OIL PAINTINGS

A simple Oil Painting Lesson.

Painting for pleasure. Get yourself a set of oil painting brushes, the cheapest oil paints from your local art store. A good size stretched canvas and white acrylic paint. Apply 3 to 5 coats of the acrylic paint, dry before each coat. This will tame the tooth of the canvas. Apply a coat of dull reddish-brown paint to the dry surface of the canvas, and you are ready to paint.

Mix Stand Linseed Oil to any blue and paint the top of the canvas working downwards. With a clean brush, apply white paint from the horizon upwards in cross strokes. Do this about three times until you get a gradient finish, darker top than horizon. Start to paint whatever you want, say a landscape, but keep in mind to maintain a blue background, greenish middle-ground and dark foreground. Now go back to all parts of the painting and apply lightened versions of the colours you used to indicate light. Maintain the illusion from left or right throughout the painting. You can finish the painting wet on wet or go back to it on any occasion you wish. Look at the landscape painting above for ideas about highlighting the clouds and mountain.