Oil painting; Possible solutions to common challenges

Here is a followup to yesterday's post; "Why paint with oils?"

• If you can't stand the smell of turpentine, use odorless mineral spirits (OMS) or Turpenoid Natural to thin and clean up. *Be aware though that while OMS is easier on the nose it is no less toxic for those who are sensitive to turps. In that case your best alternative is to clean up with Turpenoid or some other natural product.
• To avoid "mud", refrain from mixing too many colors together.  Try mixing with your palette knife instead of your brush. This will allow the paint load to sit on the end of the brush and not mush down into the brush toward the ferrules.
• Avoid the overuse of white. White will lighten values but also cool and dull colors, giving a chalk-like appearance to most colors if overused.
• Avoid the overuse of black or dark earthtones. Some would say avoid ANY use of black as it is a dead color. With hesitation I will say I have nothing against black if used judiciously. But I usually suggest beginning students keep black off of their palette because there is a tendency to reach for the black (or umber) for anything that requires shading or darker values. This  can result in an overly dull, flat looking painting. If you use a mixture of your darkest primaries and just a touch of a secondary you can achieve much richer, more vibrant darks. Ultramarine + Alizarin Crimson + Viridian or Sap Green will "read as" black but be much richer looking.
• Avoid over-working back into a wet section. Experiment with laying in your color and leaving it alone as much as possible. Over blending and mushing your paint around on your canvas can lead to  "mud".  If you need to go back into an area either wait until the paint "sets up" a bit, or scrape off and repaint the area.

 Experiment with other mediums:

• While absolutely no medium is necessary, it's fun to experiment with different painting mediums to enhance the behavior of your oils. There are a variety of mediums available that can help speed drying time, enhance the fluidity of you brush stroke, and help your paint strokes stay where you put them. Liquin is a relatively odorless option that adds viscosity and helps speed drying. Copal medium is incredibly seductive but it does have a very strong odor as it is mixed with turpentine. Galkyd Lite is what I'm using right now. It's very similar to Liquin but not as "slippery". *Note: Whatever you use, a little medium goes a long way.
• Some people experiment with alkyds. These are oil paints with alkyd resin mixed in, creating a faster drying oil paint. (Down side: they can appear more "plastic looking". Colors aren't as rich and can seem very bright and candy-like. They still clean up with turps or mineral spirits and can be used in combination with regular oil paints.)
• Some people experiment with water soluble oil paints. These clean up with water, and tend to dry somewhat faster than regular oils. The cleanup can be a real advantage to those who love oils but are allergic to turps or mineral spirits. (Down side: the texture can seem stickier and tackier to those used to oils. Synthetic brushes are recommended for these paints as bristle brushes turn mop-like when used with water.)

Why paint with oils?

 I hear so many artists say that they never get started in painting with oils because they are too intimidating. But, like anything else, they just take some practice and some getting used to. Once you learn their properties you may find you really like them. To all of you watercolorists out there and those working with fast-drying or transparent mediums, you are already working with very challenging materials! Each medium has its own unique properites, so long as you don't expect oil paints to behave like any other, you may find you really like them. Here are some of the advantages

•  They are very forgiving. Because they stay open longer they can be reworked, scraped, and amended more than watercolor and other transparent or water based mediums.
•  They are rich and luminous when at their best.
•  They can produce fabulous texture and depth of color.
•  Oil paintings on canvas are easier to frame than anything on paper!

Some possible deterrents:

•  They smell.
•  They are messy and hard to clean up.
•  They take too long to dry.
• Just can't get the hang of them. Everything turns out muddy.

Lest you find the possible deterrents too deterring, I'll discuss some possible solutions the next time! 

My oil painting technique... A few Q's & A's

From time to time I will get questions from fellow artists about my approach to oil painting, so I thought I'd share some recent ones here on the blog, in case there are others who might have the same concerns: Q: How do you keep your colors clean painting in oil? Do you clean the brushes stroke after stroke? Do you wait for one coat to dry before applying a thicker one?    A: The best way to do this is to lay a stroke down and leave it be. I like to mix my paint on the palette with a palette knife in the studio, rather than mixing it around with my brush. When I paint en plein air, this isn't always the case, but starting out in oils I recommend it for keeping colors clean. Also, yes, clean your brushes often and wipe with paper towels. You need to have enough paint on the tip of your brush. Most beginners in oils don't do this and lay down a thin stroke, then see they didn't get the right effect and so try to paint over and over it a few times, giving a smeared, muddy effect. If you need to test the paint mixture to judge color notes or values, just dab a bit of paint on the canvas with your palette knive to test before laying on a bunch of paint.

You can paint either using a direct method or an indirect method. I paint using a direct method, where I am laying paint rather thickly on canvas, sometimes doing it all "alla prima" (at one go) for smaller canvases, or in consecutive sessions for larger canvases.  You can use a painting medium like Galkyd or Liquin, which speeds the drying and increases fluidity. There are also impasto mediums that help the paint sit up thickly and "stay put". But if you use these, use them sparingly or else it compromises the stability of the paint.

I saw Ken Backhaus and John Budicin demoing in oils recently and neither of them used any medium at all. They just laid the paint on pretty thickly and left it be.  It does take some practice to do this, though, and some confidence in handling your brushwork.   Indirect painting is approached differently, using glazes that build up through layering. With this method you WOULD let the painting dry to the touch in between sessions, painting thinly and gradually building up the paint layer. The rule here is to pain "fat over lean", meaning paint thick over thin, oily over less oily. Lots of portrait painters use this indirect method, which gives a beautiful luminous quality to  translucent passages such as skin.

Q: How do you keep your deep dark values clear cut separate from your light? That goes for structures as for skin tones. 

My dark passages and shadow areas are generally painted a bit thinner than highlighted areas. I leave the impasto (thick, raised paint) for highlights, which are naturally going to be more opaque because of the addition of white paint used in the mixtures.

The best way to keep your darks clean is to not move your paint around so much on your canvas once it's down. Think in terms of laying the paint down rather than smearing it around. Also, to keep darks dark, you can lay them in first and then lay in impasto highlights after. If you do it the other way around the light, which usually includes white will muddy and lighten the dark . If you do need to darken something, wait until the paint "sets up" a bit and becomes at least tacky to the touch before going back in with dark over light. If you've worked in watercolor before, this will be the exact opposite approach to watercolor!

Autumn Afternoon at Lake Lure

 

This was another plein air painting I did on my mountain trip. I did this painting during John Budicin portion of the workshop. I was in full sun but it was windy so I didn't want to mess with my umbrella. John commented that I'd better shade my painting from time to time or else the values would be too dark. I tried my best, but when I got inside and looked at my painting it was indeed darker than I had expected. I may yet touch this piece up a bit, but I'm not sure. I do like the way the water looks, so I wouldn't want to mess with it too much.

In some ways John's style was very different from Ken's. John used little #3 round brushes, where Ken used #8 filberts. John had a more expansive pallete and Ken's was pretty limited. I found this interesting and it also confirmed to me that there is no one "right way" approach. What the two had in common, though, was an emphasis on design, value, and seeing everything in shapes and planes. I think these ideas were starting to solidify with me especially during the days when we painted outside.

This painting measures 9x12" and is done in oils on canvas mounted hardboard. I haven't uploaded it to my main website yet, so please contact me if you would like more information.

Fall Harvest

Well, my workaround for posting to my blog while painting in the mountains was short-lived. In fact two of my previous posts were lost in the internet ethers, so I'm having to "retro-post" after the fact. This is one of the paintings I completed en plein air while at the workshop. I felt like I was finally finding a groove with this one, and thankfully we had a lovely mild day to work with!

The model posed only in brief intervals for us, so we had to work fast to get her "attitude" AND get the color notes and values that surrounded her. It was fun and challenging, but I am really happy with my results. There is something about painting en plein air that really helps to inform the light. I love backlit scenes like this one, even though it can be hard on the eyes if working in this way for a while. Ken's only critique when I was done was to say that the background trees might compete with the figure, leading the eye away from the center of interest. While this may be true, my feeling was that the fall colors helped to "set the tone" of the painting. Plus I am a color fiend and that fall foliage was too seductive to overlook. I did end up toning it down a little though.

This painting was done in oils on canvas-mounted hardboard. It measures 11x14". For more information please click on the image or contact me.