Of all the many types of paintings, oil creations are considered as one of the most admired because of the way they capture the life and reality of their subjects. Oil paints are also very versatile so they can be easily used to almost any style and technique of painting. For example, they can be utilized for impastos with thick textures and glazes with thin stroked. They can also either be transparent or opaque. With these many styles of oil paints, it is no longer surprising that they are probably the most favorite among artists. The flexibility of oil art materials, however, is still dependent on the mastery of the artist. Fortunately, there are some simple painting tips which can make a budding painter seem like a professional.

The first tip in oil painting is to never leave oil paints disorganized. Always arranging the same order of oil paints in a palette is a very important for painters because through time, this will help the artist develop the instinct of picking up a color without even looking at it. This in turn, will give them more mastery to the blending and applying of colors. Another advice when doing paintings is to use the ‘fat over lean’ technique. This simply refers to how the proportion of an oil paint should be increased for an oil painting’s subsequent layer. This technique is very important because the lower levels of paint absorb the oil from the upper layers. Therefore, the lower layers can crack in situations when the upper layers of oil paint dries first.

The next tip in painting is to refrain from using an Ivory Black hue for sketching as in underpaint because oil paints dry faster than the Ivory black hue. Oil pigments made from cobalt, manganese, and lead makes the drying of the medium faster. They can also be combined with other paints to speed up the drying. Materials having these components are also ideal to use as under layers. For those who do not have enough budgets to purchase materials such as these because they are quite costly, student-quality paints are a good alternative because they possess cheaper components which can also enhance the drying process.

Another tip in doing paintings is to use linseed oil when doing underpaintings. Linseed oil is good to use when doing the bottom layer of a wet-on-dry painting because it helps the paint to dry evenly and thoroughly. On the other hand, linseed oil should never be used as medium for a painting with mostly whites and blues because it has the tendency to turn the painting yellow through time. Therefore, it is also not advisable to use it for light colors because it can cause an old, brittle look to a painting. Poppy oil is recommended for use instead because even though it dries slowly, it has the least possibility of yellowing. The last painting tip is to never dry an oil artwork in the dark. If this is done, a thin layer of oil film may surface on the painting and cause yellowing.

Author Bio: Oil Paintings seascape paintings

Category: Arts and Crafts
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