Oil Painting Medic

The pigment of oil paint can look different depending upon how it is applied. Various oil painting techniques will give the painting a different look and feel. Paint applied thickly will look different to paint applied thinly. The color label on a tube of paint is only part of the story, as can be seen here. Different Blues from One Blue Ultramarine & alizarin crimson When applied as a translucent glaze on white gesso, French ultramarine will possess great luminescence, because of the white gesso shining through the paint layer. The blue will almost appear to glow, like sapphire. If a little titanium white is added to the blue, the ultramarine will not only appear lighter, but this translucency will vanish. This is because adding white adds opacity and therefore reduces luminescence. The close up image shows this treatment of ultramarine and alizarin crimson. The upper row shows a thin coat of pigment. The lower row shows the pigment with white added. Notice the nature of...

Drawing underpins painting, and oils are no different. An inaccurate drawing will continue to niggle regardless of how good the painting technique is. This is why it is important to get the drawing right before laying paint to canvas. But it goes further than this. Drawing begins before even pencil even contacts paper. Here, find a test into how visually aware you are. Learn to Draw Better with this Test  As drawing is vital to painting, have posted my Youtube clip here that delves into how visually aware you are. My video includes a test into visual judgment. This means looking at things and making visual estimates on their shapes, angles and coordinates. Judging how things look includes the following by the use of the naked eye (no visual aids such as rulers, protractors, spirit levels, etc.) The angle of a line, which might be on paper, or the inclination of an object. See how close you were to the mark only afterwards with a protractor. Bear in mind a right angle wil...