Oil Painting Tips | Painting Articles

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Here’s a list of oil painting tips that you might find helpful when you’re still starting out. They are things that many painters have found useful throughout the years (maybe because they had to learn the hard way about them).

Try to remember these things as you paint, because it will save you a lot of hassle.

1. Try to dry your painting in the light as much as possible

Oil paintings take months and months to dry completely, and it’s inevitable that some of that time will be in the dark. But when paintings dry in the dark, sometimes oils rise up to the surface which can create a yellow film over the top of your work. Make sure you dry your painting in the light whenever possible, which can reverse this effect.

2. Organize your palette

When you lay out paints on your palette, it’s helpful to always keep the same colors in the same area. This way, you’ll be able to reach for the color in the right location out of habit and won’t waste time searching for it on your palette. It will become second nature.

3. Don’t skimp on brushes

Don’t even think about using synthetic brushes. They simply won’t do for oil painting. Most oil painters use hog’s hair brushes. You wouldn’t want something you worked so hard on to be ruined by bristles falling out of an inadequate synthetic brush—don’t buy them.

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4. Take care of your brushes

Brushes are expensive, but if you take proper care of them they can last a very long time. During a session, you can use paper to roughly wipe excess paint from a brush if you want to use it with a different color. But when you’re done using a brush, clean it out thoroughly with turpentine and let it dry.

5. Removing stuck paint caps

The caps on your paints will surely get stuck from time to time if you’re not using the paint frequently. There are many methods for getting them off, so try a few and take your pick. Many artists keep a pair of pliers with the rest of their art supplies and use these to hold the cap steady while they spin the tube (or to spin the cap while they hold the tube steady).

Other artists don’t like the damage this might do to the caps, so they use small flat pieces of rubber to get a firm grip on the cap instead. Additionally, soaking the cap area in hot water for a bit usually loosens it up. If you don’t want it to happen again in the future, make sure to clean off all the dried paint and rub a little vaseline around the edges before closing it again.

6. Interesting methods to preserve paints

You’re not going to finish a painting in one sitting, and that means your already mixed colors need to be saved for next time. One of the most popular paint-saving tips is to cover and freeze the entire palette. Another is to use a glass palette and store the paints underwater. It seems a little crazy, but it works!

If you follow these six oil painting tips, creating great paintings should be significantly easier.

In this section of our website, we had specially prepared other useful oil painting articles with useful tips that one would require to gain a better understanding of mastering oil painting. Do check them out below...

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List of Oil Painting Tips & Acrylic Painting Tips:

  1. Learn How Artists Develop the Composition of Their Paintings
    These drawings are also usually very small – maybe an inch or two in width and breadth. Mainly thumbnail sketches are used as memory aids and as a way of planning painting composition.
  2. Care for Your Paintings | How to Take Care of Oil Painting
    Oil paintings are delicate creatures because they take an enormously long time to dry completely. As a result, they are vulnerable to a number of environmental hazards during this wet period.
  3. 5 Oil Painting Tips for Beginners
    One of the most important tips for beginner oil painters is to make sure your workplace is appropriate. When first starting, it may be tempting to just set up shop anywhere that’s convenient.
  4. 3 Ways to Boost Your Artistic Creativity
    What we can take in with our eyes is a lot greater than what a photograph or a painting can convey, so the viewfinder helps narrow that focus to what will actually fit on the rectangular artwork.
  5. How to Improve On Perspective in Oil Paintings
    Just mention the word “perspective” to a group of beginning artists and you’ll practically be able to hear their hearts start beating faster in fear.
  6. 5 Ways to Destroy Your Artistic Creativity
    There are times when your level of creativity will go into turbulent ups and downs, seemingly without any reason at all. More often than not, the culprit is you yourself.
  7. What You Need to Know About a Paint Brush
    Paintbrushes are the tools with which you create your art and thus are extremely important. There are dozens of types of brushes to choose from, all depending on what kind of image you are creating.
  8. Why Do People Buy Paintings?
    There’s a lot of disagreement among artists about selling work. Some seem to think that it somehow makes you less of an artist if you’re doing it for profit.
  9. Tips for Easy Oil Painting
    Getting your oil painting exactly the way you want it is hard enough—you have to worry about color, texture, form, shadows, lighting, perspective, and proportion, among other things.
  10. Advantages And Disadvantages of Oil Paints And Paintings
    Oil paint is different than other water based traditional media in that it will gradually harden after a prolonged exposure to air, during which the artist will have ample time to manipulate the paint days after it has been applied on canvas.
  11. Working With Other Artists
    Because each individual artist has a unique creative vision, working with various artists can bring all their creativity together and infuse new ideas into projects.
  12. Dos and Don’ts for Oil Painting
    There’s a lot of advice to be given about oil painting from a number of different sources. Sometimes things can get a little confusing. To simplify some of the basic rules for oil painting, check this list of Do’s and Don’ts
  13. Tips for Beating Artist’s Block
    It happens to artists all the time and can really be a demoralising experience for an artist to feel like all the inspiration has vanished. You basically go through a phase where you’re confronted with a creative block.
  14. Where to Find Free Reference Photos to Use in Paintings
    If you’re an artist, you probably know that using copyrighted photos from the internet or magazines is prohibited. For a new artist, this would leave you with not so many options especially if you do not travel a lot to take your own photos.
  15. What Makes a Great Oil Painting?
    If you have a passion for collecting art, how do you decide on the best paintings to choose? Opinions on this can be as varied as artists’ own styles.

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Oil Painting Tips | Painting Articles | Acrylic Painting Tips


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