Oil Painting for Beginners - Materials (Non-Toxic) & Basic Techniques

1. Introduction: Hello and welcome to the oil painting for beginners. Siri's here on skill share. In this first course, we are going to explore and demystify the vast world of the materials that go into oil painting. Many people assume that oil painting is inherently expensive, complex and toxic, so I will be emphasizing ways that oil painting can be just the opposite. Affordable, simple and healthy oil is a beautiful medium that is surprisingly forgiving and flexible. Many of the greatest works of art in our world were made with oils, and it's a time tested art form. No matter your preferred style of painting, you can achieve it with oils. Whether you're ready to start painting in oils right now or you're just curious about the medium. This is a great place to start. My name is Rachel Broadwell, and I earned my degree in studio art with a concentration in painting back in 2010. But I've been an artist all my life over the years. I've not only developed technical skills and painting, but also experience with a wide array of mediums as a person who cares about being frugal, non wasteful, healthy and environmentally friendly, I've incorporated thes values into my art making practices. My goal is for this to be a thorough introduction to the oil painting medium, and I want it to be accessible to everyone. I've designed this course to be a complete reference that you can come back to any time you need to review a specific topic or multiple topics. I will also be updating this course with additional video topics as students ask questions . So please don't be shy about posting in the discussion will top off this course by taking a look at a few basic techniques with oil painting. And then there will be a few short exercises that will enable you to start getting a feel for this medium, as well as also getting a bit of experience with mixing and a little introduction into color to stay up to date on future courses. Please follow me here on skill share. I hope you're excited to dive into the beautiful world of oil painting. Let's get started 2. Paint - Let's Make it Simple!: all right, so let's dive into the ocean of oil colors. This ocean is as vast as it is deep. There's so much to choose from almost an infinite number of colors. So many different brands. How do you choose? What do you start out with? Do you need to go out and buy 50 different tubes of paint just to get started with oil painting? What colors are necessary? What brands are best and how do you choose the highest quality pigments and balance that with affordability and also safety over the next few videos? That is exactly what I'm going to talk about. I'm gonna help you simplify and demystify oil colors so that you can make informed decisions that best fit your needs and your priorities. I will give you all of the information and tools to empower you to choose what fits your needs best, And I will also make a recommendation for a big dinners, oil painting palette. And this is what I'll be using in subsequent courses to do all of my demonstrations. So if you want to use the exact same colors that I'll be demonstrating with, I will recommend a pellet in the end of this section, and the priorities are going to be a quality affordability, non toxicity and versatility. So check out that video in particular if you are looking for a little tip on the best way to get started with oil painting. And now let's explore some of the more technical considerations that go into choosing oil paints. 3. Paint - Quality & Affordability Considerations for Students: let's talk a little bit about paint quality. So here I have two tubes of paint, and they're both by Windsor and new in. However, these are two different lines of quality that wins airing new inn offers. So this artist quality is the highest quality of oil paints that wins airing new and makes . And then Winton is the lion of paint that is a little bit more intermediate, so it's better than student grade paints. But it's not quite as rich as their artists line. And no matter what brand you're using, they might have a different terminology for their various qualities of paints. And so that's something that you would want to do a little bit of research on. And I, of course, would recommend for beginners, starting with either a very high quality paint if you can, or at least an intermediate paints. And there's brands that actually don't even offer anything below their highest quality of product. For example, I M. Graham does not offer anything lower than their highest quality of paints, and that's just something to be aware of. Of course, whatever brand you choose to work with, you just need to do the research and just know what they offer. And I think that it's perfectly fine to start out with a more intermediate level of paint because it is a little bit more affordable and it's still very high quality. I think that, you know, I can kind of use thes different qualities of paint interchangeably pretty much. It's always just going to depend again on the pigments and the ratio of pigment to oil. And what you really want to just avoid is any student grade paint that has a lot of fillers in it because you're going to really end up struggling too much with the pain and that's going Teoh really impede your progress in getting better. So I would say Just avoid that frustration, go for at least an intermediate level of paints if you can, and if you want to go for the highest quality of paints. But a large tube like this is very pricey than what I recommend is starting out with smaller tubes, same quality of paint. This is also Windsor new in and you see here it's their artists oil color just like this one. But it's much smaller, which will make it more affordable. What I like to keep in mind is that the materials that I buy a really an investment in my learning. So if I really want to invest myself into learning a medium, I want to get a good quality product, even if I can only afford a few tubes of the smaller size that is an investment into my progress and is going to help me become a better artist in the long run. So start small. Start with what you can, and investing in a small amount of really good paint is really going to set yourself up for success. You really need to give it a fair trial. I've seen a lot of students who they want to learn oil painting, but they're not sure that they're gonna like it. So they buy really low quality student student grade paints, and they get frustrated just with the fact that their colors aren't coming out right. Things aren't happening as expected, and especially when I'm teaching them and they're seeing my paintings and comparing what I'm making to their own and their mixing the same colors and getting a different result well, that typically has a lot to do with the quality of paint that they're using, and it makes them feel as if they're lacking some secret magical ingredient that they're really not. The secret ingredient is just high quality products and supplies. 4. Paint - Toxins & Safety: a common reason that I hear from people as to why they don't want to use oil pains is because they believe that oil painting is more toxic than other forms of painting. And so I just want to address that fully in this course. I'm first going to talk about toxins as it relates Teoh actual paint and later in this course will talk about solvents and mediums and ventilation and safe disposal of materials . But it's important to know that you can paint safely with oil paints Justus. You can use other kinds of paints. Let's first talk a little bit about what oil paint actually is. Oil paint consists of a pigment suspended in an oil binder. Common oil binders are generally highly refined vegetable oils such as linseed, safflower, poppy or walnut oil. The's oils dry slowly through oxidation or exposure to oxygen, creating a hard film of paints when they come into contact with the air. A skin forms over the paint surface, while the paint underneath continues to harden over time, just as a side note, pay applied in a thick imposter technique could take up to a year to fully dry. However, it will be dry to the touch and safe to handle much sooner than that used alone. Oil paints do not release any chemicals into the air as they dry, and so is not toxic inherently. To use any pigment, however, some pigments consist of toxic metals that can be absorbed into the skin. So if you're using pains containing some of these pigments, you should take precautions such as wearing gloves when using these pigments. Or you might want to just look for alternatives. If you add any petroleum based solvents or medium to your paints, these harmful contents will evaporate into your studio space. However, it is not necessary to use petroleum based solvents and mediums, and we will discuss that further in this course. Some of the most common toxic pigments that you might encounter in oil pains, as well as other paints such as acrylic paints and watercolors, include paints that contain cadmium, cobalt, lead, chrome or crow mates, barium or zinc. This is not an exhaustive list of toxic pigments, and in general, your safest bet is going to be to think of all of your paints and mediums as potentially harmful and to treat them with caution and care. Paints labelled non toxic are considered safe for humans, but that does not mean that there necessarily it's safe for the environment. So, of course, the key here is knowledge and being aware of what to look out for. Different people have different preferences when it comes to toxins and environmental safety, and so it's important for you to be informed so you can make the best decisions in accordance with your own values. 5. Paint - Water Soluble Oil Paint: you might be pleased to find out that there are oil paints that are formulated to be able to use with water instead of solvents. Thes are called water soluble oil paints, otherwise known as water mix, herbal oil, paints or water. Miss Kable Oil Paints Water soluble oil paints have been engineered to be able to be cleaned up with water rather than solvents, although you can still use solvents and oil mediums with them if you choose the's paints make it possible to avoid using volatile organic compounds such as turpentine that may be harmful to your health and the environment. Water soluble oil paint could be mixed and applied, using the same techniques as traditional oil based paint. But while the paint is still wet, it can be removed from your brushes or your palate or your rags with ordinary water and soap. There are several paint manufacturers who make water soluble oil paints, including Windsor and new in as pictured here. But typically you won't find as many color varieties with these lines 6. Paint - Permanency & Pigments: and there are some other quality considerations that you want to take when you're choosing the pigments that you're going to use. So it's not just the ratio of pigment to oil within a particular line of pains, but you're also going to want to look for things such as permanence. So permanence refers Teoh. The ability for this paint to maintain its same color and pigmentation over time and with exposure to UV light UV light can have a deteriorating effect on some pigments. And so what you want to look for with no matter what brand you're using, is the permanence rating of that pigment. So for this French ultra marine color, we have a permanence rating of A, and the highest permanence rating that you can get is a double A. So a, and I believe that the lowest permanence that you will typically SIA's redid A C, and you won't see that very often because typically, if a pigment is that low in permanency than the manufacturer may just look for other ways to create a similar Hugh rather than using that pigment. And when you have a pigment that will fade over time and with exposure to UV lights. We call that a fugitive pigment, and a lot of times it will be certain reds that will be more fugitive. For example, a lizard in crimson, which I have right here when they get that into focus for you, has a permanence reading of B, so that means that it's a little bit fugitive, and the only reason I actually have this is because it came in a set that I purchased. But I typically will not use a littering crimson because it is a little bit more fugitive. It's going to fade over time. It's going to lose its vibrance when it's exposed to UV lights. And so sometimes I think it's a good idea just to be aware of that so you can make decisions about the different colors that you might want to use, and you certainly want to consider longevity. So what I usually use instead of in a lizard crimson is permanent rose. These are obviously not the same color, but they're both kind of a cool red. They lean a little bit toward magenta and permanent. Rose has a much better permanence rating. It's here. We can see a get that and focus. It is rated A, and that's on the back of this tube. So that's one thing that you want to consider in terms of choosing good quality paints and then also just doesn't f I. I You can find out exactly what pigment is used to make a certain paint. Usually it's on the back, and it's going to be labeled and coded as, for example, this one is PV 19 so that refers to a very specific pigment used to make this paint another color. This is turquoise, and this will actually have multiple pigments in it. Let's see if I can find Here we go. So right here this is a different brand, so it's labeled a little bit differently. But typically these codes, I believe, are universal. So no matter what brand you're using, they should be using the same codes for the pigments that they're using. However, you need to know that there is no necessarily standardized way that colors are named. So even though Lucas has called this color turquoise, with these particular pigments mixed in, that doesn't mean that every brand will use these specific pigments to create a turquoise. So here we can see that there's actually multiple pigments used to make this color. And if you're using a tube of paint, for example, a cadmium que instead of a true Cadman, if you look on the back, you'll see that there's a combination of pigments that are in that tube to create that particular color. 7. Paint - Transparency & Opacity: one important characteristic of oil paint that it's important to at least be aware of and be able to tell. The difference is that there are some colors that are going to be transparent and some colors that are going to be opaque. This will mostly applied to techniques that are foundational in traditional oil painting, where we're applying transparent glazes. So here is a screenshot from the Windsor and New and Website in This shows all of their oil colors, and the easiest way to tell which colors or transparent and which are opaque is that the transparent colors you'll see here sort of display with a Grady int, while the opaque colors look a little bit more flat and even I've circled the transparent example here, which is purple matter in yellow and the opaque color is circled in green. And that, for example, is cadmium red deep. The most important thing to know is that you cannot apply a transparent glaze if you're using an opaque color, even if you use a glazing medium to thin it down. 8. Paint - Pure Pigments vs Hues (How it Impacts Cost and Color Intensity): I have two tubes of paint here. They're both the same size. They're both by Windsor, new in there, both from the Winton Oil Color line. However, these two tubes of paint costs drastically different amounts, and the reason for that is all because of the pigment. So in this tube of paint, I have cadmium, lemon and cadmium is a very expensive pigment to use. And so any time that you're getting a true cadmium, even if it's an intermediate level paint like this, you're going to pay a lot more than if you are using a pigment that is a little bit more easier for the manufacturer to source and process. So a lot of times, what I find is that these earth tones, like raw umber, burnt CNN and like Indian red, yellow ochre, those air all a lot less expensive tubes of paint, and you can actually build an entire color palette based on using less expensive pigments. If you would like now, a lot of times you will find that the Catalans are not only a more expensive paint, but they're also much more intense. And so what I typically find is that one amount of cadmium color. Whether it's yellow red is going to go a lot further than some of the less expensive pigments, and that's because they're very powerful pigments. And so even though they cost a lot more, you actually might get more use out of them because you're able to stretch out the use a little bit longer just due to the strength of the pigments. And it's also possible to get less expensive pigments when you use a hue instead of a pure pigments. So this is a true cadmium. It's called cadmium lemon. This, if you can see it, is cadmium yellow, and then you'll see right here it says Hugh. And what that means is that this is not a true cadmium. This is a combination of multiple pigments that are combined. Teoh mimic the look of cadmium, and there's a huge difference in quality here. So this is not going to be nearly as intense or strong as a true cadmium, and that means that I may have to use a larger quantity of this in my mixing to get even close to the same effect that a small amount of a true cadmium would take. And that's not the only reason, though, to choose one over the other. So obviously any Hugh is going to be much, much less expensive than a true cadmium or a true cobalt. But what you need to know and what we're going to talk a little bit more about or about. Some pigments are very toxic. Cadmium is actually a very toxic pigment, and there are lots of different people out there who have different priorities. And so, if your priority is to avoid any kind of toxic materials to the greatest extent possible, you may actually want to seek out alternatives to certain pigments, and we're going to talk a little bit more about doing just that. 9. Paint - Brands & Manufacturers: There are a lot of brands out there, a lot of paint manufacturers making wonderful oil paints. I have just a few here that I tend to use, and this is really just to illustrate that there is no one superior brand of paint. A lot of artists will develop a little bit of brand loyalty when it comes to paints, and I think that that has to do with, you know, possibly some experience and using different brands and just having a personal preference for the qualities that one brand typically produces over others. But a lot of times it really just has to do with kind of sticking with what you are familiar with. So I started out painting and I was kind of loyal to Windsor in New in and they're a great company and I highly recommend them. They have so many colors and they offer so much information and resource is toe artists. But you know, there's other brands that are amazing as well, and sometimes when I buy from another brand, it might just be because there is a sale on that brand and they have a great reputation as well and so I'll be willing to give them a try. So this is another brand. This is called Lucas, and they just like Windsor New. And they offer different lines of paint that very in the quality. So they have, like, their artists line of pain, and then they're more intermediate line and they might have some student grade. I'm not sure. I believe Sharpen also has maybe just two lines of paint, so they have their top line and then kind of an intermediate. And then M. Graham Onley offers artist grade paint. So if you buy from M. Graham, there isn't going to be the option to get a little bit lower quality of paint. You're just going to get what they produce the best. And these are all really great brands again. Different brands will have different priorities. For example, I know that I M. Graham has a really big priority on offering solvent free and the least toxic paints possible. So I've been using them a lot lately and again, it's just going to be kind of a matter of your personal preference and possibly you know what might be on sale when you happen to be shopping for paint, so I encourage you, Teoh not get too caught up and using a particular brand. Even if you have a favorite artist and they use one specific brand, you don't necessarily have to do that. What's most important is just using a very high quality paint rather than the specific brand. 10. Paint - How to Identify "Primary" Colors: if you're completely new to oil painting and you haven't bought any tubes of paint yet and you're feeling a little bit bewildered by all the options out there, I would recommend looking for an introductory set of oil paints and an introductory set does not have to be a student grade set here. I have a introductory set as labeled here, and this is by Windsor and new, and this is actually their highest quality of paint. So its from their artists oil color line and we can see we get lots of options in here, and this is a very thorough and complete pallets. In fact, I would even say that these are too many colors for a beginner, and I would recommend either buying a set like this but limiting yourself to just three or four colors when you're just starting out or buying individual small tubes from whatever brand you choose, but just using primary colors. So let's say that I am a brand new students of oil painting, and I've purchased this set, and these are just so many colors. If I put these all on my palate, that's a lot of decisions to make when I'm just getting used to a new medium. And so what I would recommend is just picking out the very most primary colors from this set and kind of just sticking to those at least at first. So what I would pick out of here, Obviously I would pick out this Windsor yellow and just as a side now Windsor and new in Makes Pigments or Hughes that they will label as being like a Windsor yellow or Windsor red . And a lot of times these colors are going to be alternate colors to, for example, cadmium ems or Cobalts. So these will be Hughes that replace more toxic colors, and they're also a little bit less expensive in the way that this company has branded these colors is by putting Windsor in front of the name, and then these are meant to be more primary colors. So we have a Windsor yellow. We have two different yellows. Here we have the winds or yellow, and then we also have a yellow Oakar, and you can see that there's definitely a color difference between these. I'm going to be doing the whole class about color temperature, but I'm going to talk about that just a little bit right now because this beginner set of paints really plays on the idea of color temperature. And so I'm gonna talk just a little bit about that and how to start identifying the color's temperature and temperature is always going to exist just in relation to other colors. So there's no necessarily, you know, one color that's a cool yellow and one that's a warm yellow. This could actually be a warm yellow compared to like a lemon yellow. And obviously the yellow Oakar is going to be a warmer yellow than this Windsor yellow. And what we want to do is kind of look at the colors and think about where they fall on the color spectrum. So the Windsor yellow is going to be a little bit closer to the lemon yellow or like the bright yellow side of things. And so it's going to be classified as a cool yellow at in comparison to this yellow, which is going to be on that scale a little bit closer to the oranges and reds. We have two yellows here and I would say that Windsor Yellow is going to be more of your standard primary yellow. We actually have two reds in here. We have a lizard in crimson, and then we have Indian red, and this Indian red may not even look particularly read to you. It's a very earthy pigment. If you were to buy these two colors individually as individual tubes, the Eliza in crimson would cost a little bit more than the Indian read. The Indian red is a little bit, has a pigment that's a little bit more abundance, and the Indian red here is going to be a very warm red because it leans a little bit closer to orange. A lizard in crimson leans a little bit closer to like magenta, and so it would be a cooler red in comparison to the Indian red. But the Eliza in Crimson would be more of a primary read, and so that's probably what I would go with for a beginner palette. So let's see here. We'll just kind of put I'm going to start putting these primary colors that I would recommend starting out with over here in the center. All right, now we have two different blues we have right here. We have ultra Marine, and it says green shade on it. And then we have Windsor Blue and it says red shade and then in parentheses. It says Fellow. Now Halo is a pigment that is a synthetic pigment. It has only existed for a little over 100 years, but it's a very strong and powerful pigment. And so any time that you're using any color, whether it's blue or green typically and you see fellow in there, you're gonna want Teoh. Use it very conservatively and not mixed too much in because it's very strong, and it will easily overpower any other color that you mix it in with. Now, what does green shade and red shade means? This is something that you're going to see Ah, lot in pigments between especially blues, and this has a lot to do with the color temperature. So this says green shade. That means that on the color spectrum, it's going to be a little bit closer to the greens. Making this a slightly warmer blue and then red shade means that this is leaning a little bit more toward the reds, the magenta as the violets. That means it is a cooler blue and as faras choosing one of these for a primary pallets. Either one would work, however, I would recommend going with the cooler blue because the yellow and red that we've chosen as our primary yellow and red there are a little bit warmer. And so I think it's a good idea to balance that with the cooler blue. So let me hear. Add my red shade blue to my primary pallets. Set this one a sign. Now let's look at these other colors that we have in here. This one right here is a green, and it is called Windsor Green. And in parentheses, it says fail. Oh, so this color is something that you might be tempted to use. I honestly, when I buy sets, I don't even know what to do with the greens because I strongly prefer just to mix my own greens any time that I have. You tried to use a green like this out of the tube. Even when I mix it in with other colors, it really kind of has an artificial feel to me that I haven't quite adapted to yet or figured out how to work that into my workflow. So quite honestly, when I get tubes of greens, if I get a set, that just happens to have green in it, I I don't really use these. I mean, I keep them, and maybe I'll find a purpose for them someday. But in general, I just find that they're a little too artificial looking for most of what I prefer to dio. And then we have a burnt number, and here this is a really great color, and I would include this on my primary palette to dio under paintings with it. So this is a very earthy color. If you were to buy this tube independently, it would be very inexpensive. I still wouldn't say that it's completely necessary to have this color on your palate, but it is nice if you're wanting to get a really, really dark color. I like to use an number and mix that with a cool blue, and it's really easy to get almost basically a black, and that's what I actually prefer to use instead of black. But Black does come in this sense, and I'm slowly but surely, learning how to actually incorporate black. I actually like to use this with a very specific and limited color palette called the Zorn of Palate. And I'll be doing a an entire class on that pallet because it's just fascinating. But typically, when I'm doing a plan air painting with just a primary pellet, I'm not going to use black at all because I will prefer Teoh. Mix a black with the blue and number because I get a richer black and I can make it lean a little bit more on the cool side or on the warm side, just depending on the proportions in which I mix these two colors together. So it gives me just a little bit more control over my darks to mix my darks this way rather than to use a black out of the tube. And now the final color that I think is necessary for any primary palette or any palate in general is just titanium white Titanium white is the most common pigment of white for people to use. It has a great permanence rating of Double A, and it's a great peller for mixing and lightning colors. So some people like to go ahead and just by a larger tube of white because you can tend to use it up a little bit quickly. However, I think that starting out with just a basic set and having this size of tube it actually will go a really long ways. And so I would recommend just starting out with that. And so if you don't want to buy an entire set of paints and you just want to start out with very, very primary colors, I'm going to show you the palette that I will be doing all of these interest oil painting demonstrations with, And it's actually not going to be these colors. However, if you happen to already have colors, this is what I would recommend looking for. So just a primary yellow primary red kind of a cool blue and then maybe an number and, of course, some titanium white. 11. Paint - The Set I Recommend: This is the set of oil paints that I'm going to be using to do all of my demonstrations in this series on the introduction to oil painting. So all of the techniques that I demonstrate in several paintings that I dio will be with this particular set, plus raw number. And just to be clear, that doesn't mean that you need to use this set or even these colors to follow along with me. But I do know that some students just feel a little bit more comfortable if they have access to all of the same colors that the teacher is using. So this is what I'll be using. Because M. Graham makes extremely high quality paints, these are just top line quality paints, and they are also going to be non toxic options. And I really like this set because for what you get, it's extremely affordable, and it comes with two mediums. Walnut, al kid and walnut oil. These are non toxic mediums, and the set itself includes, of course, all three primary colors. It does have a green and there, but I will forgive them for that, and it also includes titanium white, the only other additional color that I would recommend is raw number, and I had to purchase that individually from the rest of this set. But the raw number was about $7 for a 1.25 ounce tube. And then the set itself I found on Jerry's are Haram A for about $44. Last I checked Amazon it was just a little bit more expensive there. So shop around. If you're interested in this set or any set, and even though 1.25 ounces seems like a very small amount when you're using extremely high quality paints and pigments, that small amount will really go a long way and you'll be amazed by how many paintings you're able to dio with these tubes. 12. Non-Toxic Solvents: Unless you are using water soluble oil paints, you will need to use something to clean your brushes, and you cannot use water with oil paint. Traditionally, artists have used turpentine or terp. Annoyed is to clean their brushes after painting. However, those materials are highly toxic and the fumes evaporate into the air and can cause serious health problems, so artists rarely use them anymore. What I like to use and you can see here running very, very low on this, but this is a Citrus essence brush cleaner. It's made by a company called Chelsea Classical Studio, and they make a lot of different products. They also make another brush cleaner that is made with lavender oil. It's a little bit more expensive than this and ultimately, prices. What made me buy this over the lavender cleaner? But you can see here that this is safer. It's a natural solvent for oil. Painting is made from 100% pure distilled Citrus fruits. There are no carcinogenic fumes, no petroleum and no turpentine. So this is something that Aiken certainly recommend for you. Either this or the lavender brush cleaner. I do have some odorless mineral spirits. I actually have a very large jug, actually, that I bought at the hardware store sometime ago. Now I'm showing you this not because I recommend it. In fact, I do not recommend using mineral spirits even though they say that they're odorless. That does not mean first of all, that it actually is odorless. There is still an odor and there are still fumes. So I do not recommend using this. However, if you dio, I would recommend actually buying artist grade mineral spirits. This kind of mineral spirits that you get at the hardware store can be a little bit harder on your brushes which I did not know when I purchased this. And when I was using this, sometimes I would leave my container of odorless mineral spirits open as I painted and I started to notice headaches and it took me a little while to realize that it is actually these odorless mineral spirits that were giving me the headaches, even though I was working in a really nicely ventilated space. So I don't recommend this. However, it of course remains an option. And many artists continue to use this And if you do use odorless mineral spirits or any other solvent that could be toxic. What I recommend is keeping your solvent container tightly sealed as you paint and Onley open that container when you actually need to clean your brushes. Speaking of containers, this is one container that I like to use for my solvents. Actually, use this when I do planner painting, so I like to take this out with me. I have a little hook on my backpack that I attach this handle, too, and it never spills. It's completely air tight. I'll just open this to show you how dirty my Citrus brush cleaner is. Oh, actually, it looks pretty clean here. Now what you see here is there's actually this removable piece and there's some holes at the bottom, and I really like any container like this because what happens is as you clean your brush, the paint will actually separate from the oil and it'll sink to the bottom of the container and you can some spilling. But you can kind of see in here that it's a little bit dirtier. Well, it's kind of hard to show you because it's dripping everywhere, but it's a little dirtier at the bottom. So this allows you to use and reuse your cleaner multiple times without it kind of being contaminated with the old paint. And so just a little bit of brush cleaner will actually last. You are really long time. And the container that I typically used in my studio is just this glass container and do notice that this is metal. This is glass. Never used plastic Teoh hold any kind of solvent, so either a glass or a metal will be fine. This one probably is a little dirtier. I think you can see. But it also has this spring in the bottom, and it kind of serves the same purpose as the detachable part in here with the holes where it allows the paint to separate from the oil. So as the paint sinks to the bottom, the oil at the top remains fairly clean so that you can reuse your solvents over and over again. So even though this kind of solvent is a little bit more expensive than doing the odorless mineral spirits option, it lasts a really long time. You can actually start out with a much smaller bottle than what I have. I just knew that I really liked this, so I opted for a larger bottle of it because I knew that I'd be using it a lot in this. I've had for about a year, and I still have quite a bit in here. So keep that in mind when you are seeing prices. As with anything, the price. The sticker price might be a little bit of a shock, but when you think of the long term benefits of a product like this has compared to a cheaper product like odorless mineral spirits, I think that this is really the best option to go. And honestly, it actually smells really good, and it's not toxic at all. I still always keep my lids closed on my solvent containers just because I don't want to waste this by having it evaporate. Because it does, of course, evaporate. It's just not toxic for you and Sylvan's air. Not on Lee used for cleaning brushes, but you actually can use solvent with your paint for the initial layers of your painting. I'll be talking more about the fat over lean method for oil painting, which is a very important thing to understand for oil painting to make your paintings last a long time and to make the process a little bit easier. However, just know for now that a solvent thins your paint while most mediums are going to add fat to your paint. But in terms of cleaning your brush, I will typically clean my brush after each painting session. So any time I pay, I'm always going to clean off my brushes and I'll talk a little bit more about brush care later. But about once a week, I will dio of more deep cleaning of my brushes, and for that I will use a lavender soap. So this is also made by Chelsea Classical Studio. This is a great product to do a really deep clean for your brushes. And then I also have this brush cleaner that works just as well. So these are kind of weekly brush cleaning materials that I use in addition to solve it. And as I paint, I only used silver at the end of my painting session while I'm painting. Even if I want to use the same brush for different colors of paint, all I'm going to do is take the excess paint off of my brush bristles by using a paper towel because you don't want to expose your brushes more than necessary to solvents because it can cause the brush to deteriorate faster. No matter what kind of solvent you're using, you want to make sure that you're disposing it in a safe way. So what is recommended is that any spent solvent, you place in a glass container with an airtight lid, and then you can keep this sealed until it gets filled, and then you can take it to a proper disposal service who can safely take care of that for you, and then you don't have to worry about harming the environment at all. 13. Mediums: There are so many mediums for oil painting out there, it could be a little bit daunting. I have quite a few mediums myself, but this is definitely not exhaustive. There are so many more mediums than this and all touch base on most of them in this video. But first, let me just show you a little bit of what I have. So one of my favorite mediums is liquid in pasta. Liquid is a line of mediums made by Windsor and new in, and this is an al could medium, And what that means is that this has chemical properties that allow it Teoh dry much faster now, if you're familiar with in pasta painting techniques or if you've seen some of my other videos, you know that I use in pasta in my paintings a lot, but the more thickly you apply your paint, the longer it takes for the paint to dry. As I mentioned before, paint applied in an impossible technique can take up to a full year to completely dry. But if you use an Alcon medium, it helps your paint to dry much, much faster, and so you can see that I've used this quite a lot, and I always have another tube ready to stand by. And I primarily will use this if I'm doing a commission for someone, and they obviously do not want to wait a long, long time for me to be able to ship their painting. So this is a great line of mediums, and they make it for different purposes. So this is liquid in pasta. It's very thick. It's kind of got a jelly like consistency. I don't really want to squeeze any out here, but you can kind of see that. It's just kind of, ah, thick medium. It looks like it has a color to it, but it actually does not impact the color of your paints that you mix it into at all. This is liquid original, So this was their kind of original formula for this al could medium. It does the same thing. It speeds up drying. It improves the gloss of the finish. If that's what you are looking for, and this will not impact necessarily the thickness of the paint, I don't think it will thin it down either, but you can add this to your pain and kind of keep its original consistency, and it will help your oils to dry much faster. And then there is liquid fine detail. And again, this is not an exhaustive example of all of the liquid mediums that are available. These are just the ones that I have, because I do like this medium. I will add, though, that it is considered a toxic medium, so it has fumes that will evaporate into the air. And so I only use this when I really need to. So mostly for commissions. But the fine detail, like Win, is going to actually thin down the paint so you can use this to, you know, thin your paint down enough to add, of course, the fine details or even to do a little bit of glazing. I have another Al could medium here. This is by M. Grams. So this is the brand I will be using for this course now, unfortunately, the bottle actually broke, and so I'm keeping it in this container here. This is just a little condiment container that I about a whole bunch of these on Amazon, and they're really nice to have on hand for extra oil paint and for mediums because they have these nice airtight lids. So this is walnut oil, but it has an alcohol formula, and so this will also help. You're a paint to dry faster. And the reason that I decided to give the Walnut Al could a try is because Wana is supposed to have less of a yellowing effect over time, whereas it's possible for other mediums, like liquid or linseed oil, to actually cause you're painting Teoh yellow over time and by over time I mean hundreds of years. So this probably won't be something that I actually get to test out and see the results off , but I figured I would give it a try. A very popular and common medium is linseed oil, and this is also the most common vehicle for your oil paint to be suspended in within the two. Now, linseed oil can have a yellowing effect again. It's not something that's going to be a parent for years and years and years, so I tend not to worry too much about it and honestly, because I use my pain typically in a very imposter technique, so very thick applications I'm usually not using linseed oil because this is something that will thin down the paint a little bit. And when we're talking about the fat over lean technique a little bit later in this series , I'll talk more about mediums like this, which are considered fats versus actual thinners. So they have kind of the same effect on pain, whereas it kind of thins the paint down. Which is why I think people are confused about that method of fat over Wayne. But basically because this is an oil, it's a fat. And so this is adding fat to your paint. Okay, now, finally, I have another medium by Windsor and new, and this is not a liquid medium, but this is a blending and glazing medium. So for traditional techniques or indirect techniques, which I will cover in this Siri's a little bit later on, you are going to need Teoh. Increase the transparency of your paint so that you can paint over an under painting or Grizz I So it's good to have a glazing medium on hand, but there are ways that you can actually make your own again. This kind of medium is going to tend to have some toxicity or fumes, so you should take that into consideration for whatever painting methods you choose to employ. This container here is actually just a little metal cup with a lid, and it has, if you can see it here, a little clip on the underside of it so it can clip onto your palate as you're painting. And this is a really great tool toe have if you are going to choose to use mediums, especially mediums like linseed oil or ah glazing medium or fine detail medium. I wouldn't necessarily want to use this for the liquid. Impossibly. Usually just squeeze this out directly on Teoh my palate and the same with the liquid original. But this allows you to kind of have your medium of choice handy by your side at all times. Other common mediums include safflower oil, stand oil, poppy oil, lavender oil, damsel, neo Meg, Lip, Damar and many, many more 14. Substrates: And now let's talk about substrates. Ah, substrate is any surface on which you are going to paint. The most common in popular substrate is stretched canvas, which is what I have here. This is just a little eight by 10. And I just think it's important for you to know that this is definitely not your only option. I know that when I was first starting oil painting any time that I was painting on a stretched canvas like this, especially if I went Teoh the arts play store and I spent, you know, $20 on a nice, big stretched canvas. I felt so much pressure to get the painting right, and I just wasn't ready for that. So I needed some alternatives that would be less expensive and just feel a little bit less formal. Although I will say that you can buy these online in value packs, which is what this came from. And I think that those air perfectly fine. There are differences in quality between canvases. Of course, this is on the cheaper side of things, so ah, cheaper fabric, cheaper primer. Ah, but you definitely can once you're ready for it by some really nice stretched canvases that are made with linen and that our oil primed. This is acrylic primed, which is actually perfectly fine to use. An acrylic primer otherwise known as Jess. Oh, under your oil paintings, and I'll talk a little bit more about that in this video. But just know that this is not your only option. So to kind of set my mind at ease, I started to use hardboard, so this is a piece of hardboard, otherwise known as Masonite. This'll one's a little bit dirty because sometimes I actually use thes Teoh. Hold paper to paint on. This is 1/4 inch thick. It also comes in 1/8 inch thickness, which is what this is. You can kind of see a little bit of a difference here. Now, when I want to use hardboard or Masonite, I just go to my local hardware store, where they have a lumber section and what they have our sheets of hardboard. They are four feet by eight feet, so they're huge. But that size, at least around here, is only like $20 so it's extremely inexpensive, and the hardware store that I go to they will actually cut it down for you. So I'm not hauling home a four foot by eight foot she of hardboard and then trying. Teoh saw it myself. Eso I'm fortunate in that regard because I know that not every hardware store will cut it down for you. But if you have the option, this is really great, because I haven't done the math. But if you're doing eight by 10 panels from a four foot by eight foot sheet, that is only $20. I mean, that's just pennies per panel. And so you really don't have to feel any pressure. Teoh. Get the painting rights now. If you're going to use this option, it's important to know that you can't just bring that Masonite or hard bird home and just paint directly onto it. You will have to do a little bit of work, and so you will need to sand it, and then you will need to apply your own primer or Jess. Oh, this one is just so I know you can't tell, but that's because I often will use this clear. Jess. Oh, so Jess Oh, is acrylic based, and you might be thinking that that seems a little bit strange since we're actually oil painting, and you probably know that you cannot use oil, paint and acrylic paint together. But actually you can. In a way, you can apply oil paint on top of an acrylic foundation or base. You just can't apply acrylic on top of an oil foundation or base, so it is perfectly acceptable and fine and very common that you will do an oil painting on top of an acrylic primer. And if you think about it, acrylic is water based, and oil is obviously oil. And what happens when we pour water on top of oil? They switch places. The oil goes on top. The water sinks to the bottom, the waters more dense than the oil. And that's why you can use oil painting on top of and acrylic base. And it's perfectly fine. There are, of course, however, some oil primers out there. There are two big reasons why prime ing most surfaces for oil painting is extremely important. The first reason that you might be somewhat aware of is that a surface such as a wood or even a wood composite like hardboard is going to absorb your oil paints, and so when you apply it instead of it sitting on top of your substrate and having a nice finish, it's actually going to soak into that porous material and applying a primer or adjust so will seal the surface up so that we knew apply your pain. It can actually sit on top of the surface as intended. And because these surfaces are porous and will absorb the oil paints, they will actually be exposed. Teoh rot. So if the oil soaks into a wood or paper or natural substrates, it will actually cause that substrate. Teoh decompose. And so you really need to make sure that you are sealing up the surface whether you're using an oil primer, which will seal the surface, or an acrylic based Jess Oh, primer. It's very, very important to always keep that in mind because there's many services in substrates that you can paint on. You just need to make sure that you are treating them and preparing them properly. Another popular substrate is a panel. This is a canvas panel. These often will come in value packs, and they tend to be very inexpensive. They have that same nice texture as a stretched canvas, but they take up less space. They're very light. They tend to be less expensive as well. So this is a great option. This is just a new panel that I have. And then this is one that I have pre toned and just quickly toning a substrate and prime ing. It are two different things, so this is already pre primed. And when you buy a pre stretched canvas or a panel like this, it generally will already be primed for you, so you don't have to do that work. So this was already primed for me, but I like Teoh tone, my canvas isas well, so that means applying a color to it so that I'm not working directly on a white surface. And if you've seen my other courses here in skill share, you have noticed that I like to use a permanent rose as my tone. That, of course, is not a rule that's just a personal preference, and we'll talk more about that as I get into more technique courses. But panels are very popular and inexpensive, and they're great, especially for going outdoors because they're so lightweight and easy to carry around. The last substrate that I want to talk about is actually paper, so it might seem a little bit strange. Teoh, think about painting and oil painting on paper. This paper is made by arches. Arches is what is best known for making watercolor Paper is 100% cotton. And the difference between this and they're watercolor paper is that this is actually oil prime. So this is called oil paper. And what I did is I just bought a big giant roll of this so that I can cut it down to any size I want. And I love doing studies on paper for that reason, because I'm not constrained Teoh one particular size that I had to commit to when I bought it. I can cut the paper down toe what ever size I want. Of course, if you're someone who wants to stretch your own canvases, that's also an option for doing that as well. You might also be surprised to know that you can paint on cardboard with oil paints, but same as hardboard, Masonite or any other natural material. Ah, that's made out of organic material. You would need to prime this before applying oil paint so you can pay on cardboard or natural would like hardwoods and even composite woods like hardboard or Masonite or M D. F. You just need to make sure that you're preparing the surface properly so that you don't get any kind of decomposition. And so these surfaces do not just absorb all of your oil paint because even cardboard and this is actually illustration board, which is popular to use with watercolor and wash. If you apply oil paint directly to this, it just soaks right in. And you just don't get that nice sheen that you usually see with oil paint, so you would need to prime this ahead of time. 15. Brushes: paintbrushes conceal him every bit as daunting as oil paint. There's just so many kinds, so many different bristle types, so many different shapes. How do you figure out what is right for you? Well, to begin with, I think that what is right for you really depends on what kind of oil painting you want to do. I tend to use brushes that have very firm and strong bristles. So these are all synthetic hog hair brushes, very rigid, because I really like strong brushstrokes, and I like to dio Impressionist style paintings. However, if you are someone who is wanting to do more traditional techniques where you're applying glazes and you don't necessarily want visible brushstrokes, you might choose a brush like this. I don't have many brushes like this, but it has much softer bristles now. This is still synthetic, and I think all of my oil painting brushes are synthetic. You can, of course, get natural hair bristles that are made from typically animals. I think in every case, actually, so that's really up to you and your preference. Those tend to be more expensive. They tend not to last very long because they're made out of natural materials. And so they do deteriorates, and there are also just, you know, your values to consider. So let's talk now about size and shape. This is not the largest brush that I have, but this is the one that I most commonly use. And for the style of painting that I like to do, which is Impressionist, I really want to use really big brush strokes, and I don't want to sit with a tiny brush and kind of piddle away at my painting. That's not really how it works for Impressionist style paintings, so I'm going to start out with the largest brush that I possibly can. I'm gonna use the largest brush as long as I can, and I might switch over to a smaller brush just at the very end to do some work that I just can't seem to do with the larger rush. But you should know that even if you only have a couple of brushes, you'll learn to use your brush to make multiple different kinds of strokes and marks with it. So just because you might only have a select few brushes doesn't mean that you're going to be limited in how you apply the paint. You're just going Teoh. Learn to use this as kind of an extension of yourself, and brushes are actually very, very versatile. So this brush is called a flat and it's called a flat because is flat. So this is a very popular rush with painters who like to do Impressionist work or planner work. And here is an example of a flat right here, and this is actually called a brights, and you can see it's also flat. What makes this a different shape of brush? It's called a bright just because the bristles are a little bit shorter, so you're gonna get crisper brushstrokes, whereas you have a little bit more flexibility to create softer brush strokes with a flat as it tends toe have slightly longer bristles. Likewise, both of these brushes are considered a filbert, so Filbert brushes have this rounded edge on the bristles. But this is a long filbert. You can see that the bristles are much, much longer. You can achieve a softer stroke potentially with the longer bristles because you're applying less pressure through the handle or less pressure is transferring from the handle to the bristles because it dissipates is the bristles get longer and longer. So with this, you're going to get a little bit of a stronger mark. I like to use Phil Burt's to do loose sketching, and you'll see that the handles are actually quite long. And that's very popular with oil painting and also acrylic painting. Sometimes watercolor painters like a long handle. But I when I do watercolors, I actually like a short handle. The reason that I like a long handle for oil painting is again. It comes back to the style that I work in, which is Impressionist. I try to keep my paintings really loose and so to keep a painting loose. It's actually good to relinquish some control over the brush, so I will tend to try to hold my brush as far away from the bristles as I can manage and also stand back from my painting as I work. And this allows me to get a looser and more fluid stroke 16. Brush Care: so you can see here that most of my brushes have that very firm bristle type. And these are my plan air brushes that I take out in the field with me, a couple of palette knives and then to store these brushes. I have this roll up that keeps my brushes really safe. It prevents the bristles from getting bent or damaged, and then it fits into a backpack very, very easily. So let's talk just a little bit more about brush care. I know that I talked a bit about it earlier when we were discussing solvents and cleaners, but I think it's good Teoh really reiterate how you can make your brushes last as long as possible. A common mistake that people make is in storing their brushes, so people will tend to store their brushes up right in a container. But what happens is that if you have just used and cleaned your brush, the solvents that you clean your brush with is going Teoh soaked down in here, and it can actually loosen up the glue that's holding the bristles in place, and over time it's going to cause the bristles to fall out and the brush to become warped and destroyed. So after your painting session and after you've cleaned your brushes, you need to let them dry either flat. Or if you have the ability, you can actually hang them upside down so that the fluid comes out. I actually don't have the ability to lto hangman upside down, which I think would be the best way. Teoh store freshly used brushes, so I just make a point. Teoh. Store them flat until they're dry, and then once they're dry, you can go ahead, and you can store them with the bristles up. Never store them in a container with the bristles down because it will bend and warp the bristles. So if you want to do the upside down method, you really need a way to suspend your brush so that the bristles are not being distorted with weight or with gravity. And as I said earlier, when I clean my brushes, I will clean them in my Citrus solvent after each paint session. I do not even if I'm using one brush to do an entire painting. I am not going Teoh clean it in Seoul. But every time I switch colors that would be extremely tedious and time consuming, first of all, and it also is a little bit hard on your brush and also kind of wasteful. So as I'm painting, even if I'm going to stick with just one brush for the whole painting, all I'm going to do is wipe off excess paint with a paper towel as I go so you don't need a perfectly clean brush even when you're switching colors and you just kind of learned to work in that flow. And then when I'm finished painting, that is when I will wipe off all the excess paint with a paper towel once again and then I will use a solvent to clean it off further. You don't want to dip a brush that has a lot of excess paint on it into your solvent, because that will destroy and pollute your solve it much faster. And if you are investing in a good non toxic solvent, you obviously don't want to let it go to waste any faster than you have. Teoh. And then once a week, I will like to do a deep clean on the brushes that I use the most and so this has been my favorite deep cleaner for my brushes. I will open this up for you, but this is made by Chelsea classical studios. It is just a bar of soap, and you can see there's an in debt here. And that's because when I'm cleaning and of course, I'm using water and kind of rubbing the bristles into the soap, and this actually has lasted quite a while, and it smells great. It's non toxic. This is actually made with lavender oil and olive oil, and it's great for a deep plane. Okay, and then there are also less expensive deep cleaners for brushes, so this being a very popular one is just called brush cleaner. And if we open this up, you'll see it's kind of similar. It's not a bar of soap, but it's a very similar feel. This is dry right now, but you would use this with water and you're brushing. You would just kind of scrub the bristles in here to really work this into the bristles so that you can loosen up any paint that your solvent was unable. Teoh, release from your bristles and you don't have to go out and buy the most expensive paintbrushes out there. Of course, you confined paintbrushes that cost $100 for a single brush. I typically like to buy my brushes in a set because they're a little bit less expensive that way, and you get more of a variety, and I actually have way more brushes that I really need. But you know, as you go, you tryto try out different things and you realize that you have different preferences. Even though this is also a synthetic home hair. This is actually called mimic cog. And I do like this actually, because, ah, lot of my synthetic hog hair brushes, they're very, very firm and rigid. And even though this is also synthetic OG, it's much softer. So if I do want a little bit of a softer stroke for my paintings that I could switch over to these. So just like buying paint, you know different brands in different lines. Even when they have a lot of things in common with each other, there will be little subtle differences, and with experience in time, you might gain a preference for one thing over the other 17. Palette Knives: another great tool for oil painting is the palette knife. Now, I have two different sizes here, but you'll see that there, actually both the same shape, their diamond shaped and then they are beveled. And this is actually the only palette knife that I personally use. I know that when you buy a set of palette knives, they tend to give you lots of different shapes and sizes. Um, and so that could be left to your preference. I've just kind of developed a feel for this shape and this handle shape that I really prefer over all the other palette knives that I've ever tried. And the reason is because of me. Grab this here for you. Just Teoh show you a little bit more clearly if I'm mixing paint on my palettes, it's nice toe have this beveled handle because without it, I would constantly be kind of, you know, running my entire pallet knife into my surface. And so I might get some unintended paint on that palette knife. So I have a little bit more control with this due to the beveled handle, and then the shape is just something that I've become acclimated to as I've painted. And the palette knife, of course, could be used for mixing paint on your palate and for scraping paint off of your palate when you're ready to clean it. But you can actually use a palette knife to paint. And I have a full scale share, of course, on painting with a palette knife. It's so much fun. I love it. I actually spent an entire year Onley painting with a palette knife because I was so angry at myself for ruining too many brushes. So I decided that I would paint with a palette knife because I can't ruin a palette knife, even if I forget to clean it off, have since become much better about cleaning my brushes after every single paint session. So that does not happen to me anymore. Fortunately, but being able to paint with a palette knife, it is so much fun, and it gives you such a great loose effect. So check out that skill share course of mine. If you're interested in that technique, it is certainly one of my favorites, and the palette knife is a must have. You might develop a preference for another shape or you know, even a flat handle. So that's completely up to you. The one thing that I would say is to not buy those cheap plastic pellet knives. So you know this palette knife? I bought this individually. I think it was something like $5 this came in a set, and it just happened to be the only one I actually used from the set anymore. But the cost is very low. They last forever. And the plastic ones are going to give you way too much grief, and they're not fun to use. So go ahead and just spend the extra dollar to get a metal palette knife. 18. Palettes for Mixing: There are quite a few different types of pallets that you can use to makes your oil paints what you have seen me use in my other courses, and this is my preferred palette. This is a wooden pallet. It's not terribly large. I think it might be about 12 inches tall, and this is plenty big for me, especially using a limited palate and working on a fairly small painting. This is what I prefer because I like the feel of it when I'm mixing on wood. I also like that it has a really neutral color to it so that I can better judge my colors as I mix. I don't like Teoh mix on a white surface, just like I don't like to paint on a white surface. Another option is Teoh. Make your own palette, and I have an example of that here. This is actually back from my early days, and I had this idea that a wooden pallet was going to be expensive. They're actually not. This was only about $10 you can actually get them even cheaper than that. But I made this out of a piece of glass that came out of an old frame, and I attached it. Teoh this piece of cardboard back here because again, I like to paint over a neutral surface. You can see there's a lot of glare on the glass, and I don't like that. I also don't like the feel of using a palette knife on glass, but this is a really cheap and easy way. Teoh make a palette, and the big difference between using a glass palette and it would impel it is that if you're paint dries on the glass palate, you can scrape it off. If you're paint dries on the wooden pallet, you're kind of out of luck, because if you try to scrape on this, you're going to gouge into the wood. So what I dio to maintain my palate so that I don't have to spend $10 again, is I just make sure that I clean it up after every paint session. So I scrape it down and then I use just I dip a paper towel on a little bit of my Silva, and then I use that to just kind of clean off any remnants of paint from it, and that has kept it in really good condition. So I really recommend getting into the habit of just cleaning up your space after every paint session. It also, in my opinion, makes it easier to come back the next day when I have a clean work environment and it doesn't feel like a chaotic mess. So that's what I recommend. There, of course, are other pallet options out there. There's Plexi glass, which is very similar to glass, in the sense that you can scrape it down if you need Teoh. And there are even pallets that have lids that allow you to kind of keep your paint a little bit longer on or even pop the whole pallet into the freezer. Actually, put this in the freezer all the time if I have a lot of paint left over on it, and I know that I'm going to be painting the very next day. If you put your excess paint in the freezer, it will slow the drying time. It will not completely stop it so your paint can dry and the freezer if you leave it in there for several days, but just overnight it will keep that paint consistency really soft and malleable. There are also disposable pallets such as paper pallets. I personally do not like to use those at all. I like to have a really nice firm surface and I don't like toe. Have Teoh have a lot of disposable materials that I'm constantly throwing away and having to replace, but that is an option if that is convenient for you. 19. Tube Wringer (My Favorite Tool!): I am going to let you in on a secret that I don't think enough artists are aware of. And that is the wonder of the two bringer. And that's literally what it's called. This is a device I bought this on Amazon. I think it cost me about $20 which might seem like a lot. But when you see the price of a tube of paint and how much goes toe waste when you're just trying to squeeze it out manually with your hands, you'll realize that this will quickly pay for itself. So let me just show you an example here of a paint tube that I've been using for a while, and I've been using my tube ringer on this, and you can see that no amount of paint can escape the tube ringer so you don't have any incidental waste from trying. Teoh squeeze things up. And as you if you had any experience with either oil or acrylic paint in these metal tubes , you realize that as you get closer to the topic, it's even harder to squeeze paint out so you can completely eliminate that kind of waste by using a tube a ringer and the way that you use it, I'm not going to open it up because I don't want to waste any pain right now. But you would take the lid off of your paint to first of all, so you would put this in here, you would clamp it down so you can see that this tale is kind of sticking out. You could actually use scissors and actually just cut off the tail as you move along. But I just tend to kind of let it come out this end, and then you're going to use this Teoh turn it, and then it's going to be squeezed between these two kind of gear Looking things in here and your pain will come right out. You do have to develop a feel for it because even a small turn, you'll get quite a bit of paints coming out of your tube so you don't want to give it a big crank because you might end up actually wasting paint. In that sense, Onda, I would say my biggest piece of advice and from experience working with students in person when I have recommend them to get the two bringer there is a less expensive option that's made out of aluminum. Do not get that that is meant for tubes of toothpaste, and it is not strong enough for these metal tubes of thick paints. So you really need to spring for the stainless steel to bring er and I do highly recommend this for absolutely everybody. 20. Storing Paint to Reduce Waste: an optional but recommended material that I like to use our these little plastic condiment cups. So these are typically used to store things like ketchup, mustard, mayonnaise, different food condiments that you want to maintain. And I bought these in a set of, I think, 100 from Amazon. They were really inexpensive. They come with these lids that seal on very, very nicely and so typically what I dio if I have a lot of excess paint on my palette, and I'm not completely sure I'm gonna be back the next day to finish it off, I will scrape that paint off, put it in one of these containers, and then I put this in the freezer so that the paint will last a little bit longer and I don't have to leave that paint on my palette. So if it does dry while it's in this container, you know these are easy enough just to throw away. Or I can usually even scrape the, you know, paint out of here, even if it's fairly dry. And then I can reuse the cup, which actually do reuse these cups quite a lot. So you can see here this is actually a couple of condiment cups that I reuse. So if my paints dries, or even if it doesn't and I just reuse the paint the next day I just used my palette knife to scrape the paint out of the container. And then this pain is all dry and so I can just reuse these. They don't look great, but, you know, they serve a purpose. And I really like to try to find ways to not waste anything. So I don't even like to actually throw these in the trash. I just try to reuse them as long as I can. So again, I bought these on Amazon a set of 100. I honestly don't remember the price what it was, but it was very inexpensive. So this is a great way to store excess paint and also mediums. So here you can see that I have this container that this medium came in actually cracked, and so luckily, I had plenty of these containers around. So I could just transfer this medium into these containers and not waste them do Teoh the container breaking. Of course, you would not want to use these plastic containers to hold any kind of solvents. However, 21. Clean Up: two things that are great to have on hand are baby wipes and, of course, paper towels. I think paper towels might be a little bit more obvious, so I'll use paper towels while I'm painting Teoh white excess paint off of my brushes. And then at the end of the pain painting session, I will use the paper towel just to do other cleaning, you know, thoroughly cleaning my brushes. I'll dip it into sold and use that to clean off my palate. But what do you use baby wipes for? Well, baby wipes are actually just great for you to use on your hands. So if you do happen to get any pain on your hands, you want to get it off a soon as possible because, as I said, even non toxic paints, I think that you should just be very cautious and treat them as if they are toxic. So if you're like me and you don't really like to wear gloves while you're painting, I really like just being able Teoh feel everything myself. So I keep these handy so that I can wipe anything off of my hands as soon as possible, and these were very effective in getting oil paint off of you. And just because oil and water do not mix doesn't mean that soap and water will not remove oil from your hands. It will. So if you don't have baby wipes, handy soap in water is your next best bet, and you should always wash your hands after painting anyway. 22. My Work Space: I'm going to show you my workspace, and so I hope that you'll forgive any shakiness of the camera. But this is where I like to do most of my oil painting. And there's my sleeping little dog not making noise for once. Hi, Hazel, And this is really it. So this table that I'm using is actually just a folding table. I don't know if you can see that here clearly, but it just has a table cloth on top of it so that I don't ruin the surface. And then I have what's called a desk Essel sitting on it. So there are standing easels and there are many other types of easels, this one you could set on the floor. It takes a very, very large canvas. It can actually take an even larger canvas than what it set up for right now. And really, your workspace is going just to depend on your own preferences for working. So if you prefer to work sitting down, you'll have one set up if you like Toe work standing, you'll have a different set up, and I'll actually show you what I like to do when I want to stand, but this is a really basic set up. I have my wouldn't pellet under here. This is actually a little bit different than what you see in my demonstration videos for my videos. I actually sit over here because I can use this little contraption to hold my camera. It's really not the best way to paint. I like to paint with my substrate, vertical or, you know, parallel to me. Basically, it's a lot harder. Teoh do oil painting when you're trying to paint on a flat surface. So I really prefer this for actually my painting. And so my palate is right here. It's very convenient if we look behind here. This is where I kind of keep all my paints and Sylvan's and a couple of substrates that I use the most. And then I like to have my soul Vint Handy and also these baby wipes handy so that I can use that very easily, and then I don't want to put it on the camera too much, but my light appear. This is a full spectrum bulb. It's a very large bulb, and that is kind of the best light under which to paint right now, when I'm filming this, it's actually nighttime. But the room that I used to work in is actually a little breakfast nook that has a lot of windows, and it's best to have as much natural lights as you possibly can. And if you don't have much natural light through windows, then that's when you might want to consider getting a full spectrum light bulb to work to light your workspace. But you can see that you don't need any fancy devoted studio here. This is just right off of my kitchen, and I like it because my dogs can hang out in here with me as I paint and make all kinds of noises there being so good right now, though, and with this set up, I can actually do a painting. If it's a larger canvas, I can certainly work standing up, which is actually really how I prefer to paint. But if I want Teoh, I can also sit down so it's going to again just kind of depend on your own needs and preferences and just make sure to have lots of room for your pets, and I do recommend having some access to ventilation. So in this room I have a sliding door that I can easily open. I have windows that have screens so I can get really good ventilation in here when needed. Of course, I tried to use non toxic materials as much as possible, so I don't have to worry too much about ventilation. That is something that you definitely want to consider when you're looking for a good workspace. 23. Portable / Compact Work Space Options: Now I'll show you a few examples of portable workspaces, and by portable, I basically mean that these air setups that will work within your home studio if you have the luxury of having a dedicated space for your artwork or if you don't have a dedicated space thes air things that fold up easily and can be put away. And you can also take any of these outdoors to do planner painting. If you're interested in that, this is just a standard diesel. It's easy to fold it up. It tends to be very inexpensive, often less than $20 it can also be arranged. Teoh be standing height, or it can even work as a desk or table easel. So it's very versatile and it's very lightweights, and it will often even come with a carrying case that it folds up into so you can easily lug it around with you. Here we have a French easel. This is a wooden easel that folds up into a box, and what's nice about this is that you can actually store a lot of your materials inside the folded up box so you can store tubes of paint paint brushes, mediums, your palate and even some rags or paper towels. It can be a little bit annoying to set up and take down, but once you get the hang of it, it's actually pretty easy, and these also tend to be very sturdy, and they're great for using outdoors or indoors. Prashad boxes are very popular with painters who like to dio painting unplanned air, which just means painting outdoors. These are boxes that fold up there very portable and easy to use, their usually big enough to fit a few small art supplies inside the folded up box. And then this kind of model, which is most common, is often used on a camera tripod toe. Hold it up so that you can paint while standing, but you can also just set this on a table and paint in that manner. But shot boxes could be a little bit expensive, and I personally love using a prashad box. But I like looking for alternatives to the push odd boxes that are often sold in art stores . One option is a cigar box Prashad. There's lots of D I Y tutorials online on how to convert an old cigar box into a prashad, so I definitely encourage you to explore that option because it could be very affordable, and you can potentially customize it. Teoh specifically, meet your needs the next to push odd boxes. I'm going to show you are ones that I personally own in these air made by independent makers, and I've included the websites where I purchased both of these. The 1st 1 here is a tripod free pest rod box. I personally really like this because eliminating the need for a tripod to hold up the prashad box really cuts down on things that you need to lug around. If you do plan on moving around a bit when you're painting. Plus, I like to go out with my dogs, and if I try to paint with a tripod, my dogs are just sure to knock it down. So this eliminates the need tohave a tripod, and it makes it very convenient. And the box is also large enough to keep a few small tubes of paint paint brushes in some paper towels. Inside of it even comes with a built in palette, which most push odd boxes do. So that's just a little side note there. Very, very portable and travel friendly. A thumb box is just a very small prashad box that you typically can hold in one hand. And there's often a little hole at the bottom that you stick your thumb through just like a pallets. And I personally own this pocket box over here on the right. And yes, that is how it is spelled. And it's made by an artist named Andy Walker. I think that he currently at this time is living in Italy, but he's a painter and he makes these little thumb boxes, and I have one. I love it. It's very lightweight. It folds up, and it has a built in palette, and it is just fun to use for quick sketches, whether I'm outside or I'm just sitting on my couch so I can personally recommend that one . But there's certainly many other ones out there, and you could even look into making your own thumb box of your interested. So these are just some examples of portable workspaces that will work both within a studio setting, and you can also take them wherever you feel inspired to paint 24. Suppliers of Artist Materials: There are many places where you can buy all of your art materials, and I think it's important, though Teoh make an informed decision about where you buy your art materials. So here's a few considerations that I encourage you to reflect on and also to do a little bit of research on. So what you want to consider, of course, is price. Now the sticker price may not always be the price you actually pay. Many suppliers offer frequent sales and coupons and even perks for regular shoppers that might actually drive their prices down significantly for you, for example, a store like hobby lobby tends to have much higher prices than what you might find on Amazon or an actual art supplier online. However, hobby Lobby has an ongoing 40% off coupon that you can get on your phone. And so if there's something that you're needing and it's a little bit expensive, you might consider the price of that item at Hobby Lobby with the 40% off coupon as compared to where you're seeing it elsewhere. Often I can get a very expensive art supply hobby lobby at a great price just by planning ahead and using that 40% off coupon strategically, and that's just one example. But in general, I encourage you to compare prices between different suppliers so that you know where you can get the best deal. You obviously also want to consider quality, so you want to go somewhere for good quality products where it matters. There are some items that you might be able to buy at a Wal Mart or target, but these may not be the best artist quality items. But if you're just looking for a tarp, then it might be a good idea to go toe warmer instead of buying a tarp from a specialty art supplier, Convenience is obviously also a factor. I buy most of my art supplies online, but if I'm in a pinch and I need something right away, for example, if I have a commission and I need a very specific size of canvas, that might be a situation where I actually drive to a local store, even though it may cost me a little bit more. But the convenience of having access to that special product right away is worth the extra cost. Expertise can also be a factor If you're looking to buy a special type of material and you're not sure about it, it may be worth your time to go to a local specialty art supplier like Dick Blick or you tracked where the person working in the store may be able to answer your questions, whereas someone at Hobby Lobby or Walmarts may not be able to answer that question. Lastly, you want to consider your own personal values, for example. For me, it's really important. Teoh support other makers and artists, so I try to look for art supplies that are handmade by other artists. So I often will look on Etsy. Or if I have a favorite artist who happens to make something that I can buy, I may actually spend a little bit more to support them. Rather than buying from Amazon, for example, my main point here is just to emphasize that there's no need to have any kind of loyalty to one art supplier over the other, and you should always make an informed decision that works best for you in that moment. So let's briefly go over some of the different types of suppliers of art materials. The first I want to talk about our local craft stores like Hobby Lobby and Michael's. These tend to have higher price points and that you pay for the convenience factor of being able just to walk in and buy items. These air not specialty stores in the sense that they don't have staff persons on hand who are explicitly knowledgeable about art materials, however they do tend to have pretty good materials on hand. But you should always check prices. If you live in a more urban area, you'll likely have some local specialty stores such as Dick Blick and you tracked these air great stores because they often have staff persons on hand that have some kind of knowledge about art materials, or at least who have a very strong interest in the arts. The price points can be a little bit higher, of course, because they have more overhead expenses than an online outlets. But these could be great stores to shop at if you are needing some answers on questions that you have, and you also need really high quality materials, believe it or not, but you can get some of your art materials at stores like Wal Mart and Target. Now they do have a little art section in most Wal Marts and targets where they have some canvases and some pains. But that is not what I'm talking about here. I don't like to buy those kinds of materials at Wal Mart because they're not going to be good quality. However, if I need something like a tarp or I just need some tape or it just needs some field supplies for planner painting, this is a great place to go toe. Look for things like that. So items that are kind of peripheral toe art making, but not necessarily art materials in themselves. You can buy these items also from specialty art stores, but you're going to tend to pay a lot more at an art store. Likewise, you may find yourself buying some of your art materials at hardware stores like Ace or Lowe's or Home Depot. I mentioned earlier in this course that I like to buy lumber to use as substrates, so this would be one example of an item that you might buy at the hardware store. In addition to primers and summat, studio materials. I live in a rural area In fact, I don't even have a hobby lobby in my town. I have to drive to the next town over, so I buy most of my art materials on line. My favorite one personally is Jerry's Arte Rama, but I think that the prices are comparable between Jerry's cheap Joe's Dick Blick and you tracked. They're all pretty compatible with one another. It's just going to depend on which one you would tend to prefer and where you already have an account. It's also possible to buy art supplies directly from manufacturers such as Windsor and New in. However, I usually find that they don't have the best prices for their own products. I'm not sure why that is, but I tend Teoh find much better prices on either Amazon or online art suppliers like Jerry's Arte Rama. Amazon often has the best deals on art supplies, even compared to other online art suppliers. So I typically find myself comparing prices between Amazon and Jerry's Arte Rama and basically going with the best deal. There are also tons and tons of independent makers out there who are making different art supplies and materials, and they're selling on places like etc. Advertising on YouTube or even here on skill share or on Instagram and I really try to support other makers, and not just because they are also makers like me, but because they often come up with really ingenious things that are not being sold in stores. Finally, in many cases, you can be your own supplier of some art materials. You could do anything from making your own paint, believe it or not, to doing more common things, like making your own plan air easel or prashad box. There's lots of resource is and tutorials out there, and that will show you how to make certain items for yourself, so I, of course, encourage you to explore those options as well. 25. Technique - Toning the Substrate: Now we're going to look at a few basic techniques within oil painting, and I think that it's a good idea just to really start talking about techniques from the very beginning. So what I have here is some of the arches oil paper that I talked about in the substrates section, so you can see this is literally just paper. It's a £140 weight paper, which is pretty standard. Wait for art paper. If you're familiar with watercolor paper, you'll be familiar with what that feels like. And again, the difference between this and watercolor paper is that this is primed and it's specificly primed for oil. So you would not use this with an acrylic paint or any water based mediums. So when I use this, as I said, I have a role of this, and I just cut it down to whatever size is convenient for me. And so because it came in a roll, it is a little bit curved. It's not very flat. I find it very difficult to actually tape around the edges because it's such a strong and rigid paper, it tends to pull the tape up, especially the masking tape that I usually use, which is a low tack masking tape. So what I use and I typically use those paper just to do studies or plan air so pretty informal stuff. And so I like to just use thes clips to hold down the corners to try Teoh. Arrange it so it's not covering much of the paper like the least amount possible. And there are other types of papers that you can use for oil painting. I know that Kansan makes some paper that you can use, and it is acrylic primed to see. You can use it with mediums other than oils, and I've used that paper before. It's not as good of quality. I would actually I wouldn't mind selling paintings that are painted on this because it is an archival paper and it can be matted and framed, so this will help to keep it flat. Okay, and the first thing that I typically like to do with my paintings and if you've seen my other videos here on skill share, I like Teoh tone the paper, so I'm going to show you how I do that. And I've talked about this a little bit in my other courses. But toning is something. First of all, not everybody likes to work on a toned surface. Some people don't mind painting directly on white. I don't really like to pay on White because I feel like I can judge my value. Range is a little bit better if I have kind of a medium value toned surface. So I would never tone a surface with a dark color or a light color. Although I have seen lots of people use yellow, it's most common for people to use something like a Sienna or even an number. But I like to use red, and that's just my personal preference. So two tone a surface. This is optional, but I do typically like to use a little bit of my soul, but and this is just my Citrus essence solvent that I have here, and you don't need much pain. I actually probably squeezed out a little too much paint here, actually, definitely did. But that's okay, so what I'll dio is will use my palette knife to start kind of just spreading this around. Okay, Any time that you're going to tone your surface, it needs to be a very thin layer. And as I do this, I want to talk just a little bit about the fat overly in principle. So I'm gonna just dip my brush into my solvent. I don't need a lot of sylvan time here. Just a tiny, tiny bit will really do the trick. And then I can use this just to scrub the pigment into the paper. And when I do studies, I don't mind having the edges remain white. I don't feel like I need to pay all the way to the edge, especially for a study, and I honestly, I kind of like how that looks anyway. I like that kind of rough look now because I added a solvent in here that made the paint more lean. So if you think about it, Sylvan's air often called thinners, they thin the paint, and you want to be careful not to ever seen your paint too much because that's going to cause the pigments to disperse too much in the paint to break down. So that's why I say just a little bit of Sylvan is going to really do the trick for you and you're still going to have to pick up some of the excess solvent that is on here. So this is a lean layer. And when we are oil painting, if we're using different mediums and things like that, we need to keep this fat over lean principle in mind. Because if you build up the layers of your oil painting in the incorrect order you're going Teoh, be more prone to having your painting cracked. And that's because we need to have the more flexible layers of paint on top, and the more firm or solid layers of paint need to be on the bottom. So think about a building and you're building a foundation and then you're building a frame . And then last is when you put kind of, you know, the more decorative features on it, and that's the same with a painting. We're going to be building it from the more solid layers, and then as we move up and we add more oil and more medium to our paint, those are what can go on top because those are a little bit more flexible. And one thing to note, if you do plan to use an Al could medium such as liquid. One big thing with liquid is that if you have been painting your painting without liquid and then you decide Teoh layer the liquid on top. Liquid actually makes your paint a little bit more rigid, and so you would not want to use liquid on top of layers of paint that do not have liquid in them, because the liquid also will dry really fast. And so then you're going to have kind of a dry crust over your entire painting, and then all the paint underneath isn't going to be exposed to the oxygen it needs in order to dry itself over time. But if you use liquid for your first layers and then you decide to not use liquid for the final layers, that's actually OK. And also, if you are painting without any mediums at all, you don't have to worry about the fat over lean principle at all. This is only for when you're actually using mediums or toning your surface, and you can turn your surface completely without thinner if you just use your brush to really scrub it into your substrates. So this is a toned surface again This is not something that you have to do. Some people do it. Some people don't. It's really a matter of personal preference, and you can choose to tone your surface ahead of time and allow that to dry. And then when you're ready to paint, it will be completely dry. I usually just tone my surface and then go ahead and paint right away. As long as it's very thin, it's not going to really interfere much at all with your painting. And also just to reiterate toning your surface is not the same as prime ing. You need to do the prime ing ahead of time. The prime ing is what seals up the surface so that you don't have oil seeping into the fibers of your substrate in causing rot or causing it just to be completely absorbed. So toning is optional, prime ing is necessary and prime ing has to be done first. 26. Technique - Working Dark to Light: you'll often see or hear oil painters talking about painting from dark toe light, and I'm going to demonstrate right now why that is so the first thing that I want to do is actually demonstrate it the correct way, because it will just be a little easier to demonstrate that then to go the opposite way. But I and then I'll be able to do it the wrong way for it. You and all kind of show you Why? So here I just have black So Sam doing a block in. And I like to do my block ins very crudely and with just basically two or three values. So I'm going to put in large dark areas as a paint and then just wipe off my brush here. If I need to go a little bit lighter, I can pretty easily apply my lighter paint on top of the dark paint, and I can build up the values if I need it to be even more stark. All I have to do is just apply the paint a little bit more thickly so that the bristles of my brush doesn't work it into the black paint underneath. So It's pretty easy if if you do your painting and you go overboard with your dark values, it's pretty easy to correct that by just going on top with lighter color. So now right next to it, I'm going Teoh, start out with just some white And now let's say that I went overboard with my light values just gonna wipe off all the excess paint off this brush. So let's say I went overboard with the light values, and I need actually this to be really dark, So I'm gonna pick up some of my black paint. I'm going to end up with a lighter value that I might want if I need just maybe a medium value. This is fine, and I don't know if it's showing up well on the camera, but for me to get a really dark value, I'm basically going to have to apply the paint in an impostor technique. So I'm gonna have to pick up a lot of paint on my brush, and then I will have to just very lightly and without applying any pressure at all, kind of allow that just to sit on top of the white. But you can see that even when I did that ended up picking up some white paint. So basically, if you tried to paint from ah, lighter value and then try to put a dark value on top of it, you're going to get a lot more contamination, and you won't have as much control over your values as you might need. So oil paint painters tend Teoh lean toward going too dark in the initial stages of their paintings rather than starting out potentially lighter than they want to and having to try to work out going dark again. Now that is kind of just a general principle. Of course, we're all human, and I often need to do this, so of course you can, and I often will go back and forth a little bit. But in general, my goal is always to work from my dark values and then to build up to my light values. 27. Principle - "Fat Over Lean" Layering: Let's talk a little bit more about the fat over lean principal, and I'm going to demonstrate that here for you. So right now we already have a substrate that has been toned with paint and a thinner, and so I would not necessarily want to use much thinner on top of this because especially since this layer is still technically what it hasn't had time to dry, I could end up thinning this layer and actually kind of taking it back to white. If if that's not what I want, then I probably wouldn't want to use anymore thinner on top of this, and a lot of times if we're doing an under painting, will use a little bit of thinner in the under painting. But that would typically be something that we did on top of white, a white surface or a plane surface, and not necessarily tone it ahead of time. Or, if you wanted to do. You're under painting on a toned surface than you would probably want your toned surface to have time to dry and because it has thinner and it will actually drive pretty fast, usually overnight. But if we're doing in Alla prima painting alla prima, meaning all at once, which is just the fancy word for the wet into wet technique. Is Bob Ross like to call it? We would typically use on top of a toned surface paint without any thinner and no medium for the initial layers. So say that we're kind of blocking in, and I'm just going to use yellow. And this yellow is very, very opaque and opaque. Colors are really good to use for the first layers of your painting. If you have a variety of opaque and transparent colors and then you can use your more transparent colors on top toe, add a lot of dimension. So let's say that I am doing this painting, and I'm just going to start out with some opaque paint on. Put some white in here to just to add a little bit of variety, and white is also very opaque. In the final stages of a painting you would typically be using white just to add very deliberate highlights and not using it to do any kind of glazing. Of course. Okay, so we have these two layers of paint here, and the paint is on here pretty thick. I'm actually going to pick this up and try to show you the brush strokes. Let's get that into focus so you can see very clearly. I'm leaving a lot of brushstrokes. This is technically imposter. Oh, it's not a lot of impossible when I do imposter paintings. I really kind of go to the max with my imposter. Oh, and I really like to build it up. You can very clearly see my brush strokes in here, and so this pain is quite thick. And when I want to apply more paint on top of this, what's going to happen without any medium? I'll just pick up a little bit of this green and tryto we'll try to keep the camera and focus for us here when I apply this without any medium, it's just going to kind of work itself into this other thick pains, and it won't sit on top very well, and I'm going to get some contamination on here. So the idea within fat over Wayne, it not only helps your painting just to be more lasting and have more longevity, it helps the painting process as well. So I'm going to use a medium. This is the M. Graham Walnut Al kid, and this is a medium that will add fat to the paint. And when you're using a medium, you never need very much. Looks like I have a lot of weight right on this brush. I need toe. Go ahead and wipe that off. Why is actually very contaminating when it comes to oil paint? So if you're used to working in another medium like water color, it's almost the opposite where you're working really hard to preserve your whites. But in oil painting, it's like once you introduce White into the painting, there's no going back because it's very contaminating. Okay, so that most of the white off of there So I'm just going to basically dip my brush into the medium just a little bit, you know, just kind of This is quite a lot of medium, actually. You don't want to have too much medium in proportion with your paints because a guy and it will cause the pants pigments to disperse too much. Okay, so here I have just a little bit of that paint with medium in it, and it's going to be just a little bit easier to apply now. Notice how I'm holding my brush. I have a very light grip because I want Teoh. Have almost no pressure or the least amount of pressure possible in applying this so that the bristles of my brush do not inadvertently work the paint into the other layers too much . I'm just going to very lightly apply this on top, so this is a fat layer on top of relatively lean layers. And so whether you're doing an alla prima painting where you're painting wet into wet or you're doing a more traditional methods, such as using an under painting and then glazing on top of that, that's how you should build your layers either way, so you want to go from the thinnest or llinas layer, which most of the time will just be your tone to surface. If you use that and then you want to use paint with no medium, and then if you need to add paint on top, then you are going Teoh. Add a fat medium, such as a linseed oil or walnut oil, and that will allow your painting to dry properly and will reduce cracking and also just make it easier to apply layers in the way that you want. Teoh 28. Technique - Blending: One of the things that people like most about oil painting is that it's very easy to blend because it does stay wet and malleable for a long time. In Paris, in two acrylic paints, it enables you to do a little bit more soft blending. So I'm going to demonstrate that here again, I'm going toe work from my darker color, which is this green, which I know almost looks black. And then I'll work up to the lighter value, and I'm going to then blend those together to get a nice ingredient. So have those just kind of meeting here in the middle. And then what I'm going to do is blend them and remember, White contaminates. So I don't want Teoh. Since I have white on this brush, you don't want to just go up here and start blending down. So I'm going to want to blend from my lighter value into my darker value, and you don't need to do a lot to get a really nice even blend. Another way of creating a more optical blend is just to set paint strokes down next to one another. This is personally my preferable way of working So I have white over here. So what I'm going to do is just use this other side of my brush that doesn't have any white on it. So I'm going to just lay down strokes next to each other. Teoh create. It's not really, um, even meant to be and even blind. It's meant to be an optical blend, so I don't want to blend my strokes together. I just want to start creating an illusion that these colors are shifting. And this is a technique used by Impressionist painters, which is why I like if you've ever had the opportunity to see like a sergeant or a Saraya up close from a distance, they look smooth and perfected. But then, as you get up close, you see all those brush strokes. And that, I think, is part of why they're so fascinating to people. So this is two ways of kind of creating blends. One is a literal blend over here, where we're actually working the pain together to create a very smooth transition. And then this is more of an impressionistic or optical blend, where we're laying strokes down next to one another and mixing them in a way that it creates an illusion of a natural transition 29. Technique - Types of Strokes: So now let's talk a little bit about different types of strokes. The first stroke that I'm going to lay down here is just kind of your typical stroke. Now I like to have a lot of pan my brush. I know a lot of people, um, actually put a lot less paint on their brush for their typical regular strokes. But because I do Impressionist painting, I like a nice in Pashto stroke. But for me, this is about is thin or flat as it gets. So this is kind of just your standard stroke, and you don't need to go overboard with it. I think one mistake that people who are new to oil painting often make Is that their work too hard? Every single stroke, really a stroke is just that a stroke, so you should lay it down and then you can leave it alone. Next is dry brush, and this is something I don't use very often. This would be more commonly used in paintings where you're allowing the paint to dry and then going on top of it. But basically you're going Teoh have just a very small amount of paint on your brush I'm actually wiping some of this paint off onto my palate, so there is still some paint on here, but because it's going to be very bristly, it's going to give us a nice ruff and subtle texture. This is dry brush, and if you do this with a more transparent paint on top of dry layers of paint, that is what is known as a stumble. And I know that there is a lot of varying opinions about what scum bowling is, And I've heard very reputable people define it different ways. The way that just makes most sense to me is just that it's using, so this already has some medium in it. So if I just put a little small amounts of this transparent paint on my brush, actually, I should use the side where there's not any yellow, so just a very small amount. So this is a stumble where you're allowing the texture of your substrate to kind of dictate where the paint layers. You're not going for even coverage. And this is typically, as I said, used as part of the glazing process. Okay, so now let's do some really impossible and there's a couple of ways to do in pasta. The first is just loading up a lot of paint on your brush, so I'll show you this up close. How much pain is on here? Let's get that into focus if we can. Okay, so you can see that the pain is actually raised up off of the bristles of my brush here. And you could even do a little bit more than that if you want, so it's very, very thick. Basically, what we're going for here is zero contact between the actual bristles of the brush and the substrate. So we're just transferring this thick paint onto the substrate with minimal interaction from the bristles. So very, very light pressure. And then I'll show you this up close so you can see that there's quite a lot of texture here. And when you're using impossible, it's very important. Still, to keep the fat over lean principle in mind, even though you may not even be using a medium to do your imposter, so you're going to need to build your imposter on top of layers that are a bit thinner. So this is a very fat layer just by the nature of it being a thicker layer of oil paint, so you'll put that on top of thinner layers. If you start your painting doing impossible, it's going to be very difficult to add anything on top of that imposter paint without disturbing the brushstrokes that you've made already. Not every color is equal when it comes to consistency and thickness, and what you'll find is that the opaque colors, for example, this is a cadmium yellow hue. It's very, very opaque. Tends to be a little bit thicker and more optimal for, um, implying in pasta. This is a very transparent color. This is the green that came with my M. Graham set. And just because of the nature of the pigments, it isn't going Teoh, give me quite as much of an imposter. Oh, but there I'm gonna show you a way to kind of fix that so you can see it's not standing up on top of my bristles quite as much as the yellow dead. We can still use this as kind of, Ah, we'll still get some brush strokes in here just because I'm using a very bristly brush. Let me try toe show you that it close and get some glare on it so you can see. But if I wanted to use this specific color and I wanted it to be a much thicker and possible, I would need to do a little bit of planning ahead, which I did, and I would basically squeeze out some of that pain onto a piece of cardboard. The cardboard is going Teoh, absorb some of the oil, which will cause this paint to just naturally become a little bit more thick, so I can feel a big difference even just when I'm picking this up off of the cardboard. It's not nearly as malleable as it is in this pile, because I've had this sitting on the cardboard for a couple of hours and you could leave it on the cardboard, probably for up to 12 hours, I would say, and still be able to get a lot of use out of the paint. But it's sticking up a lot more from the bristles on my brush, and I can apply it. It will be much more thick. It's much more viscous, so hopefully you can kind of see a little difference here. It's very subtle, but you will be able to tell when you actually try this out. You'll be able to just feel the tactile difference between these two paints. My favorite way of imply of applying in pasta is by using my palette knife, and I do have a course here in skill share. That's all about painting with a palette knife, and it's all about impossible. So what I like to dio is just load up the edge of my palette knife and you can make lots of different marks with your palette knife. And then let me see if I can actually get this at an angle to show you better the contact between the palette knife and my substrate. So I'm not going to want my a palette knife in my substrate Teoh touch at all. I'm just transferring the paint to the substrate, see if I can get kind of a side angle here. It's almost like applying frosting to cake and what I like about this kind of impostors that rather than bristly brush strokes, we get kind of this nice sheen going on here, and I really like the effect of having lots of different marks that air kind of meeting up together in different ways with this method. That is a lot of the appeal. There's so much texture, and it can be very, very beautiful. And not only can you make large imposter marks with Pelin if you condone do smaller marks. If you just load up the tip of your palette knife, you can almost get like pointillism here, so there's actually a lot of versatility with that. And so I encourage you to explore that again. This is something that you would build on top of previous layers of paint. It's very difficult, although I do demonstrated in my other skill share, of course, how to do an entire painting with your palette knife. What you will see me do, however, is for the initial layers. It will actually make contact between the palette knife and the substrate and will even kind of drag it along. And this is how well do My initial layers will keep them a little bit thinner just by kind of scraping the paint into the substrate rather than letting it just sit on top 30. Mini-Project 1: Gathering Your Gear!: Your first project for this course is pretty simple and straightforward. In order to really hone in on the oil painting materials that are going toe work best for you. I think it's a really good idea to define your priorities. Are you going to prioritize quality? How will you make that affordable? Will you buy small tubes of just a few colors or a starter set? What about health and environment? Are you going to try toe work solvent free? Or are you just going to try to take extra precautions to protect yourself against hazardous materials and plan ahead? How you're going to dispose of things like solvent? Find out where you need to take your spent solvent so it could be disposed of properly and in thinking about versatility. Are you comfortable working with a limited palate and learning how to mix a whole array of colors? Or might you prefer to actually just by a lot of colors, and not worry so much about the technical aspects of color mixing that's totally up to you ? Once you know your priorities, that is going to help you so much to choose your materials, it's going to help you choose what kinds of paints do you want? It will help you be more informed about the pigments that you're choosing. You can make an informed decision regarding solvents. Do you prefer to go the non toxic route, or will you just take precautions with traditional solvents? What kind of substrate do you think that you're going to prefer toe work on? Are there different ways for you to paint to help you be more ease with the process and not feel like everything that you paint needs to be a finished work of art? I really recommend starting, simple and making that part of the painting process as affordable as possible. Finally, think about what kind of paintings you want to make. If you want really soft, blended paintings, I would recommend softer bristled brushes. If you think that you'll want some nice, bold brushstrokes and some impossible, maybe choose a more coarse brush like synthetic hog hair. And finally, what kind of work environment is going toe work best for you? Do you have a nice defined studio space that you can set up as a permanent studio, or do you need a smaller, more compact space Do you think that you would like to work standing or sitting? Or maybe you'll want to mix it up and be able to do either one. Once you have all of your materials, we are ready to move on to the fun stuff painting. 31. Mini-Project 2: Basic Techniques & Principles: for this mini project, we're going to practice some of the techniques and principles that we've discussed. The 1st 1 that you want to try and decide for yourself whether you want to do it or not is toning. So I recommend that you practice applying a very thin stain to your substrates and figure out if you think that you might prefer to work on a toned surface, or if you might be someone who prefers toe work and paint on a white surface. Finally, you need to decide if you want your toned surface to be dry before you paint. Or if you don't mind painting over a wet toned surface. Of course, that is if you even want to work on a toned surface at all. Next you should practice working from dark to light. Practice, applying dark colors first and then tried building the lighter colors and values on top. Now try to do the opposite. Try building very dark values and colors over a value or color that is very light. You can do this, but it is a little bit more tricky. Then practice different ways of blending your colors and values. Try the traditional way of blending to get a smooth, even Grady int. But then do give a shot to apply individual strokes of colors to create the illusion of ingredients. You can decide pretty easily which you prefer, although you don't have to just stick toe one or the other there often used in combination . Now try building layers of paint using the fat over lean principal. Remember that your solvents, which ever kind of solvent you choose, is considered a thinner. And so it is. Lean paint straight out of your tube is fat, and any time you're mixing in an oil medium that is going to be the most fat and would go on top of your layer. And remember that liquid and other Alcon mediums are a little bit special in that you can use them in the initial stages of painting and then opt not to use them in later stages of painting. But what you don't want to dio is use Alcon mediums on top of paint that doesn't have any al kid in it to avoid uneven drying and finally try out the different ways that you can make strokes, figure out what feels comfortable to you to make a really nice regular and robust stroke. Next, practice dry brushing and stumbling, and then experiment with imposter so you can try using a brush and using your palette knife and see how that texture works for you and see if that's something that you might want to incorporate into your own paintings. 32. Mini-Project 3: Color Wheel & Value Scales: Let's start getting to know our colors and get a good sense of mixing by painting a relatively simple color wheel. I'm going, Teoh, put all of my paints here on my palettes. And when I set up my palate, I like to set up my paints in the same order each time. This is kind of just a personal preference, but I do like to keep my lighter colors up at the top. And then as they worked down, I put my darker colors. So I have this arranged at the top. I have my titanium white, and then I have my azo yellow and then my red and then my ultra marine blue. Next they put my raw umber, although I think I should have just put my green right there. But at first I wasn't sure that I was even going to use Green. But I'm going to give it a chance. And then green is last on my palette. So I'm just gonna go around. I started with red and just remember, of course, to put your colors in order. So Roy G biv red, orange, yellow, green, blue, indigo, violet. Although you probably will notice that I actually have more slices in this color wheel than that amount of color. And that's because I'm actually going to include some neutral colors on this color wheel as well. So so far on my color wheel, have the red. And then I mixed in orange than my yellow. And then I mix the green and then right next to the green, I mixed. I put my green that came in the tube. So it's a halo green, and the next is a low green plus ultra marine blue. And then it's ultra marine blue. And then right next to that is ultra marine blue plus raw number and then just raw number. And then I have a couple more neutrals after that. So I have another raw number, plus ultra Marine. But I was really careful to put more blue in that one, and then I have read plus raw number, and then the last one is just red plus blue. So that's going to be my violet, actually, so this is a little bit of a different color wheel, but I really like to include some neutrals in here because those air really useful and then as I worked my way to the center of the color wheel, I'm just adding more white as I moved closer to the center, so we'll get a little bit of a Grady int effect. So basically, what I'll do is I'll revisit all of these colors again, just gradually adding in more and more white. And you could do this. The opposite way to you could do another color wheel where you gradually take things darker . But I chose to go light because a lot of these colors, as you can see when we mix them together, for example, anything with blue or raw number and even some of the reds. They're already very dark, and so you almost wouldn't make too much of a difference by trying to make those even darker than they already are. But it would be interesting to see how you could darken some of the colors that are a little bit lighter, such as the yellow, the orange and even the red. And this is a really good exercise, too, because it's going to allow you to start getting a sense of how unequal colors are in the painting world. So, for example, red is very powerful in general and compared to yellow especially. And so you might find that you need a larger quantity of yellow to read in order to get a more balanced orange. It's not always the case that you can take the same amount of two different pains, mix them together and get a color. That's kind of right in the middle of where those two colors Meade's. A lot of times one color is going to be much, much more powerful than another color that you're mixing it into. And it's a really good idea to start getting a sense for that, because as you go, you don't want Teoh accidentally over mix your colors. So I encourage you to do this as a project. Just make a simple color wheel like this. It doesn't need to be perfect, and this also is a great reference just to keep near your workspace. 33. Mini Project 4: Swatches Chart: for this project. We are going to get a little bit more practice with mixing, and we're going to create some colors watches in a grid that will kind of allow us to combine some colors in unexpected ways, and you might be surprised by the results. One of my favorite things about painting and art in general is that there's so much nuance to it. There's so many different ways Teoh achieve your goals. There isn't just one set formula, and what I really like is finding unexpected colors all around me. And making color swatches is kind of like that because you end up mixing together colors like red and green or blue and orange. And that may not sound very appealing when you just kind of imagine it. But then you mix those colors and realize that these air colors all around us because everything kind of exists within the neutrals. It's not very often that we see a really bright, vibrant, bold, pure color, and when we do, it really stands out to us because that's just not how most of the world is colored. So what I'm doing here is just watching together my pains and I arranged the's in rows and columns and from a yellow red blue two green to raw amber. And then, as I've moved through the intersections of this swatch grid, I just mix the color with the corresponding color. And a lot of these, I think, are really surprising. For example, I was really surprised that the yellow mixed with raw number actually makes kind of a green . I thought that was really interesting. And then next what I'm going to do is take some of those darker colors because if you look at all these colors that are really dark, for example, the ultra marine blue, the fellow green, the raw number and even if you think about a violet, blue and red, that's a very dark color until you makes just a little bit of white into it. And so that's what I'm doing over here on this side. I'm starting out with my darkest colors and then just adding white to them, so I can really get a sense for their vibrance down here. I'm mixing some of my neutrals and doing the same thing, so I started with blue and raw number, and then I started adding white to that. And then I added a little bit more blue to the raw number so that it would be more of a cool, neutral color. And then here I'm just doing raw number and adding some white to it so you can see already we have so many colors. It's kind of mind boggling that just from five or six colors we can get so much variety. And now I'm actually mixing complementary colors. So I started with red at the top and then green at the bottom, and then I gradually worked those together and I'll do the same thing with yellow, and then I'm actually going to use raw number here and kind of mix those together because I thought that was a really interesting combination. So for this project, just experiment and really get to know your colors mixed together, things that you don't really think would look good together and try to think of where that might be useful as you think about paintings that you would like to dio. So this should just be a fun and actually relaxing little exercise for you and also a great reference for you just to hang up in your workspace. 34. Final Thoughts: I hope that you enjoyed this introduction to oil painting materials, basic techniques and principles in subsequent courses. In this series, I'll be doing demonstrations primarily with the M Graham set that I previously mentioned and the mediums included in that set. Feel free to use that set if you'd like to use what I'll be using. But just know that you can use any materials that fate, your personal needs and values. I do recommend starting with just a basic set of primary colors. However, you will be amazed at what you can achieve with just a few colors, and you'll really get to know so much about color by starting with a limited palate. The next courses in this series will explore techniques, methods, best practices and subject focused demonstrations to help you use oils to their full potential and identify your own preferred style to stay up to date on future courses. Follow me here on skill share. As I said in the introduction, please ask any questions that you might have in the discussion. I will add videos and send out updates when I dio and remember that you can refer back to this course section by section as needed. Thanks so much and have a great day painting