Oil Painting for Beginners

1. Introduction: [MUSIC] Art gives life meaning. I believe that traditional art is a form of therapy not only for the artist but also for the viewer. Oil painting is the only medium that really gives you time to breathe. [MUSIC] Hi, I'm Madeline Jo. I'm a traditional and digital artist from Bucharest, Romania. In today's class, we're going to learn about oil paintings. [MUSIC] I'm really excited about this class because we're going to take it easy, Know, so you can take your cup of tea, or coffee, whatever you want and just enjoy the class. Art is supposed to be fun, so let's make it that way. [MUSIC] This class is great for beginners or intermediate artists that want the better understanding of how oil painting works. We're going to start right from the beginning. First, we're going to take a look over the materials, then prepare ourselves with a value painting, working our way to a full-color painting of the same apple. But don't worry, it's a great apple. I took the photo myself. If you always wanted to get into oil paintings or you're just curious about it, then this class is for you. Let's get started. [NOISE] [MUSIC] 2. Before We Start: [MUSIC] Before we start, I want you to take a few deep breaths. Close your eyes, look back on your couch or chair, whatever you have and inhale, and exhale. Great. Do this a few time because we know that it's important to start with the right mindset. A lot people leave art or don't even try because art is hard. It is okay. What do we know that practice overcomes talent. You taking this course is actually the first step into getting there, being that artist you want to be. Relax and enjoy this course, and make it fun. Make it your meditation practice. We tend to be hard on ourselves. Things that we would never say both to us or friend. What I want you to do is to visualize this in a child. This artists that is just starting out, encourage them, and two tips for this because I know it's hard. First, find one thing that you're proud of, look at your painting and say that, "Even though I messed up the proportions, I think I made a great choice of colors." Or say that, "It's a sketch." We know that sketches are supposed to have mistakes. Say to yourself, "Okay, it's a sketch. I can do 10,000 of those. It's fine. I'm learning." This brings you to a relaxed state of mind, and this is what we want to have during this course, and from now on. Because we are trying, we are all here to learn, which is great. [NOISE] Sit back, take your brushes, your Canvas, and lets paint. 3. Tools and Materials: [MUSIC] Tools and Materials. This is basically everything that you will need during this course. We have brushes in a couple of different sizes. We have oil paint. What you already have or just a few tubes, we're going to work with yellow, red, black, and white. Then we need a solvent, which is a turpentine or mineral spirits. Then a medium, which is linseed oil. A jar is optional. This is for mixing these two palette, which can be a rip-off paper, a towel, so you can clean your brushes easier. That is everything that you're going to need. Let's talk a bit more about each one. Your painting surface can be oil painting paper, or you just rip off your paper and you can use it. It's already prepared, so good to go. If you go for the cardboard, which is also a surface that you can work on, for example, this, you just rip it off and use it or either this part. If you are choosing to go for cardboard, you also need to choose a gesso, or you can prepare your surface, otherwise, your paint will be absorbed by the material you're using, t-shirts or paper. You need gesso for this one. What is gesso? Gesso is an acrylic prime and it is used to prepare your surface for painting. This will make a clean, nice surface to work on. We've heard a lot of rumors about oil paints, that they're toxic. But what an oil tube paint contains, half oil and half pigment, so it is totally safe. Safety issues come only from the solvents used to thin the paint, like turpentine or what we have here, mineral spirits. These solvents evaporate and create fumes. It can eventually be harmful if inhaled. As a rule of thumb, paint in well ventilated room. We need to take care of our bodies. You can also find non-toxic solvents. If you search on Google, you can find it. Here we have linseed oil, it's pretty easy. You're combining it with the solvent to create a medium and I will show you how to do it. In a jar, you are going to mix 1/3 of linseed oil with 2/3 of mineral spirits, and then you shake it very well. That way you are going to have your medium. What is a medium? As an example, in watercolor painting, your medium is water. In oil painting, your medium is a mixture of linseed oil with some turpentine, some solvent. That is your medium. The brushes, we then go for synthetic and go for the cheaper ones because acrylics and oil paintings are really harsh. Then the palette. Here I have a rip-off palette, which is very easy to use. No need of cleaning, you just rip off the paper and go for the other one. You also have an option for wood palette, glass palette, and that's everything that you're going to need. We can just go and watch the demo or painting. [MUSIC] 4. Value painting (part1): [MUSIC] Wait, though here we are starting with a value painting. On the left, you will see the black and white reference photo of my amazing apple, and on the right side, you will see everything that I'm doing, every decision I make, we can see the full process. Right now, only with turpentine, I'm trying to pin the paint. On the palette, I'll start by mixing the values. We are working this way, so the painting process won't feel so daunting. [MUSIC] How are we doing the value scale? I start with the extremities, putting down the lightest and the darkest value, then mixing these two to the middle. I would say that five different values is more than enough. [MUSIC] Here we have black and white. Now, we're working our way between them. As you can see, art is about trial and error. You don't have to make it perfect. Just listen to your gut. [MUSIC] Adding more white here and there. [MUSIC] We're adding some more white to get the values right. Now that we have our values, we can put them on the board, so we know what we'll be working with. [MUSIC] The lightest, and the second there, and so on. [MUSIC] Maybe a lighter value here would work better , maybe just a bit. Now let's start with our sketch. A sketch helps with your composition. I will first put down some points. These are the extremities of our subject, to get a sense of how big I want our apple to be. [MUSIC] Sketching is about observing and comparing, how is this line communicating with the others? Do they tell the right story? Remember to draw more with your eyes rather than your brain. [MUSIC] Once you're satisfied with your composition, you can go ahead and paint. I usually start by putting down the darkest values. This way is easier to build up the form of my subject. [MUSIC] But this is, of course, only one way to do it. You also have the option to put down a middle tone, a thin paint, and getting your subject on a wet surface. It is about trying after all, so do what feels right to you. Back to our apple. Here, I'm trying to block down our darkest values, lowly adding up the lighter tones. [MUSIC] Here, the tones on the apple, and then we'll add something more on the background. Also, feel free to do a simple background. If the textures in the back feels daunting to you, it's completely fine. You just stick to a simple background; a table and putting a simple shadow on the surface. Do what feels right to you. [MUSIC] Also, whenever you feel your brush dry on the canvas, just add some solvent, so you can make it run smoother. This is the way I do it. In the first stages, I mostly use only the solvent, and later on, I add up the linseed oil for nice finished look. [MUSIC] Here's a tip for painting down values, try squinting your eyes. You can see the example on the left. By squinting your eyes, you're no longer focused on the details, but rather on the whole picture. You can see the big value shapes of your subject. This way you can see perhaps that your painting needs a more contrast. I will now add the shapes in our background. It may look messy, but trust me, there's a reason why I'm painting this way. I don't know if you do it, but there are artists who start rendering and painting to perfection, only a small part of their artwork, then continuing like this with small sections. If you did put down a great sketch to begin with, you sure can work this way, but I still don't recommend this strategy. The main reason for this is the risk of messing up the proportions, which will be harder to fix later, and then the fear of ruining your artwork. If you made a perfect eye, what if you've ruined the other? I've been there. This is why I suggest you to try working on your painting as a whole. Give love to every corner of the canvas. Then you will see it starts telling you things. Like now, it just told me to make the apple fuller, to blend more the background, to darken some tones. Our conversation continues because I give it my full attention. [MUSIC] 5. Value painting (part2): After a while, you start trusting yourself. The big shapes feel right, composition on point. Now you can put down smaller shapes. I've run out of white. Guys, remember to have full tubes of white with you as it finishes so quickly. From now on you will see me adding up some linseed oil. Halfway through the process as I'm getting confident with my composition, I start varnishing my painting. Make it look a bit shinier. Trying to figure out this background. Patience, very important and trust the process. My apple wanted its cheek, now it's happy. Good. Let's continue. I might need some pure white for the reflection on our apple, but it won't stick right now because we are working wet-on-wet. If you find yourself in this situation, the best option is to wait a day or two for it to dry a bit, then you can add your highlights, your details. Here is my small brush in action. That's like adding up some finer details, then continue from there. Some brush strokes for texture and form. Also great to darken the tone here because I missed that. I'm adjusting the shapes of the apple trying to make it rounder. Also add some contrast as it makes your subject pop and stand out from the background. Define the contour of my apple, a few tweaks here and there. I need to work more on the background. But from here, it's only about refining things. We'll stop somewhere here. Hope you found this helpful. You'll go ahead and paint your apple in black and white and add your progress in the project gallery in that way to see what you did. Next lesson, we'll see how values relate to colors. 6. Value to Color: [MUSIC] Now it's time for the interesting part. In this lesson, we'll see how color corresponds to each value. We'll start with the middle tone of the apple. Looking at our reference photo now in color, we know that our red matches a darker value. The same goes for our lighter value here. We'll make it brighter by using either white or yellow. Here, you need to understand that the intensity of the color, does not matter in finding value. You need to train your eye to somehow overlook that part. I believe it is about how much light does each color reflects or absorbs. For example, a yellow reflect a lot of light. If you turn it into a black and white scale, it would be the brightest. Just as if you'll do it with a blue or purple, it would be close to the darkest values. A bit too much black in this one. Let's not forget that shadows do have color in it, so I will add more red here and there. For our background, we'll mix colored gray. As you can see on the reference photo, it has less color in it, but you can still sense a little bit of beige. Good. This was our lesson from value to color. See you in the next one. [MUSIC] 7. Color painting (part1): [MUSIC] To wrap things up, we'll be working on the same apple, but now in color. [LAUGHTER] Bear with me guys, I know there are more interesting subjects to paint. But how many times will an apple get this much attention? It should be on a daily basis. An apple a day keeps the doctor away. But instead we are painting them. Anyway, back to our work in progress. I will start by mixing the paint, this time with the medium. What I showed you in, it was in the materials lesson, which basically is one-thirds of linseed oil and two-thirds of turpentine, a solvent, and this way you get the medium. But you can do this way, or just like I showed you the last lesson at the beginning with the solvent and then later in the process or a varnished painting, you add linseed oil. There are options. You choose whatever you like. Here I put down the sketch, where and how big I want my subject to be, get my composition right. Here, defining our value shapes, the highlight and the shadow. Now, I will be mixing the tones of our apple, starting with the shadows. When it comes to mixing oil colors, many will use the knife. But I personally, I have more control with the brush. You do you. Stick to whatever feels right [MUSIC] Blocking down the shadows. It might need a darker value, so we'll add on it because we are working with oils. We have all the time in the world [MUSIC] The middle tone [MUSIC] Guys, here I'm painting around the highlights because otherwise, I will need to either put down unnecessary amount of white, or wait two or three days for it to dry in order to add my highlights. That's a no. We will keep room for the white to enjoy its glory [MUSIC] Well, here it is. As you can see, having the white area really helps me. I just put the highlight down and blend a bit with the middle tone, and done. No longer my concern, I can move on to the next part. [MUSIC] A bit of reflections here and there. [MUSIC] I forgot to mention, my surface now is an oil painting paper already prepared, almost feels like a canvas. [MUSIC] In the previous lesson, I've been working on a cardboard which I first prepared with the gesso, an accredit prime. [MUSIC] Again, captions. If you don't have something, you can anytime go for something else. You can work your way. [MUSIC] I'm now creating the penny from the apple's tail by mixing yellow ocher with some white to desaturate the color. [MUSIC] I can also see that our reference has a taint of green in it, so we'll try adding a bit of black. Blacks usually have a very small amount of blue in it, which works perfectly here. [MUSIC] Then, of course, we'll have to wait for it to dry in order to put down this color. As I forgotten, kept only a small part of the canvas for it [MUSIC] 8. Color painting (part2): Let's keep it going. We'll start now with our background. Again, you don't have to stick with the background. If you feel more comfortable with something simpler, paint a table instead. Remember, this is an oil painting class. As long as you are working with oil paints, you are doing just great. From now on, it will be me trying to paint the foldings in our cloth and perhaps refining the apple. If you want to stick with me till the end, feel free to do so. You will be enjoying this chilled music in the background. If not, you can skip to the final parts. I need to make some tweaks here and there. For example, my apple is a bit bigger than I wanted. But I think it's best to stop the video here. I will come back to it later when the paint dries a bit. If you did watch the full video till the end, then well, you're amazing. I hope you enjoyed and found helpful things in this lesson. Thank you so much for watching, and see you for the final thoughts. 9. Final Thoughts: [MUSIC] Congratulations! You did it. [APPLAUSE] Round of applause for you, my friend. I hope you enjoyed this course about oil paintings and that you found the really fun and interesting to paint that amazing apple I had in my kitchen. Feel free to share your progress in the project gallery so we can all see what you did there. Encourage one another because that's why we are here. We're here to learn. Amazing. If you want to see more of my art journey, you can follow me on Instagram at [inaudible] or you have the handle down below. See you next time. Until then, go create.