Oil Painting Basics

Although drawing and painting are great art forms, oil painting being a small part, is quite easy to understand and simple to do! Oil painting dwells on the use of oil paints in order to enhance the aesthetic appearance of the picture. Many people strongly believe that, artists are born and not made! I partially agree to this belief. Of course, a very few of us are fortunate enough to be god gifted with this art and therefore, they do not actually require any sort of formal training to learn oil painting basics. They have a sense of understanding towards all the basic and some time later, towards the advanced aspects of oil painting. But, then here my question is, what about people who are interested in oil painting and drawing, however do not possess any inbuilt qualities in them? What should such people do? What I strongly believe is, learning the basics of any art, be it oil painting, sketching, drawing, etc. certainly gives you a head start to pursue your hobby and create wonders! So why not learn some basics through this discussion and get ready to create something new?

Basics of Oil Painting
Oil painting is not just taking the paint brush in your hand and simply putting some strokes on the canvas! It is actually a disciplined art, and you need to know some basics clearly.

Understand the Picture and the Art!
Well, understanding the art, might be a bit overused term, as understanding any kind of art is certainly within the scope of a few words. This is because, it might take an entire life to understand and identify the depth of an art! However, let us say, understand the basics of this art! A picture, in any kind of painting, is made of different components, which constitute its structure, appearance and technical aspects.

• Structure: To start with oil painting, firstly, you need to understand the composition/structure of the picture. How are you going to design the picture? What will be the position of various objects in your picture? How will your picture attract the common viewers? What special are you going to include in your picture? Many such questions come into picture here and they have to be planned accordingly.
• Appearance and Color: Giving a three dimensional look to your picture is one of the most challenging tasks while improving the appearance of your picture. You need to apply different shading techniques, so as to make the picture look authentic. In oil painting, coloring forms the most important part. It is the color that would decide the final look of your picture. Incorporating different colors into each other, is significant when it comes to enhance the beauty of the picture.

Which Oil Paint to Choose?
Remember, you are a beginner and therefore you need not spend a lot of money on buying expensive oil paints. You can find many good quality, yet cheap oil paints, which are specially meant for new entrants in oil painting. Oil painting requires the application of different layers of oil paint to the picture, the first layers might take some time to dry. Therefore, the use of acrylic paint for the first layer is generally more preferable for quick drying.

Selecting the Right Tool!
By tool, I am referring to the painting brush. Oil painting brushes are available in two types, soft and hard. Each one of it is used for a different purpose. Soft brush is used to give finer finishing touches, whilst hard brushes are used for long strokes. Brushes of sizes 1-10 are ideal for beginners to pursue oil painting. Oil paint colors tend to accumulate in the bristles of brush, therefore it is necessary that you clean it regularly. There are brush cleaners and conditioning agents available to help you in the cleaning activity.

Using Paint Reasonably!
You can utilize less amount of oil paint, yet give the desired look to your picture! Use oil paints reasonably, when it comes to using the same set of oil paint for a longer time. This would lower your oil paint purchase costs! But, how to do it? Well, the best technique is to dilute the paint, with the help of turpentine, spirit, poppy seed oil etc and then apply it to the picture.

The effects of oil painting can be best seen when you do it on a primed canvas. This is another important basic thing to be remembered. After learning the basics, you can move on to learn more techniques from a qualified artist.