, we divide
each side into 16ths, Then create an armature of intersecting lines, not from the
center or rabatments, but from the points that correspond to the double diatessaron
ratio, that is: 9/16ths, and 12/16th. To create the tilted asymmetry, Botticelli counted
from the top left and bottom right corners of the canvas, creating a diagonal focal
division through the center of the canvas, and a series of dynamically skewed focal
lines that he mapped his composition to with religious accuracy.
With Alberti's rhythmic ratios mapped onto Botticelli masterwork, the underlying
composition snaps into focus. And this is only a single example. To see more, pick
up a copy of The Painter's Secret Geometry to see how Bouleau tracks
down Alberti's ratios in many of Botticelli's great works and in other renaissance
paintings.
...
Artists through history have delved into mathematics, philosophy, music, and the
science of their day to uncover new methods for creating pleasing and balanced
compositions. Understanding these methods transform how we see artwork, giving
us a peek at the rigor, planning and care that hide behind a finished artwork. And
personally, we hope that examining these old methods will inspire a new generation
of artists to apply some of the formal compositions of the past. Creativity doesn't
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necessarily mean breaking the rules. Sometimes creativity is creating your own
rules, or finding a new way to apply old ones.
The Elements of Art
Eight tools, infinite expression
All artwork speaks the same language through a vocabulary of eight terms
expressed in infinite ways. We all understand the vocabulary of art subconsciously,
but recognizing how it’s applied enriches our experience of art and allows for
nuanced discussion of artworks and appreciation of the artist's passion and skill. The
vocabulary of art is made up of the Formal Elements of Design: line, shape, form,
space, color, texture, motion, and time.

Line
The most basic element of design is the line: a mark with greater length than width,
the path traced by a moving point. In mathematics, a line has no width, but in art,
lines can be thin, thick, rough or smooth. Lines can convey tremendous emotion,
from aggressive zig-zags or tranquil waves to nauseating spirals. Artists can
convey confidence in bold lines, or precision with straight lines.

Shape
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A shape is formed when lines enclose a space. The edges of the shape are its
contour, which can be geometric or organic, open or closed. Like lines, shapes can
be expressive, sharp or soft, architecturally rigid or flowing. Simple shapes form a
common vocabulary that stretches back millenia, often associated with specific
attributes. Roman Architects believed the circle to be divinely perfect, and used it
when designing their temples. Triangles were imagined to point to the heavens.

Form
Form is the real or perceived dimensionality of a shape, expressing length, width,
and depth. Spheres, cubes, pyramids are three-dimensional forms, and some of the
fundamental building blocks for expression in art. Form can also describe the
structure of a work of art. The composition of a painting or the chapters of a book.
Form can be used to talk about the arrangement of formal elements that present the
whole.

Space
Space is the area between and around objects. In art and design, the space is as
important as the forms it surrounds. Space can be two or three dimensional, and is
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often referred to as negative space. Space holds the objects it contains, providing
context. Space is as emotive as lines and shapes, and can create feelings of
isolation, claustrofobia, or wide open possibility.

Color
Color is possibly the most complex tool at the artist's disposal. Color is scientifically
defined as the light that reflects off illuminated objects, whose pigmentation absorbs
some wavelengths, and the wavelengths that remain enter the eye. The colors we
see are part of the visible spectrum: red, orange, yellow, green, blue, and indigo, but
these colors combine into millions of perceivable colors. To talk about the variations
of colors, we use the terms hue, value, and intensity. Hue defines the range the color
sits within, like a greenish yellow or a yellowy green. Value is the relative lightness or
darkness of the color, and intensity is the relative brightness or dullness of the color.

Texture
Texture comes from the latin word texo, meaning 'to weave' and refers to the
qualities of a material surface. Texture may be seen and felt in dimensional objects,
such as canvas or a marble sculpture, and two-dimensional objects can create the
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illusion of texture, like a photograph of a rough wooden surface. Texture can be

evocative. Smooth objects can feel refined, and rough surfaces may create a gritty,
aggressive appearance.

Motion
Motion is the movement or change of an object over time. In art motion can be
applied to sculpture, called kinetic sculpture, and is a natural element of video and
performance art.

Time
The effect of time on artwork is an oft overlooked element of design. All objects
change over time, though in different ways. A stone artifact from 30,000 BCE may be
nearly unchanged from the time of its creation, but paintings fade. Time is also part
of how we consume art. A book may take weeks to read, and that time creates a
different context for the experience than an article read in minutes. Video uses time
the same way a painter uses negative space, employing pacing, momentum, and
balance over the length of the film.
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37. Scumbling Painting Technique: Beginner’s Guide

Scumbling is a painting technique that can be used to add depth and dimension to
a painting. Artists also use the technique to create texture. It is often used in
conjunction with other painting techniques, such as glazing, to create a complex and
nuanced painting. The effects that can be achieved with scumbling could be
described as loose or painterly.
It is similar to the dry brushing technique, which is a technique used in oil, acrylic and
watercolour painting. However, the scumbling technique can also be used with
drawing media!
In this guide, find out what the scumbling technique is and how to try it for yourself to
add a new dimension to your artworks.
Contents hide
1 Scumbling definition
2 How to use the scumbling technique in a painting
3 How to apply paint with the scumbling technique: Steps
4 What are the benefits of this technique
5 Tips for using the scumbling technique
6 Examples of scumbling in art
7 Which mediums can you use with the scumbling technique?
8 What subjects can you paint with this technique?
9 Finally
Scumbling definition
Scumbling is a painting technique, in which a thin layer of opaque or semi-
opaque color is applied over a dry base, the layer will be applied in such a way
so that it appears broken. The colour beneath will be visible to the viewer,
which creates variation and interest. Artists can apply the paint with a scrubbing
motion, to create the scratchy looking surface texture. This technique is often used
with lighter, opaque pigments, to brighten dark shadow areas.
The technique works to alter previous layers of colour. When the broken paint film of
the scumbled layer is seen next to colours in previous layers, the viewer’s eyes will
mix colours optically. This creates a kind of optical illusion for the viewer. This is
because the marks of two disparate colours, with one overlaying the other, look as if
they have been mixed, when the viewer stands back from the artwork.
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How to use the scumbling technique in a painting
There are various ways to use scumbling in a painting. You can either use it for the
entire painting or for specific areas that you want to draw attention to.
Scumbling is typically done with a brush that has stiff bristles, such as a hog’s hair
brush for oil painting or a stiff synthetic brush for acrylic painting. You can use this
technique with watercolour, but use a soft brush that is slightly drier to apply paint.
Despite the medium you use, make sure to work on a dry surface with this
technique. It works better with a brush that is a little drier and with thicker paint if
you’re using oil or acrylic paint.
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J.W. Turner: Snow Storm Steam-Boat off a Harbour’s Mouth

The paint is applied in a light layer over the surface of the painting, in quick sweeping
motions. This is because the purpose of scumbling isn’t to achieve fine detail, but to
emulate the appearance of texture. Previous layers of colour will show through,
where the stiff brush marks break the surface of the wet paint. For example, J.M.W
Turner used the scumbling technique to create the effect of fog in the distance.
Be expressive and gestural with your brush, this way you’ll be most likely to achieve
more texture and get paint on the surface faster.
The brush doesn’t have to be completely loaded with paint, you could absorb some
of the excess paint with a paper towel to create a scumble with a dry brush. Swipe
the brush across the surface to achieve an broken and rough texture. The dry brush
technique works especially well for wet and runny media like watercolour or gouache
paint, where it is necessary to use a soft brush.
256
How to apply paint with the scumbling technique: Steps
Choose the colour you want to use for your scumbling layer.
Load your brush with paint and apply it to the surface. You could opt to use a paper
towel to absorb excess paint first, if the brush is too wet to create a broken textured
effect.
Work the brush into the surface, if you’re using a stiff brush, use the bristles to
remove excess paint to create a scratchy looking layer.
Allow the scumbling layer to dry completely before adding more paint or blending it
into the surrounding area.
What are the benefits of this technique
Scumbling can be used to create different effects such as:
Adding texture and interest
Creating depth and dimension
Creating the appearance of details
Enhancing other painting techniques
Tips for using the scumbling technique
Use a light touch when applying the paint to avoid overworking the surface.
Don’t overload the brush with paint.
Experiment with different colours and brushstrokes to create unique effects.
Practice on scrap paper before trying this technique on your final painting.
Examples of scumbling in art
257
J.M.W Turner used the scumbling technique extensively in his paintings, particularly
to create the effect of fog or mist in the distance.
J.M.W. Turner: The Burning of the Houses of Lords and Commons

In this painting, The Burning of the Houses of Lords and Commons, 16th October
1834, Turner has used scumbling to suggest smoke and debris in the air, as well as
to create a sense of depth. The buildings in the foreground are more detailed than
those in the background, which become increasingly blurred. This creates a sense of
atmospheric perspective.
258
John Singer Sargent: Madame X

Scumbling can also be used to great effect in portraiture. In this painting by John
Singer Sargent, Madame X, the artist has used scumbling to suggest the sitter’s
translucent skin. The paint is applied in very thin layers, allowing the underpainting to
259
show through in places. This creates a sense of light and shadow, which gives the
portrait a lifelike quality.
Which mediums can you use with the scumbling technique?
The scumbling technique can be used with any painting or drawing medium.
However there are slight different variations for how it’s used with each medium:
Oil and acrylic paint: use thick paint, with a stiff brush where excess residue has
been removed, so the paint is relatively dry, then apply with quick, sweeping,
expressive marks.
Watercolour and gouache: Load a soft brush with paint, remove excess residue and
brush over textured (cold pressed or rough) paper.
Drawing media: use a pencil to draw with small circular motions, the lines should
overlap and gaps between circles will show the layers of pencil, or white of the paper
beneath. Use this technique with coloured pencils, charcoal or graphite.
What subjects can you paint with this technique?
John Singer Sargent: A Torrent in Norway

Represent a quality of light, use it to create the appearance of atmospheric
perspective, or resemble rough terrain.
Get creative! Singer Sargent used this technique in many of his paintings, to create
the effect of dappled sunlight across rough grass. He also used it to represent the
broken texture of reflections on a lake and to reveal subtle skin textures. Use two
colours that contrast with each other, either in hue or value to create a dynamic
260
effect. Alternatively, use two colours that are similar for a more subtle effect. Subtle
effects work to represent clouds, fog, skin or hair. Conversely, contrasting colours
work well with the scumbling technique for reflections or the appearance of light.
38. Chiaroscuro: Definition, History, Examples &

Tutorial
In this guide, learn all about the Chiaroscuro technique. About the famous artists
who used the technique and how to create Chiaroscuro in your own paintings.
Contents hide
1 Chiaroscuro definition
2 Chiaroscuro history
3 Chiaroscuro artists and examples
4 Chiaroscuro painting tips
4.1 Determine the light source
4.2 Create composition sketches
4.3 Create a value scale
4.4 Start the painting with the midtones
4.5 Deepen the shadows
4.6 Finish with the details and highlights.
5 Chiaroscuro techniques
6 Chiaroscuro purpose and effects
7 Chiaroscuro vs Tenebrism
8 Finally
Chiaroscuro definition
Chiaroscuro (pronounced key-uh-roh-skuh-roh) is an Italian word meaning
“light-dark.” In art, it refers to the use of light and dark elements to create a
sense of volume and depth.
Artists often use the term to describe paintings that have a strong contrast
between light and dark elements.
The technique is often used in paintings, drawings, and even photography.
Artists who are well-known for their use of chiaroscuro include Leonardo da
Vinci, Rembrandt, Caravaggio, and Johannes Vermeer.
Chiaroscuro history
The Chiaroscuro technique has been used by artists for centuries. One of the first
examples can be seen in Leonardo da Vinci’s painting, “The Adoration of the Magi.”
261
Leonardo da Vinci: The Adoration of the Magi

This is an unfinished painting by da Vinci, painted in 1480-1482, during
the Renaissance art movement. In the painting, da Vinci uses light and dark colors
to bring focus to Mary, child and the Magi. Mary is framed by onlookers who are in
shadow. The use of Chiaroscuro makes the figures in the painting appear to be
popping out of the frame. Da Vinci used this technique across many of his artworks,
including charcoal pieces, using chalk to highlight the brightest tones.
262
Leonardo da Vinci: The Lady with an Ermine (Cecilia Gallerani)

During the Renaissance period and the advent of oil paint, artists began using
the glazing technique. This is where separate layers of transparent paint are built to
darken colours and alter previous layers of colour. This painting technique allowed
artists to gradually increase the contrast of a painting, layer by layer.
263
Artists that adopted oil paint were able to render three dimensional forms in a more
realistic style. The glazing technique meant that colour layers would quickly darken,
allowing artists to achieve deep blacks and rich shadow tones.
Many painters were inspired by da Vinci’s technique and during the Baroque period
of the 17th century, artists such as Caravaggio and Rembrandt were known for their
use of Chiaroscuro. Caravaggio further popularised the Chiaroscuro technique
Chiaroscuro artists and examples
Caravaggio was an Italian artist who used strong contrasts of light and dark to create
a sense of drama in his paintings. One of his most famous paintings is “The Calling
of Saint Matthew.”
Caravaggio: The Calling of Saint Matthew

In this painting, Caravaggio uses light to draw the viewer’s attention to the central
figure of Saint Matthew. The use of light and dark also highlights the figure of
Matthew, who is being called upon by Jesus to become an apostle.
264
Rembrandt was a Dutch artist who is well-known for his paintings that make use of
Chiaroscuro. One of his most famous paintings is “The Night Watch.”
In this painting, Rembrandt uses light to create a sense of dynamism in the

commissioned group portrait of a militia company. The subjects are depicted in
candid poses, appearing as being fully equipped and ready for march. This contrasts
to other militia group portraits of the time, where they were typically painted posing
and in a line. The two main subjects, highlighted with the use of light values and
positioning are the captain of the militia group and his lieutenant.
Chiaroscuro painting tips
Now that you’ve seen some examples of Chiaroscuro, you might be wondering how
to create the effect in your own paintings.
Determine the light source
Use a strong light source: The most important element of Chiaroscuro is the contrast
between light and dark. So, you’ll need to determine the light source and decide
upon the main focal points that will be highlighted to create the effect. Choose to use
one, or multiple light sources.
Create composition sketches
Create several composition sketches before you start. This way, you can plan how
the elements will fit together to create a sense of balance. Plan where the main focal
265
point will be and how the light will be hitting the subject, then plan how you will lead
the viewer’s eye into the painting, to create your desired effect.
Create a value scale
Before you start painting, it’s helpful to create a value scale. This will help you map
out the different tones of light and dark in your painting. You can use a value finder,
or make one yourself, with black and white paint and the scale of tones that fall in
between these values.
Start the painting with the midtones
Once you have your value scale, you can start painting the midtones of your painting
first. Then increase the contrast with consecutive layers of paint. This tip mainly
works for painting mediums like oil or acrylic, or drawing mediums that can be easily
erased, like charcoal. If you are using coloured pencils or watercolours, it’s best to
start with the light tones, then gradually build up the dark areas. Starting with the
midtones will give you more control over the final outcome of the painting, however if
you start with a dark underpainting then work in the light sections you will be sure to
create a dramatic appearance in your final artwork. How you start a painting is your
own personal preference!
Deepen the shadows
Once the lighter midtones are established, work on deepening the shadows. If you’re
using oil or acrylic paints, you can build up the shadow tones with layers of glaze.
Focus on the edges and halftones between light and dark areas, some edges
between elements will appear soft, while others will appear hard and more distinct.
Create soft edges using the blending technique, to make it appear as if shadows are
blurring into the midtones.
Finish with the details and highlights.
These could be the highlights on a person’s face, or the sun shining through a
window. Titanium white is an opaque white that can be used for the brightest
highlights and tints in a painting. Get a detail brush, like a sable rigger, or a round
brush for the finest details.
Chiaroscuro techniques
The glazing technique is especially conducive to painting with a Chiaroscuro style.
Glazing is the process of adding thin layers of transparent paint on top of an already
dry layer. This technique allows you to control the values by slowly build up the
contrast.
Another painting technique that is fantastic for creating a chiaroscuro effects is
the underpainting technique. Start with a monochrome underpainting of grey
tones, which is also called a grisaille. Use either black or burnt umber for the
shadows and white for the brightest highlights. In this layer, you can establish the full
value range of the painting. Once that’s dry, you can start glazing in the lights and
darks. Remember that consecutive layers of glaze will darken the appearance of
paint, so only add the glazes in areas where you want to change the colour profile or
deepen the shadows.
266
Chiaroscuro purpose and effects

The purpose of Chiaroscuro is to model the forms of three dimensional objects.
However, it has other purposes, such as being used as a compositional element,
to draw attention to a focal point in the painting. For example, if the background is
mostly made up of dark tones, bring the viewer’s attention to the foreground and to
the main subject by rendering them in light values. The other purpose of Chiaroscuro
in paintings is to create a sense of drama or tension in a painting. Artworks with high
contrast between dark and light values can have an effect on the atmosphere of the
piece as a whole.
Chiaroscuro vs Tenebrism
It’s important to note that Chiaroscuro is often confused with Tenebrism. Tenebrism
is a similar technique that also uses light and dark elements, but the contrast is much
more extreme. It could be described as a form of Chiaroscuro, where the meaning
and intention behind the paintings are different. Tenebrism relates to the Italian term
‘tenebroso’, which means gloomy.
267
Caravag
gio: Narcissus
Chiaroscuro the technique of using light and dark values. These values can
complement one another, create a focal point or balance in the piece. Whereas
Tenebrism is the use of light and dark values with the intention of creating drama
and unrest.
In a Tenebrism painting, you would have areas of complete blackness and areas of
complete whiteness, with fewer middle tones.
One of the most famous examples of Tenebrism is Caravaggio’s “The Calling of
Saint Matthew.” The purpose of the high value contrast in tenebrism paintings is to
embody the sense of tension felt by the subjects. The light in the painting appears
harsh, as is the case with many of Caravaggio’s Tenebrism paintings.
268
269

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Oil painting course – Compilation

Sl. No Title Page No

1. Best Oil Paint and Mediums: A Comprehensive

22 Best oil paints to start with

Buy Schmincke Mussini Oil Colours here.

You can buy Michael Harding paints here.

Buy Blockx paint here.

Buy Old Holland oil paint here.

Buy M. Graham Oils here.

Cons: Slow drying times

Buy Langridge Oil Paint here.

Williamsburg Handmade Oil Colours

Buy Williamsburg paint here.

You can buy Daniel Smith classic oil paints here.

Grumbacher Pre-Tested Oil Colours

Buy Grumbacher Oils here.

Gamblin Artists’ Oil Paint

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water or a brush cleaner. A good brush cleaner is the Master’s Brush Cleaner —it

Buy Winsor and Newton’s Artists’ Oil Colours here.

You can buy Sennelier Oils here.

Buy Van Gogh oil paints here.

It’s said to be similar in consistency and shares similar colour compositions to

You can buy Winton Oil Paints here.

Buy Pebeo oil paint here.

Oil Painting Mediums: A Guide

Oil of spike lavender

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Properties: increases transparency, increases flow, slows drying time, levels

Refined linseed oil

Buy refined linseed oil here.

Michael Harding beeswax paste

Properties: adds body to paint, gives a glossy finish, speeds drying time

2. The Best Brushes for Oil Painting

Paintbrushes specifically made for oils look a little bit different.

3. How to Take Care of Your Oil Painting Brushes

First, rinse your brush in warm water.

4. How to Clean Up After Oil Painting

Solvent: turpentine, odourless mineral spirit or oil of spike lavender. Turpentine

5. How to Clean Up After Oil Painting Without Solvent

6 Clean oil paintbrushes without solvent: Pin it!

How to remove oil from a glass palette

6. How to Choose a Surface for Oil Painting

7. Oil Painting Supplies for Beginners:

8. How to buy oil paint cheaply

Oil painting supplies: the best surfaces

9. Types of solvent to use with oil paint

10. The Best Easels: How to Choose an Easel for

H frame easels are considered to be the most supportive and accommodative of

For beginners looking for an easel that marries affordability with

11. The Fat Over Lean Rule in Oil Painting:

artists who like using the glazing technique and use softer brushes to achieve

12. How to Varnish an Oil Painting

However, as solvents such as turpentine are commonly used by artists to clean

11 Varnishing an oil painting: Pin it!

Why should you varnish an oil painting?

13. ‘Oiling Out’ A Painting: How to Restore Dulled

14. Alla Prima (Wet on Wet) Tutorial

Frans Hals: Self Portrait

How to complete an alla prima painting

Claude Monet: San Giorgio Maggiore at Dusk

15. The Blocking In Technique for Oil and Acrylic

What is blocking in?

16. What Colours Do You Need for Oil Painting?