Unlocking the Secrets of Oil Painting: A Layer-by-Layer Approach

1. Welcome!: Oh, painting can be reflection of who you are as a person. You can continue to build up layers in days or even years. And these oils, an outsider, oh, painting can look intimidating because there's so many choices, how you can approach it. So many ingredients in new terms. Don't worry, I will walk you through entire painting process, starting from organizing your workspace to the painting itself and varnish in your finished masterpiece. I will teach you how to build up your painting in waves. How to work with scour and mix your paints. How to clean up your studio without any solvents, and how to choose your materials to keep your studio safe. I believe it is the most forgivable and comfortable technique to start your journey in oils. I want to take some of the mystery out of classical oil painting. You can feel more confident, make educated decisions, and create impressive paintings. I am an independent artist based in Amsterdam, known on the Internet as Foksynes is a bit more than three years ago, I started my journey in oils. I learned online and through books. I'm still learning and will continue to do so my entire life because it's FUN by progress, gives me confidence that everyone can learn how to paint from the comfort of their home. For our cost, we will be painting The Unicorn of The Enchanted Forest. You don't require any experience in painting, although experience in drawing is very appreciated. I use this technique for most of my budget Painting. Nevertheless, it is perfect for any subject matter event of the class. You'll be able to create your first masterpiece in Oil. See you in class 2. Your Magical Project: Your class project is to paint The Unicorn of The Enchanted Forest. I like this project because you can get loose and creative with your choices in fantasy parties. Also, painting a unicorn will be much more beginner-friendly then painting a human part it, but much more engaging than an ERPO steps we will take to create a Painting. Plan in our painting. Transferring the drawing, creating an underpainting, and Adding car. Finishing Touches, protecting your painting of his varnish. If you feel overwhelmed by creating your own drawing and color choices, I will help you by providing a drawing which you can use to study or transmit to your board, you will find it in the Project and Resources section. You will also find a supplies recommendation, least inspirational photos, as well as step-by-step guide so that you have clear goals to achieve on each step. Don't forget to take progress shots of your painting process and shade in the Project section and on social media, let's discuss recommended supplies and alternatives in the next videos. 3. Oil Paints Demystified: Let's start our adventure in the end of oil paints from basics, such as what you're to can tell you about your Paints. Further principles can be applied as well for us, Paints, such as watercolor or acrylic. Various combinations of pigments might be used to represent car, because pigments are actual chemical ingredients. The vet, great car names on the tube or more marketing thin. Sometimes it does is to have premixed colors right from the tube on your palette. But many of the fanciest one you can create with paint you already have. An example is Caucasian flesh tone car, which is often a mix of Titanium, White, natural occur and Red Cadmium capacity. I would advise you to buy a big tube of white paint. Is it is most used one car, health hazard warnings, the Art and creative materials institute, a CMI, created seals for easy identification by consumers. They use this use on products approved under its certification program. The API approved product CO in identifies Art materials that are safe and contained no materials in sufficient quantities to be toxic or injurious to humans. The Cl Gershwin really labeling CEO products with this CEO or hazardous, if you used incorrectly, it is essential to read the product label info before opening it usually are respectable. Manufacturers apply with standards, justification and state all known health hazards. You can always ask for the safety data sheet or MSDS, of find it on the manufacturer's website to know more details. Ingredients, or composition. Ideally, all veins should consist of pigments and drying oil, such as walnut or Linseed oil. Some manufacturers may add filters to make their products cheaper or at some other properties to the paint. For example, speeding up drying time. That is by, it is better to buy from respected manufacturer Artists. Gray quality paints. Better to buy fewer cars, but better quality than many Period produced once. If you know an artist who's working at its worst, chicken their websites to see what materials they use. Pigments are described according to the international system called the car index. This system uses a combination of letters and numbers. Let's take as an example, Titanium White be W6, where P W is pigment White, fixed Titanium dioxide. And using our previous example with Caucasian flesh tone, it will stay something like this in its ingredient list. Titanium White, nature, okra, and dread, cadmium. Light, fastness, straightforward quality, basically how fast your band we will lose its car. In other words, fate. Manufacturers in different countries may use different standards. Hey, you can see a basic description of the ASTM standard. It would be best if you use pigments that have excellence or highest light fastness is an example of different labeling Approach. Winsor and Newton use a permanent rating which measures the film and chemical stability of the paint. Producers. Use pluses, three for the highest degree of sparseness and one for the lowest one. Transparency. Paint might be transparent, meaning you can see the surface under each thin layer of park where it may color the way underneath Holly or as a Paints between these two when we got semi-pro or semi-transparent. Now you know much more about your paint and we're ready to discuss other materials for the cars. 4. Painting Surface: You cannot paint with oils on regular paper. Oil will penetrate Paper fiber and drawing it. But you can avoid this and actually paint in your sketchbooks and on watercolor paper. You can use an acrylic primer will exist one. It will not allow oil to penetrate paper, and it's safe to paint on top of it. Thanks to the modern technology, we now have special paper for oils, which don't require any preparation. The same Paper I'm going to use for our project. One of its disadvantages is that it's very absorbent, but it's still an excellent choice for quick studies. I use it as an example of the most affordable, yet providing good result and required minimum effort and preparation Paper is the next option is canvas is biggest advantages are priced and weight. It would be hard and sometimes even impossible to create a huge painting using other surfaces. The two options to linen and cotton is considered to us to own guns and cotton and have a more pleasant texture. The finest one is potted wine. And you can see that this one is already primed. My favorite painting Surface is Woodward. It can have Bryan finishes, for example, just divorce from ampersand has an eggshell like texture. It is excellent for production. For more intricate details and small fingers. I like to use their Artists moose board. It has no visible texture at all. What surface you choose highly depends on your taste and style. You can even try painting on copper panels. There's no oxygen that's use. Every painter 5. Palettes, Mediums & Paints: I recommend you wear gloves. Why your painting and clean your studio by powder free ones. Otherwise you will end up with powder all over your painting. I want to eat hard way. You will need a medium to work with oils. If you're new to oil painting, limit yourself to jazz, to Refined drying oil, such as Linseed or one toiled. In addition, I would recommend trying a gel medium such as Virgil. Does it use cooking oils for painting? For example, olive oil is not a drying oil. Sunflower oil is drying oil is cooking version is not Refined and not clean enough for painting. It's likely to darken our driving dramatically. You can use WuDunn palette or interior of palette like this one. After you've finished your painting, you simply remove a sheet and you have a clean palette. Once again, if you own the budget or just searching for something new, try using aluminum foil. One of my all-time favorite options is a glass palette. This one I made myself by removing the last from a frame and govern corners with tape to brand cutting myself accidentally. I will use Raw Umber, Titanium White, caribbean Blue, and metal awake extra with God okra. In the demonstration videos. If you don't have oil paints, I would recommend you to start with set of Paints, as it usually offers versatile combination of colors. You price, if you already own oil paints, you can replace God okra, any transparent, bright yellow paint. White, Indian yellow. Instead of green and blue, you can use patella Blue of tau, turquoise or other transparent will paint instead of matter wake. You can use Alizarin permanent or quinacridone, magenta, or other red paint. A few words about White Crane. I have quake White replacement here. It is a non-toxic paint that attempts to recreate the feeling of the original flake white paint. It's up for debate if this attempt was successful or not. But if there is no war to placement, you need to understand that you bought the original flake white paint, which contains wet. Wet paint, is perfect in every aspect except that it's highly toxic if it gets into your body. So I decided to award it to be safe. The next troublemaker is tint white. It is beautiful, semi-transparent white paint with attention problems. Don't use it on its own, only in mix with Titanium White and use it only on the rigid surfaces like cardboard. I like to use it in tiny amounts for my upper weighings, important. Some people completely watching, quite optional, but nice-to-have. I would recommend getting a mouth stick in a store or making it yourself. The tones of DOI ideas on the Internet for that matter, grab a lint and dust-free rug or heavy-duty Paper towels were old clothes or an aspirin while painting to protect yourself? 6. Brushes & Blending: Let's start with a palette knife. I like to use irregular drop or rhombus shaped knife. Don't take a small size tonight for mixing colors like this one. Exams in the middle, I find it comfortable to work with nifedipine, 4.8 cm long. Brushes and different shapes, softness and how much being and they can hold. Natural hair brushes are excellent quality, but I stopped buying them for ethical reasons. I still have a few left like this one. This is a stiff bristle brush. I have owned it for about four years and it still works great. You can replace it with short hair synthetic brush overall, more and more common factor is great brushes that are increasingly better. It's simulating natural hair behavior. I will leave my recommendations in the course guide. Let's talk about Fred Brushes. An interesting fact in remnants times there were no further brushes adult. And between these two options, I like an angular shape more because I find it more versatile. Also, you can see that heroines can be different. So if you need to choose just one, because alone hair length, because it will serve you wonder, ideally, you should try each option to find what suits you the best. The only paint, the better you will know which brushes work better for your painting style of there are things. Moreover, you can find brushes with long handle and was shot one in Brushes, long handle will be more versatile. But if you already have brushes with short handles so you can use them without any issues. One candle makes it easier to work while resting your hand on mouse tick and keeping an appropriate distance when working on painting. One more thing to remember is that you can use any brush, even if the code brushes for acrylic or brushes for watercolors, and I would encourage you to experiment. This was initially a makeup brush. I find it works great for glazes and oiling Out. Also, I use makeup sponges to oil out. Of course none of them use for makeup anymore. I want to give you a quick demonstration. Here I have watercolor paper Bryant with black acrylic jester. I will show you two ways of creating a transition while you're painting. The first option is to premix a transition cower on the palette, and then paint in-between two colors. In this case, you can make your transition is soft. Ahad, as you need to be. The next option is to mix paint directly on Painting surface with a clean, dry, fluffy brush. Both options are valid. But if you are just starting out, tried to use the first option more often, it might not be intuitive at the beginning, but it is essential for learning. Here you can see the results of my brush tests. Varnish is the only product we are going to use that contains a solvent. I recommend using gambler goes varnish. You can use any flat, soft 5 cm brush or form brush. And we're ready to start painting 7. Preliminary Work: I also find it very useful to come up with a story behind the scene event. Thumbnails are very rough representation of ideas. The drone is usually tiny to give a clear overview of the whole picture and avoid desire to render details because of its size and roughness. You can test many ideas in a couple of minutes. You can go further with them and experiment with a tunnel composition by adding value to the contours and placement of the subject in yellows drawing. Sketches, still rough representation of a painting, but you start to develop the idea frozen and add more details. Try to find a balance between describing forms and overly obsessive rendering. I want to share a helpful trick I use to find areas for improvement when draw or paint it. Take a photo of my drawing or painting with my phone, because it's smaller in size. You're back to the thumbnail stage and all other end Red details do not distract you from the proportions and the overall design. You can also flip it so your brain analyzes it from a fresh perspective. In other way to reverse the image is to look at it over your shoulder using a mirror. If I feel uncertain about how to paint particular part of the subject, I will make a drawing study of it. Here you can see how I started the unicorn HAT for another painting because it had never drawn or painted a god before, I hesitated to move on with the Painting. Gar study might be the size of a thumbnail, small sketch, definitely smaller than your brand Painting, which is rough painting reached main goal is to find pleasing color combinations and find the paint you want to use for the final painting. Before moving to a traditional car study, I'd like to make a digital one because it's much faster to test out ideas and figure out the feeling I want my painting to convey. I made a few thumbnails in similar colors, but decreasing or increasing proportions of yellow and blue in my green mixes to get a feeling of what kind of green I want for the background. Also experimented with different color combinations of flowers. And I was able to quickly test what I need to do to create white beans. Another benefit of having a Gower study, if that you can try your ideas on it first before committing to the changes in your painting as you have it in the same medium. In our cases, oil paint, you can expect to get a pretty predictable result. I also find it very useful to come up with a story behind the scene event. In my case, the two Magical means in the forest, they cannot communicate in a language. They definitely care for each other. Face leads to decisions like the tail and domain of The Unicorn moving toward the moon. You also can see that the moon and the day or mirror each other. The picture itself readied comfortable science and coldness. Any of these steps is optional and sometimes I can skip some of them, but I would advise you to apply all of them at least once in your practice before moving onto painting. As you will see, the painting will go much easier as you have already resolved many of the creative and technical challenges. Before you even begin to paint in white, you to have a sneak peek at my studio. In the following video. 8. Tiny Studio Workspace: Let's talk how you can organize your Workspace. August use the same reference source throughout the session. Meaning it might be the same printed water on the same device. So you can avoid discrepancy in colour rendering and contrast between various sources. I use a workstation table. It is perfect choice if you have limited space and will not paint anything more significant than a two size, you can use it for your drawings and watercolors. Anything you like except for can assist with to debug if you want to work staining than classical studio, iso is a better option for you. They even affordable option. So in the market, watch out for the annual, you'll get your painting and reference to avoid distortion. On my right side, I have about Usually I just put it onto the table and have it in the horizontal position. Some people like it vertical work right now, it's personal preference. Amino, I've always lint and dust-free rug to clean my brushes and palette knife. I know that some people like to use pieces of all genes for this purpose. Some nearby a voice, my paint tubes and mouth. I always use a separate container for all brushes and palette knives, which is used during the painting session. So I would never forget to clean any of them. I hope this little studio to was helpful. And I will see in the following video on imprimatura. This let me know in comments if you have any questions regarding your studio setup 9. Imprimatura: Have you noticed that drawing on toned paper is much easier than on white one? This is because all your middle tones already here and the disease here to judge your values, you need to do is add highlights and shadows to make his subjects look 3D. Well, you can do this in painting as well. Take your Umber and big stiff brush, and we're ready to paint imprimatura. Imprimatura is the term originated from Italian, literally means first paint layer. It is transparent or semi-transparent car applied thinly and equally on the ground of your painting Surface. How dark your imprimatura we will end up depends on absorbency of the surface you paint on and the pigment you choose to apply. Some people at zones to their paint to make it more translucent during this stage. But I don't need this as I like to paint on smooth surfaces. As you can see, you can get quite light imprimatura, a smooth surface without any solvent. Remember to never add oil to your imprimatura mixes are you will have trouble following the fat over lean row. We will talk about it in details. In the next video. I will use Raw Umber and odd filament brush to spread paint on the surface. If you are painting on paper like me, you will also need to use paper tape to secure it on heart surface. On all four sides. You can use drawing panels are hard board for this purpose. In our case, Arches paper is quite an absorbed one and our imprimatura getting much darker. But I don't mind, as I will paint, I've seen the dark done is welcome here. If I wanted to decrease absorbency, I would apply if you ways of golden acrylic gesture. And then by imprimatura on top of it. Later, I tried to spread paint insanely as possible, using the medium to heart pressure on the brush. That's why I would advise you to use for it odd brushes for this purpose, Raw Umber is one who is the most suitable neutral pigments to use. But you can experiment by adding other pigments to make it warmer or cooler, or use any other pigment depending on one's a final painting should look like. For example, if you want to create a painting that will consist of different shades of blue, it would make more sense to use blue pigment for imprimatura. Paint is try to match the cars of the imprimatura and powered by putting card paper under the glass board. Tom suggests to use of wooden barrels previously was so popular for so on. Because it matches well with classical era imprimatura undertone. This definitely helps to judge car better. How light and dark we perceive color depends on its surroundings. Let's look at this optical illusion in the image you see gradient is Background. One part is light and analysis darker colored bar in the middle appears to be a gradient to write. Well, now, in reality, horizontal bar in the middle is just one solid color without any variations. The I will always compensate for color contrast depending on the luminosity of the surrounding area that we will explain why it makes it so tricky to create naturalistic looking high-rise using a white palette. As we tend to seek out as much darker and when we apply them on the Painting surface. That is why I like to use a neutral gray card palette. After you've finished the spread the paint, leave your painting Surface to dry to the touch before moving to the painting. Next way, try to find a dust-free praise. Putting it on the very top of the bookcase may help, as well as dust flying around. We can put it vertically to reduce the amount of dust taken on the wet surface. Please watch the next week to learn how to clean your brushes, palette, and clean after your painting session. And why you should never leave anything solved with less than oil unsupervised 10. Studio Cleanup: I hate to clean off the session, but with this thing, it is much more present process. I use sunflower oil to clean my brushes of this session. This is one of the slowest drying one. You can use poppy oil, Linseed Oil, or any other drying oil. The next important ingredient is so you can use irregular one or by the special in Art star. Here I have two different options. Da Vinci bar, so it's very good option. I've used it quite a lot and still have a few bars line around this next one. If the masters brush, Beginner, and preserver, it's a bit pricey, especially if you live outside years. Compared to bar soap. It lasts much longer. I hate to clean after session, but with this thing, it is much more present process. It also conditions your brushes and smiles like lime has an a, B, C on it. What else do you need for me? It's worth every penny. On my table. I have two containers. We stop water. Let's clean our brushes. The first step is to put your brush in oil and Y be two using a paper towel, repeat this process until not much pigment is left on the brush. So after you rinse your brush, some pigments stay in a jar with oil. After some time, it settles down at the bottom of the jar, you can see the many pigments in mind when letting the pigment settles down doesn't work for me anymore. And oil is too dirty. I recycle the jar. Fact wastes center. All paints contain pigments and you need to comply with Yoko regressions when disposing of Art materials, whether it's oils or acrylics. Also, this method helps to avoid draining chemicals into a sink. So I finished first step with all my brushes and it is time for the second round. If my brush in the first water container and zeros the brush in ZBrush cleaner. I also massage it a bit so no paint is left in the root of the filament. Irene's, the brush in the first container which is used for dirty water. Why? The brushes and paper and then rinse. Eating the second container with clean water, repeat the second round until the brush is absolutely clean. After I have cleaned out my brushes, I will let them dry in horizontal position because oil drys through oxidation, the materials sock with it can produce heat bleed into spontaneous combustion. In rare cases, use simple tightly sealed glass jar to keep Paper towels soaked with oil to limit oxygen excess. I also add a little water to it. There are many special professional containers on the market to keep those rocks and Paper towels safe, which is probably an even better and safer solution. The last thing left is to clean the pilot. If it was a tear off Palette, I would put it in the same jar I use before. I like to keep my palette clean after session. So if I don't plan on seventh paints, I will transfer them with palette knife to the same paper towel I used for cleaning brushes. If you forget to clean your Palette and it has dried paint on it now, you can easily scrape it off using a razor blade like this one. You can find it in any DAY or hardware store. Be careful not to cut yourself and always wear gloves when working with chemicals. After that, I wipe off my palette with another paper towel or Iraq until it's clean. Again, in the case of paper towel, I put it in the jar. I like to use Iraq in this case because I can just wet and dry on my easel or they're not much paint on it. In this case, it is important not to grandpa with Iraq to let it go down without any issue of cost. Do not place it near heat sources and open fire. Just use common sense and don't be shy to ask supply manufacturers for the best practices on using, storing, and disposing of their materials. In the next video, we're going to transfer our drawing 11. Transferring your drawing: I decided to use my digital study made in Procreate is based for my painting. I outlined the most important part of the picture and export it as new file. You can find this file and it's about section of the project. You're welcome to use it as your guide for painting. Some people also make marks where shadows and highlights are. Transferring will help me speed up my painting process and keep my proportions and check. If all start printing, I always check falling prey precise Paper type. I will use Office Paper. Painter, color mode. I select a monochrome because they don't want to waste inks. I remove the borders and check if the position of my image on the paper is correct. When it is done, I'm ready to print my sketch. If you don't have printer, you can now twine your drawing with the help of whitebox or use a window with bright white previously, are you charcoal pastel to transfer my drawing? But now I must admit that using transfer paper is much easier and quicker and less messy. I would never come back. I select a red color of transfer paper because it is the most universal. I can use it on white base are completely break one, still will be visible, but of course, you're welcome to use any color you like. The first step is to tape your transfer paper on top of imprimatura. Always make sure that your imprimatura completely dried. Usually, it takes just one night to dry using paper tape. I secure my printed sketch on all four corners. I use mechanical pencil to outline my drawings from the top-left corner and then move to the right side. It helps me to keep track of water times I've transferred. Again, it's up to you how detailed your transfer will be. I want to keep all details of unicorn, but not flowers, trees, and small Background details. You can also use the grid method to transfer your drawing. Personally, I think it's quite outdated one, because we have all the advantages of technology in our studios. But if you like it or don't have access to the printer or scanner by all means, go ahead and use it. Suppose you base your painting on the traditionally made drawing. I recommend using the printed copy of your drown in that case, because it allows you to preserve the original drawing unharmed by transferring. It is very good option. If your original drawing differs from the size of your Canvas, it is easy to manipulate the size of the image before printing. You can even change the composition. Another option is not to transfer your drawing at all, but rather draw your Twine straight with paint before removing all four corners after you've finished transferring. I recommend taking away just two of them. Check that you transferred own necessary winds because sometimes you can miss something during transferring. But keeping at least two corners in place will help you keep drawn at the same position and fixed all gaps immediately if necessary. Check that everything is correct and I'm happy with the results. So I removed the transfer paper and my print and I'm ready to paint on top of it. I don't need to do anything else. And I have all my proportions in place, which makes my life much easier. In the next three there we will paint the underpainting of The Unicorn. So get ready with your brushes. 12. Unicorn Underpainting: I will show you how to paint underpainting of The Unicorn. We just to convince Raw, Umber, entertaining wide who need about four brushes for this. And I would recommend you to grab some palette knife and mastic if you have one. Or you can use something like this or anything which will help you to stabilize your hand while we painting. Don't forget about lint free rag Palette and something to protect your girls. Urine to go. I'm neural Umber and today new white to my palette. I'm using palette knife to keep my oil painting tubes clean. I will use small synthetic round brush exclusively for Raw Umber. The first step is to establish our darkest value and define some darker contours covered with graphite. I'm taking a little bit of Umber and ways Marie White Touches. We'll cover graphite line. Remember that you don't have to copy your reference photo, but rather you use it as a guide for lighting situation. You, the tone of your painting Surface is much lighter. As in as affordable. I apply the same principle and start from your darkest values. The only difference is that you will have to spread Raw Umber EBIT further than I do to paint those dark values that your imprimatura can give you. Now, I'm ready to move to my next brush and by Titanium White to establish with the lightest light. Again, taking a small amount of paint, I put it where I see highlights and slowly drag it to my middle tones, creating a gradient effect. The main trick is not to mix retro Umber with Titanium White and use different amount of Titanium White to control your values. And you apply it exclusively on top of your dried, Raw Umber. So if you're afraid to accidentally mix your wetter Umber, which you have used previously. We used to Daniel white. Just do it to dry before moving to Titanium white part. Remember that exist technique, you always have to use different brushes for your Raw Umber and for Titanium White to avoid mixing paint. When you spread your paint dry for his foreign direction. Because it will help you to create this beautiful 3D effect. I feel myself quite comfortable with this technique. So I may allow to add to row Umber on top of Titanium white. But if I do this, I will apply it in very small amount on small area with very, very wide Touches to not disturb Titanium White under Umber. It is probably obvious, but I have to remind that you have to make sure that your imprimatura is dry to the touch. Let's start painting. I'm taking smaller brush, size zero, which I will use for my highlights. Who is very light Touches. I applied to Titanium white to create my brightest highlights. Always make sure that you are uncomfortable position while you painting. You can use mastic. Are you also can use your pinky to help you stabilize your hand. If you feel like you have too much paint on your brush, just wipe it off with Iraq. Tpp of old brush is almost perfect. Depend for. One of the small and disadvantages of this technique is that on dry brush and we'll eventually ruin your brush tip. So I recommend to not use expensive brushes. If at some point I feel that some of my brushstrokes are too harsh. I will take clean brush and will smooth out paint. These underpainting to me about 30 or 40 min. But please don't feel like you have to keep up with me. You actually can be faster than me. Please take as much time as you need and don't hurry. You always can stop and continue your painting on next day. I would highly advise you to check out about section to get additional resources to the course. I will see you next video where we will discuss how to save some of your paint which left on the pellet after painting session 13. Leftovers: You don't always have to throw away your paint after painting session. You can keep it fresh for the next couple of days using aluminum foil. And I will show you how you have to do is take a piece of aluminum foil and place it fat on the table. Now, take a clean palette knife. Use a need. Put a pile of your paint from the palette to the file. Please don't put it too close to the ages of the file. Always clean your palette knife before moving to another pile of paint. Please bias nearby, but not too close to each other on the foil. To get band fresh, we need to minimize the amount of air. It reacts with this. Why you need to remove as much air as possible from the bucket of aluminum foil and secure all open size air tightly. Now everything is left to place your paint in the thick your place, and clean up your palette. Your paint will be fresh birth list a few days. I hope this simple trick will help you to save some paint and time. In the following video, where we will be mixing some colors for our underpainting 14. Mixing Colours Physical VS Optical: There are two ways to mix your paint and Optical and physical mix of pigments. And the results might be dramatically different. Both swatches, I'm mix of Titanium White and Raw Umber, but they look so different. On the left is Optical mix and on the right is Physical one. You may recognize by now that we use the optical method when painted our unicorn. When you place one car on top of another, The Colour be while it's still reasonable, they create a new one. Thought cower. The same illusion we were killed when you place dots, of course, very close to each other. Impressionist adored that phenomenon. Optical mixing of pygmies use a burrito in Colours, Physical one, in other word, most iterate and then Physical mix of the same pigments. That is why grazes where so popular when the number of available pigments were so limited. Sometimes it was the only option together required colour. The grace is application of transparent color on top of another color to create. Third one, painter could not have bright yellow pigment, but just muted medium one acre, but thinly graze and eat on top of White will produce read. You go in bright yellow car. The same time. If you mix it with the same white pigment, it will be White, but not as saturated in color. Painting inverse method complete picture might be very time-consuming process. Also, you have to be able to predict how each way will affect previous one. But it will produce X and it results in depth and richness of your car. On the other hand, the physical mixing of paint is very beginner-friendly. We fix your paint mix immediately on-the-spot. Does also quite helpful if you want to paint underpainting with many small details fast. I'm not even sure I wouldn't be able to create such details are using just the dry brush without adding any additional oil. I can't use oil in my base layer to apply with the fat over lean concept. And I don't like to use solvents. So I guess it is my only option to just mix paints straight on the palette. Besides, you are welcome to apply as many glazes as you wish on top of iterator. Let's premix some paint for Background. We will use Titanium, White and Raw Umber. We'll use palette knife to mix my paint on the glass palette. I always tend to be mix a few colors on my palette before I started painting session, I simply we need one for my highlights, which bit darker than pure titanium, and one for medium tones, mixes of paint with Bu write code tins of the car. So we're mixing things of Raw, Umber. Heavens, two mixes prepared. I can quickly mix any color between those four during a painting session. Ideally, it would be best to use palette knife to mix color, but it's okay to use your brush when you want to mix a small variation of car on your palate. What if painters use combination of these Techniques, meaning, use Optical and physical mix of paint during the painting process. Today, your practice consist of mixing just to pigments. We are going to use them in the following video to Paints The Enchanted Forest 15. Underpainting Background: Finally, it's time to add some small details. Door underpainting like foliage and flowers and one-off costs always begin. I'm taking medium size and go shader. Basically you can take any synthetic brush preferably for at one. I will paint my value map. I will try to create a vignette around my unicorn or primary subject. We'll start with my darkest. Dark is always, are all Umber. And then we will slowly introduce more and more Titanium white to my mix. The best way to create soft transition is by mixing your transition cow on the palette. I'm taking my transition car and with shots with motion applied on my Painting surface and starting to blend with my wet, Raw Umber just to soften up edge between two values. I don't worry the stage for authorizations to be ideal because I will paint our my leaves and my flowers using the same Angular Shader I tried to recreate grass edge. Now I'm taking small shader brush. It's quite old one. Using medium mix of Raw Umber in Titanium White will start to paint leaves by slightly rotating and go off my brush. I can easily replicate leaves shape. You can also use round synthetic brush for this purpose. By adding variety of shapes and values, you will increase realistic effect. Now I'm ready to switch brushes and take zero size round synthetic brush. I will use mixture of Raw Umber in Titanium White and with short motions, great illusion of grass. Again. Try to add variety with your brushstrokes and make each next brushstroke different from previous one. When you press harder on your brush, you will see that paint will mix with layer below and with lighter Touches, you can easily place your paint from ZBrush on top of paint which were already on Painting surface using a variety of pressure, you can create different effects and Paints, naturalistic leaves just with one stroke. When you're painting in oil. So you need to keep in mind fat over lean concept or more flexible or less flexible concept. Basically, that means that you're aware should be more flexible than your level where at the same moment of time, as you may remember, open drive-through oxidation, meaning it observes oxygen from the air and during this process loses its flexibility and harden. It also stretches or increases in size. The drying time of oil paint depends on different characteristics. Which pigments were used to produce oil paint, how seen are sick, you air is, and how much oil isn't here mix. You may already notice it. Mixes of some pigments tend to dry much faster than others. For example, you can see the umbra is an extremely fast drying pigment if you compare it to Titanium White. And the same time, the more oil you paint contains, the longer to dry oxidize. And therefore we will sail flexible longer paint with proportionately more on oxydized oil called fat, and with lager amount of oil, lean. So it is a device to use fatwa layers over lean and never lean over fat. In this case, you eros is duration. In the upper aware is completely dried and lost. Its flexibility, meaning it can stretch anymore. But oxidation in the level we're still continuous. Level where we will eventually pulls away above and into croc secret where's will dry longer than seen ones. Squares can be dried to the touch but still wet underneath. Therefore more flexible one goes in thin layers. That is why we don't start our next painting layer before abuse, dry to the touch and paint in sinewaves to make sure that our next way, by default, more flexible. As you continue to build up layers, you need to make sure that they contain the same amount of preferably more oil are imprimatura of every scene and contained on neural umbra, which is fast drying car. Also, I know that underpainting will be a little bit seeker when I paint leaves and other details. So I don't feel the need to add any oil at this stage. In future videos, we'll eventually introduced a little bit of oil to upper layers to make sure that they stay more flexible. Ones that are underpainting layers 16. Mixing Paints The Colour Wheel: I believe that it is not necessary to study in details color theory to become a painter. But it is definitely an advantage to know some basics and go beyond that. Color is very intuitive and we'll learn how to manipulate it from childhood. We also know that different things have different car, but why light reflects off the surface, but not all of it. Sound wave lengths of the visual spectrum observed by the Surface, while others reflected and registered by our eyes, and then processed by our brains. When you mix different pigments, more wavelength becomes subtracted. So eventually you will get less and less saturated in color. That is why if you mix enough different colors, you will end up with the black one. It's time you add a new pigment to your mix. It will absorb some part of the visible spectrum. If you put a simplified representation of the visible spectrum in the circle, you will get a color wheel. Let's talk about how we can apply this knowledge using the color wheel. The color wheel starts from three primary colors, some shade of yellow, blue, and red. They called primary because by mixing them, you can complete a color wheel further away it mixing those three simultaneously, you end up with Work car. If you have a current ink printer than you know that in addition to black, it requires at least sine, which is a shade of blue, magenta, which is cool red and yellow to produce images. Now you know why cyan and magenta are not classical for painter to have as their primary is more based on historical aspects of physical qualities. Blue and you will give you green, blue and red, violet and yellow, and red, orange. Those new colors called secondaries. With a variety of bigness proportions in mix, you will increase your color spectrum. Various combinations of blue and yellow pigments will give different greens and so on. Colors that are opposite on the Colour Wheel called complimentary colors. By mixing them, you will end up with the unnatural grayish color. If you want to degree the Colours iteration, Adding bit of car opposite to it on the nice thing about complimentary colors, they look great together. Would it be Painting clothing or sine of the dark? When you mix bank, you need to worry about the hue and consider value simultaneously. For example, when you want to make your mix cooler, you sent yourself, I need to add blue to, but you need to add blue of the same value as your initial mix. It will influence your original car's value. It might sound not very easy, but the more you practice, the more it will become your second nature and you will not even think about it while painting. See you next lesson, because now you're ready to practice color mixing and some CARTO. Our Enchanted Forest 17. Colour Passage: So we completed our undergrads and it's completely dry and we're ready to add some cartoons. I'm taking caribbean Blue paint from Out Holland. You can use any blue color you like to tell Blue would be a great alternative. I would suggest something closer to sign in hue. But you can use ultramarine blue to don't forget, to clean your palette knife between each pile of paint. I'm taking goat or grow from gambling. It is very bright yellow ocher, comparing to the other manufacturers I've tried. You can use any transparent your car. You're like, Oh, my red car. I will use metal awake extra from alcohol and this Gower will not give you a very saturated for our pro, when mixed with Caribbean blue bar, it will end up with lovely oranges when combined with God okra. And as always, I will add Titanium, White and Raw Umber. Taking my blue and yellow paint, I will mix green for the background. You can immediately see that each band has different strengths in mixes. It is very similar to spice is when you cook, some ****** will be more dominant than others. This Gauss strength in the mix is called tinting strength. You can see the Caribbean Blue has greater tinting strength than okra. I need to add more you to create a bright green card that is not leaning too much dark blue. You can use a palette knife with a bit of paint to check your car with your reference or our study. Don't forget to rotate the palette knife slightly. So you're right and we will not influence the perception of paint on the knife as both of my pigments are transparent, I can grade them on top of the underpainting result, Adding oil, if you feel like paint fights you too much or wanting your glaze to be lighter, you can add a little bit of oil to mix. The main trick would be to it as little as possible of drying oil to get the desired effect. If your previous layer already contains some oil, you will have to add the same amount or more to comply with the fat, our linear, but this is not our case. Before I completely covered my background with green paint, I decided to go as you power on top of the moon. Now, when it's done, I can continue to cover up my underpainting. I can create color variations by adding more blue or you call to my green mix. Despite me given color mixture recommendations, don't be afraid to experiment and don't get stuck on the mixing proportions I use. Because you can achieve the same car in multiple ways. To paint my whitest part of the background, I will mix blue and wide and decrease value and saturation by mixing emitter of Raw Umber. It also will make my car be the greener. Ok, chips in my hue and meet with each wide mean. Now, I take a small Angular Shader and create a mixture to prevent the brightest leaves. Paint them with the same technique I used in the underpainting. But in addition to the value I increase humiliations by adding more blue. Are you paying to the paint mixture? The mix of caribbean Blue and Titanium White arab paint, the brightest part of the blue flowers. You can see that I'm not painting the flowers completely, but only the brightest part, which is in the White, increasing perceive depth. I'm starting to paint tiny details and I feel that my brush is too stiff and I can't make precise strokes. So it's time for me to add a little bit of oil to the paint. I bar Linseed oil into my palette cap. You can use won't Oil or any other drying oil. If you don't have Palette cup, you can use the bottle cap. You can also add a little bit of Linseed oil to power if you find it more comfortable for you, I put the tip of my brush into Linseed oil and wipe away the excess using rock, I take the smallest amount of Linseed Oil possible on the tip of my brush and mix it with my paint with a mix of brighter green color. I repaint the highlights on the lips. I can't stress enough The main goal is to add, is little oil as possible to the paint to get the desired effect. These tiny amount of oil left on my brush allowed the paint to flow smoothly and I can make precise controlled brushstrokes. Now, I use straight gold ocher to restore the yellow flower hue. Afterwards, I repaying the highlights using a mix of Titanium, white and gold ocher. There's a mixture of caribbean Blue and made awake, I can repent the violet flowers if you feel that the paint left on your brush influences the following mixture too much. When you switch between cars, you can dip it in oil and wipe it clean using Iraq, I would advise you to do it when you switch between colors like violet and green. For example, if you have your color left on barrage, you may not want to clean it before switching to the green car. Because green mixes with you and produces more human rights with each brush stroke. A little bit of worms to the grass, I will add met awake into gold ocher to my green base. Nevertheless, I wipe my brush regularly with to wait too much paint build-up. And because they don't want to paint in thick layers. I'm not happy with the writing around his head. And I'm going to use lighter mixture and even very Titanium white to paint light beams. But I'm using a tiny amount of paint and lay the paint in Swift motions. Now I take a clean, round, synthetic brush size one and paint dark runs counter to describe the rights and sedation beta and increased perceive depth. And other men too tricky you can use while mixing color. Is Dorsky yourself? Five simple questions. Is my mix white enough? Is it black enough? He's at you enough. He's addressed enough. Is it Blue enough? Now, it would be easier to change it according to the Unsworth. Thing to mention, when you paint a bigger works of Art, you end up with big pulse of paint than I do. In this case, is better to add a drop or two of oil directly to paint before mixing cars instead of using brush is I did in this demonstration. Now that we have finished painting the background, it will be easy to judge unicorn cars, and we're ready to paint it in the next video. 18. Oiling Out: Today we will add to cart to the unicorn. It is an excellent opportunity to show you another way to add oil to a new layer. I will add a thin layer of oil on top of the area I'm going to paint on. This process is called oiling Out. In my case, I will oil out The Unicorn figure. You also need to make sure that your previous layer is completely dry to the touch. I will use Linseed oil from natural pigments for a bit of oil directly on your palette or into Palette cup. Then take a soft synthetic brush. I will use an angled brush size one, get a small amount of oil onto your brush and applied to the area you are going to paint on. The previous methods of adding oil to paint, you need to add as little as possible. So I will add the oil stay for a couple of minutes and then remove excess within makeup sponge. You can use any absorbent lint and dust-free material for this. You can see that as soon as I add aware of oil on top of dry paint, it changes. Colors becomes more saturated and darker colors become richer. Sometimes these changes might even be more dramatic. In contrast, while I continue to oil out our unicorn, Let's talk about why it is happening. Often when the paint is dried to detach, colors may become door and appear lighter than when you apply them fresh. In this case, one can save it. Gower has some Guinean. Different aspects could cause this effect, such as very absorbing painting Surface using solvents and even the size of begin particles. Some pigments are known to tend to sink in. Raw Umber is one of them, especially if applied sanely when duo is to observe and what is happening is oil from the layer above gets some Guinean by the thirsty layer below all the Painting surface. That can explain why wants shiny surface becomes met and how the effects got its name. I play scholars on my palette. So I have Titanium, white, matter awake, green mixed from the previous session. Caribbean Blue, got okra and draw Umber. And then mix a few bios of cars, which I assume will be useful during this session. My advice is to choose two to three middle tone colors. If you shared OK hours and if you for the highlights, I use it both knife to compare my mixes with the color study. I also use the photo reference for value structure is always, I will start from the darkest dark and move towards lighter values. When you mix shadow colors or your darkest dark, dry too. What about paint? Especially white? Or at least minimize the amount of it because light travels longer in transparent or semi-transparent shadows, it gives the illusion that this planes are further from the viewer, especially compared to a power cut highlights. That is why it is important to use separate brushes for highlights and shadows, or at least thoroughly clean them for switching between shadow and mixes and other paint. I will use three brushes during the painting session. Round synthetic brush size 1.2 brushes from Rosemarie one, filbert size two, and Eclipse rigor size to one more thing to keep in mind is when your plans change, ideally, you should change the hue or value of your mix to reflect reality. Those slight changes in Houston or value might be invisible to you if you have just started to work in car. But eventually your brain will learn to register them more and more. You'll be surprised how differently you perceive color. The more you practice in painting. I will not be original when I say practice makes perfect. Don't forget that when you want to blend two different colors in a Painting, tried to make the transition car between them on your palette and not only your canvas for the best results. Another option is to use a clean dry brush to blend two colors directly on the canvas with the exact motions. In this case, the brush barely touches the paint and makes short motions while I'm painting. Let's go back to our issue is sunk in cars. When you varnish your painting with gauze varnish, dark areas will get some shin back. Remember all the satisfying Venus on the Internet with porin varnish on the painting. And it suddenly becomes more saturated and contrasty. This is why some Guinean areas can become headache when you try to match colors. In the next session. Now case grass scours have become dour and I will oil out a small part of grass, The Unicorn, just a few millimeters to have a clear idea of his surrounding. You will see that I will repaint this area to reward leaving a oil where if you live a pure oil, it can trigger darkening and Yellow in, in the future. Don't obsess over not missing every micro area you have bile out. Just all are strategically and you will be Fine. Art should not bring stress to your wife. After all. Just remember, if you all out some area, you should paint on it on the same day. So if you're, for example, going to paint on his head today, I allowed only this area. It is this simple. Besides helping with some green areas, oiling Out helps you blend colors from previous passages with fresh ones very evenly because it all the paint flow smoothly and softly on top of dried paint. This is very helpful in portraits while you paint on top of an underpainting treated as a sketch, if you feel you need to change something, then taken Artists twice sense and do it. In our case, I decided to paint the unicorn in slightly hierarchy, meaning lighter than underpainting. For some reason, you're not happy with the painting sessions result. Let it dry to the touch. Make list of things you want to improve. When you come back to the Painting, oil out there, you want to improve and paint our, you can repeat this process as many times as you need. Now we have a pretty good base for painting. And all we have to do is add a few finishing touches to make it go. In the next video, we will develop our painting further and to reuse the full potential of its magical realm. 19. Finishing Touches: It's nice to have grace as final where of your painting because it unifies the colors and gives a similar effect to place in a guard sheet of glass or a picture. I will use my favorite gel medium or learn gel is a painting medium mate with Linseed oil and silica. You can use a Refined Linseed oil instead. I will oil out the whole painting using other gel to prepare it for glazing. It helps me avoid inconsistencies. The goal I swear and make it evenly glossy. Don't forget to wipe off the excess is you need just microns of oil to fix this issue. I will make zero Umber and medium for the glaze is always a heaven. My palette, Titanium White, Caribbean blue metal awake, extra Raw Umber and goat okra. I have also placed some paint mixes left from our previous session and edit three fresh mixes of mine awake Blue, and you teens. For the highlights. There's no rule on how much medium you have to add to the grace. As I have demonstrated before, you can go as without any medium by just thinly apply and transparent paint. A color study is helpful to test your mix. I want my final grades to be very transparent, so I will add as little oil as possible until I achieve the desired consistency. I will use a soft synthetic brush, so that doesn't leave any brushstrokes visible. It was initially makeup brush, but I like to use it for painting because it has excellent absorbency. It helps spread evenly and not overdo it if you place too much paint on your Canvas, wipe it off with Iraq. I also like to remove the excess with a sponge to help unifies the glaze. Then I can glaze a bit of Raw Umber in places where fuel car needs to be more profound. Be mindful of where you add texture in the painting because a thin glaze over the area will make the texture more pronounced. Now I want to enhance some highlights. I will start with the unicorn. We will highlight his counters with my fresh mixes of red, Yellow, and Blue teens. I like how Raw Umber glaze, it's warms and beautiful glow to the scene. I will add a thin layer of metal awake to his nostos to bring into him and fix his mouth. I learn gel is a fat medium and consists of about 95% of oil to read it as you treat per oil when working with it in a fat over lean concept. Remember that you don't have to oil out everywhere. If we don't play the whole painting, I will probably oil out just a few sunken in areas or want or to toe. If you wisps of hair, hand will enhance the big chair realism. It's nice to have grace as final where of your painting because it unifies the colors and gives a similar effect to place in a guard sheet of glass or a picture. To paint the moon. I will start from its contours with mix of gold, ocher and white, where awkward is dominant and move to the center while increasing the amount of white until I end up whisper Titanium White. I will also add a bit of texture to it to bring it closer to the viewer. Now, it's time to paint over some highlights on flowers and leaves. The viewer's eyes needs to travel across your painting to the main subjects. So try to give the detailed elements and contrasty parts closer to the main characters and avoid supporting details dominance over the main subject. You don't want a flower to be brighter than the moon or the Unicorn. To add a bit of sparkle, I will place you dot sulfonates edges, and then I add a blue white.in the center with a smaller brush. To add variety, I will use light blue, pink and you mixes. Remember that you can soften your brush strokes with a clean brush or your fingers. Also play with the size and placement of the sparkles to add depth. I skip the second step and not put white dots in the center of some of them. For this purpose. I take grow armor with a clean brush and paint generally counters. Then I add volume to it with a saturated mix of white and okra. And with a brighter mix, I add a few highlights to replicate metal. I will use the same technique for painting the rest of the jury. Make very light Touches, not to our mix your paint with wet paint. And that's it. I hope you enjoyed the process. Don't forget to check out the guidance of Project section for more details. And I can't wait to see your versions of this team that is left is waiting to, our painting, is ready to be varnished 20. Varnish: There are a few reasons they fly varnish. First, to hit a protection layer between the paint and the environment. Second, to enhance its visual appearance. Remove any dust from your painting with a soft, clean, dry brush, then take a foam brush or any soft five to 7 cm synthetic brush do not per varnish right on your painting unless you want to make an impressive social media video. Better option is to put it in a cab as it allows you to spread varnish evenly and thinly, using a brush, spread it across the painting vertically and horizontally, and try to avoid bonobos and watch out for any dust flying around if you see dust on the painting. Carefully, remove it. Visit been set. Your main goal is to end up with a nice even gloss finish. The best time to apply varnish is six to 12 months. After you have finished the painting. I'm going to pretend that I have waited that long. By the way, I used Denver varnish from Gamblin. It's produced in matte and gloss finishes, and you can make them to get a custom finished. Unfortunately, now a varnish which doesn't contain solvents in it and gather is not exception. It has an odorless mineral spirit, which is better than turpentine. But still, you need to ensure proper ventilation when varnish and Andrew member any varnish is likely to produce fumes a few days after you have applied it. So be mindful where you store the Painting. Insignificant property of this varnish is that you can remove it with an odorless mineral spirit to like games though, it's beneficial for restoration purposes or when you forget to sign your painting and remember that you can't paint on top of varnish. After you can finish the varnish dry in horizontal position, usually a thin coat will dry tech free in 24 h. It's better to provide to see in layers than one sequence. You can clean your brush with a solvent or use water and salt. If you can't wait six months before display in your painting, you can use a temporary varnish, go to retouch varnish, which can be applied as soon as the painting is dry to the touch. There many ready-to-use solutions, and I recommend trying one from Winsor and Newton, but eventually you will have to apply a permanent varnish like Denver on top or instead of it, as soon as varnish has dried, your painting isn't ready for me now on display and doesn't need additional protections such as glass. Now, you can frame your work and show it does work 21. You did it!: I hope by now you feel confident and excited to paint your ration of The Unicorn of The Enchanted Forest. And I can't wait to see your creations and interpretations. Take progress shots of your painting process and share it in the project section. Please don't forget to tag me on social media when you share your progress there to there are many ways to approach each painting stage. Don't be afraid to adapt and mix different approaches. Drawing practice is a foundation stone for any realistic painting. If you feel confused by the painting process and fuse, it is difficult to create value structure in your painting. You can fix this by practicing your drawing skills. Thankfully, there are a lot of great teachers on Skillshare to help you visit on any level. My personal favorites or trainings from Yes, Mina, Gabriel and Greece tried to practice one thing at a time and don't be hard on yourself. You can always start again if your first attempt was successful. I'm always here to help you. If you're stuck, don't be afraid to ask for help. Share your progress. If you like this class, please leave a review, it will help out. You can also follow me to not miss any upcoming classes in future. Experiments. Have FUN and find what works best for your Art. See in the next class