Are you a seasoned artist looking for a new medium to work with? Getting bored with pencil, color pencil or water colors? Why not try out some oil painting? Once upon a time, I went to college for art in high school but I totally stopped the program before they got to teaching paint. I do regret it but I am all for trying to things on my own. Learning your own techniques is fun and Youtube will teach you everything you need to know. You will need the right supplies and you can readily find everything you need from U.S. Art Supply on Amazon. Everything is affordable priced and high quality to work with.
The first thing you will need are Canvases in many different sizes. If you are interested in oil painting you will need to first lay out your drawing on a blank piece. Find out what you want to do and carefully measure for proportions. I did not measure out proportions but if you plan on doing realistic portraits don't skip on that step.
Here's a drawing that I laid out on a 9 x 12 canvas. I thought it was the perfect size to start out with. If you decided to go with an oil painting set like the kind U.S. Art supply sells; a piece of canvas already comes with it conveniently. Here's a great set to start out with. You have just about every color you need to work with. The only thing I can recommend is getting an extra large tube of white so you can mix and match to get your lighter shades of the original color. There's three brushes included and I would also recommend getting more varied sizes of brushes to work with. How cute is the wooden palette that comes with this set as well? It's very easy to hold and there's a large surface area to mix your colors.
One thing this set doesn't have is linseed oil which you need to wash out the paint to a thinner consistency. I experimented with coconut oil and I personally would not recommend doing that because it probably won't dry properly. Even today as all those hours passed over night with it drying it still seems a little wet. I mean, if you just want to get going with it just use a tiny bit of whatever oil you have at home but I just don't recommend it. So oil aside, make sure you have a cleaning rag that you can wipe your brushes off with in between using colors.
The first thing you should do is pick a light color and make a really light wash over the whole drawing. You then slowly add your shadows and layer colors but make sure you wait until that first wash is dried or you will get a big mush of colors that won't work. Layering colors is your friend and patience is the key. Go slowly and you will make a masterpiece. I did not go slowly and rushed so I had to fix the face with a go to ninja mask. Oh well! I will eventually get the hang of it and it's not that bad for my first time working with it. You will lose a lot of detail on your original drawing unless you go slowly and build it up. You can always go back with your pencil and darken areas that need it. I went back with an 8B pencil and darkened the eye and eyebrow areas to make them stand out more from the washes. Anyway, I'm very happy with the canvases and the oil painting set in general. If you're interested in purchasing the canvas and oil painting set for yourself on Amazon feel free to follow the links provided below to them. Thanks for reading! #usartsupply
You can BUY your own U.S. Art Supply canvases here on Amazon: http://www.amazon.com/dp/B00TOVINLE
Panel Assortment Includes: 6-5"x7", 6-8"x10", 6-9"x12", 6-11"x14"
You can BUY your own U.S. Art Supply 17 piece oil painting set here on Amazon : http://www.amazon.com/dp/B00PR7KP6A
- 1-Piece 24cm x 30cm Stretched Canvas
- 12-Piece 12ml Oil Paint Colors
- Fine Wood Palette
- 3-Piece Bristle Paint Brushes
- Great Beginners Art Set