I decided to keep up my theme of favorites to introduce
myself a bit to you all. This post is no different. Today I wanted to discuss
art. I tried to figure out which “favorite” I would talk about… my favorite
artist? My favorite art piece? But finally settled on my favorite medium to
use… oils. I absolutely adore oil paints. They are forgiving, bright, creamy
and relatively easy! I’ve completed a few pieces now but I have a million more
ideas brewing. I tend to keep everything (including my fashion & interior
design ideas) in a very happy color
palette. I lean towards pink [a lot of pink], mint green, lavender, turquoise,
light yellow and peach/coral. I love to take old, donated paintings and paint
over them to give them new life. I add things; remove things in a way… whatever
it takes to reignite the creativity in the piece. It’s very similar to
redecorating a room. You see the setup, the original concept, and then you
update it, decorate it. It’s a lovely process and I will be sure to include a
step by step here the next time I start one!
As I stated before, oils are very forgiving. I find people
are quite intimidated by them but some basic beginner’s information makes all
the difference in the world. Here are some beginner’s tips for those of you
that feel like experimenting:
1.
Oil kits
tend to have lower quality paint. This means that you lose the thickness of
the paint and it tends to go on the canvas less smoothly and much thinner.
Invest in some individual tubes of paint. They are pretty small (except for the
white) so they will not take up too much room and you really just need the
following colors to start… white (large tube), alizarin crimson, cadmium red,
cadmium yellow, ultramarine, yellow ochre, burnt sienna and raw umber. These
colors will allow you to do almost anything you want!
2.
It does
not take much paint on your palette so be reserved. I recommend using no
more than about a dime size of the paint. Now, the reason for this is that you
rarely use straight paint. You either mix it with other colors or you mix it
with white. I am always quite liberal with my white paint, starting with a nice
ping pong ball sized dollop because you will use it for various color combos.
3. Mix your paints from dark to light. For
example, take a third of your dime size amount of ultramarine. Add a good
nickel size helping of your white and mix it with your palette knife. Then take
a third of this amount and add more white… do you see what I mean? Give
yourself gradation. You will only need a smidge of your darkest color and just
a bit more of your very lightest… the hues in between will need more because
you’ll use these to do most of your coverage.
4. Start painting with your darkest colors and
work your way towards the highlights. You don’t need to cover your full
canvas in the darkest of your colors. Just hit the areas that are going to
remain the darkest. Then you can begin the coverage of your canvas by the
medium value. Play with it though; if you feel that spots need some darkness,
don’t be afraid to add it. Keep in mind though that it’s a harder to darken big
areas then it is to lighten them.
5. Turpentine is your friend. Its first
job is to act as paint thinner. If your paint is not going on smoothly, dip
your brush in the turp, dry it out a bit on your paper towel and then try
again. Feel free to play with it, the more turp you have on your brush, the
thinner your paint. The most important thing to know though is that turpentine
is your eraser. As long as your paint is wet, you can dunk your brush in the
turp, smear it over the areas you don’t want [be careful, it runs!] and then
wipe with paper towel.
There ya go, the basics of using oils! If you decide to try
them, please leave me a comment to let me know how it went or let me know if
you have any questions!
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