Oil Painting

Creative Spotlite Newsletter

Free Oil Painting Instructions & Demonstrations

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  • Oil Painting Demonstration

    free step by step oil painting tehniques

    By Julie Hirons and Kim Loydall

    Soft pencil or charcoal is best for the initial drawing, especially on canvas. Hogs hair brushes are best suited for oil painting.The main types are: flats, brights, filbert, and round. Sable, fitch, and squirrel hair brushes are also used, mainly to apply highlights and detail to the painting.

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  • Springtime Glory

    Springtime Glory

    By Jennifer Young

    I begin with a toned canvas. "Why red?" , you may ask. Well, I don't always paint on a red-toned canvas, but it is something I often enjoy using with landscapes. I prefer a mid-toned canvas, which can be a neutral gray or mid range siena mixed with white (what the Impressionists called a "blonde" canvas). But red is also nice because it gives an immediate warm undertone and it is a compliment to the large amounts of green that tend to predominate in landscape painting.

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  • Maria

    Maria

    By Scott Burdick

    Here's my initial drawing of Maria on a stretched, 40" by 30" piece of medium textured Clausens double oil primed linen. Because of the size of the painting and the fact that I wanted it to work out to a specific composition, I used some vine charcoal to carefully sketch this one out. By just taking a quick measurement of the head and figuring out how many units high Maria is from head to seat as well as wide, you can very easily assure yourself that you'll end up with exactly the composition you have in mind. I knew I wanted this to be a life-sized painting, so I worked out the units once the pose was decided on, even before stretching out my canvas.

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  • Oil Painting Demonstration

    Oil Painting Demo Picture

    By Scott Burdick

    Ok, here's my initial pencil drawing. On this painting I was especially concerned with tying together some of the lights and darks to make a nice pattern since the photo was way too broken up. I can't emphasize enough how important planning is before starting a painting. There are an infinite number of ways you can interpret any subject, so having an idea set clearly in your mind beforehand is crucial.

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  • 'The Lion Family' - Palette Knife Oil Painting Technique

    The Lion Family

    By Paul Rupert

    "With so many requests to explain how I work with the palette knife, we have decided to include this section in our web site explaining the various tips, tricks and techniques on how to paint on canvas using the palette knife. Any comments and questions are most welcome and we will attempt to answer your inquiries by email. Some of your questions and their solutions will most certainly find their way into this section. Hope you enjoy and find helpful, this new area of our web site. I thought I might try a different format to this section of the site and put the images and text in a strip down the page which should make these tips and image progressions easier to follow." - Paul Rupert

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