Oil painting technique, oil painting for beginners

Oil painting brushes come in a wide variety of sizes and shapes and this can sometimes overwhelm a beginner. This article will provide you with an overview of the various oil painting brushes available and help you decide what kind of brushes you should invest in.

BRUSH TEXTURES

Oil painting brushes come in two different textures basically, and they are classified as hard and soft. Hard brushes are generally referred to as “bristle brushes” and they are quite resilient. Hard brushes are made from hog’s hair and they are strong and stiff. They will hold a good amount of paint and can handle the oil painting medium quite well. I personally prefer working with bristle brushes exclusively as I tend to paint rather rough and direct.

Soft oil painting brushes are made from softer hairs that come from animals like sable, squirrel, or mongoose. Softer brushes will generally give your painting a softer smoother appearance and are more often used for finishing or detailed work. Sable brushes are the most expensive usually but there are synthetic brushes made of nylon that are very good substitutes for sable. They are more resilient and cheaper than sable.

BRUSH SHAPES

There are five shapes to brushes that are generally used and each is meant to have its own function. I prefer to paint with flats, brights and fliberts of various sizes, and only occasionally make use of the other shapes. This is my preference and you will certainly develop your own the longer you paint with oils.

Flats

Flat oil painting brushes have a wide square end with medium to long hairs. Flat brushes generally have a lot of spring to them and can hold a lot of paint. You can use these brushes for broad sweeping strokes or you can turn the brush on its edge to create fine lines. Flat brushes are great for earlier stages of a painting when you are blocking in large areas.

Brights

Bright oil painting brushes are similar in shape to flat brushes but the hairs are shorter. They are best used for making shorter controlled strokes. They do not hold nearly as much paint as a flat brush.

Filberts

The filbert is also similar to the flat brush only the edge of the brush comes to a rounded shape. The hairs of the filbert are medium to long in length. This rounded shape will give you more control then a bright. The filbert is great for blending and figurative work.

Rounds

A round oil painting brush has a round or pointed tip. They hold a nice amount of paint and are great for making thin or thick lines. Use this brush for dabbing on dots or blotches of color. Round brushes are also good for washes, fills and detailed work. They are not suited for creating hard straight edges.

Fans

The fan oil painting brush is a flat fan shaped brush. The fan brush is a specialized brush. It is either used very often by the artist or not at all. It really depends on your style of painting. This brush is not suited for holding paint. It is used more often for blending colors and you should keep this brush clean and dry if you plan to do a lot of blending during a session. The brush will begin to lose its effectiveness when it becomes filled with paint. You may want to keep a few extras on hand.

BRUSH SIZE

Oil painting brushes come in a variety of sizes indicated by numbers as in 1,2,4,6,8,10; size 1 being the smallest and 10 the largest in this example.

BRUSH MANUFACTURERS

Oil painting brushes are made by a number of different manufacturers. A few of the more popular brands are Winsor & Newton, Silver Brush and Robert Simmons. Some artists prefer one brand over another. Other artists like to have an assortment of different brands available. The only way you will know what you like best is by working with the brushes yourself.

CARING FOR YOUR BRUSHES

No matter what brush you buy, whether they are top of the line expensive brushes, or cheaper ones, you will definitely get more life out of them if you care for them properly. There seems to be a difference of opinion when it comes to brush care, especially when it comes to drying your brushes. I personally have two products on hand for cleaning and conditioning my brushes: Masters Brush Cleaner and Preserver and Mona Lisa Pink Brush Soap. I have found that the Masters Brush Cleaner works great on brushes that are deeply stained and hardened with paint, that I would have otherwise thrown out. I use the Mona Lisa Pink Brush Soap to clean my brushes right after a painting session. These cleaners will also help condition your brushes.

After washing my brushes with either of these cleaners, I then attach a clothes pin to the handle of the brush and rest the clothes pin on the edge of a counter or table so that the brush is hanging with the bristles pointing toward the floor. Gravity then pulls the moisture from the brush so that it does not collect in the ferrule, which can damage a brush over time.

Most painters will agree that there’s nothing like painting on canvas. But pre-stretched and primed canvases can be expensive, which means that all too often we keep our canvases for ‘good’ paintings. By stretching your own canvas, you can not only save money, but get something you’re willing to experiment on. You also get a canvas that’s exactly the size you’re after.

You’ll need the following supplies from an art store:

• Unprimed cotton canvas.
• Four stretchers (the wood that makes up the frame). If you’ve some DIY skills, you can make these yourself.
• Staple gun and staples (or carpet tacks and hammer).
• Stretcher frame keys or corner keys (small wedges used to tighten the completed canvas).

The first step is to join the stretchers. Lay them out on the floor, then push the corners together by hand. If necessary, tap the corners gently on a carpet or with a rubber hammer (be careful not to dent the wood). Check that they’re at right angles, either with a set square if you require mathematical precision or with something that has a fairly accurate right angle on it, such as a book.

Roll out your canvas, put the frame on top of it, then cut it to size, remembering that the canvas has to fold over the outside edge of the stretchers. Rather be over-generous in the size you cut and trim off the excess when you’ve stretched your canvas.

Stretch Canvas with Logic, Not Randomly

The most important things to remember when attaching your canvas to the stretchers is to work from the middle outwards and in opposites. So, starting in the center on any side, staple the canvas to the back of the stretcher. Put in about three staples, approximately two inches apart. With your first few canvases, you’ll probably put in more staples than you need; practice will give you a feel for this. Move to the opposite side, pull the canvas taught, and staple the middle in place. Repeat with the other two edges.

Now staple one edge from the middle to the one side. Remember to pull the canvas as tight as you can - an extra pair of hands is useful. Then do the same on the edge that is diagonally opposite. Continue like this until all the edges are in place. If you’re stretching a very large canvas, don’t staple all the way to the corner in one go. You’ll get better tension by doing it in sections.

At the corners, fold the edges of the canvas neatly and staple the one on top of the other. If your canvas needs a little tightening, tap in the frame keys. But don’t rely on these. If you find your tension isn’t good, rather remove the staples and start again.

Tips for Stretching Canvas:

• Stretchers are usually sold in pairs, so by buying sets of different lengths, you can make a rectangular canvas rather than a square one.
• Get a strong friend to help you by holding the canvas in place while you staple it.
• If your local art store doesn’t sell unprimed canvas by the yard, buy it from an on-line supplier. Alternately, ask your local fabric store if they’ve got heavy-duty, unbleached calico. Smooth any imperfections with a piece of fine sandpaper or nail file.
• You can make your own stretchers from 1″x2″ wood, cutting miter corners which you join with corrugated nails.

The various oils used as mediums in oil painting are known as drying oils. The term is useful as a reminder that different oils have different drying times and properties. These mediums are mixed with oil paint both to modify the way the paint handles straight from the tube (for example, make it thinner or lengthen the drying time) and to alter the character of the paint from what you get straight from a paint tube (for example, make it transparent or opaque, gloss or matt). Ideal mediums are colourless, permanent, flexible, and do not influence the colour of a pigment. Learning the particular properties of a drying oil is part of the essential technical knowledge an oil painter should have. Remember that when an oil paint feels dry to the touch, it will still be drying under the surface for some time, which is why the principle of painting ‘fat over lean’ is so important in oil painting.

Linseed oil is made from the seeds of the flax plant. It adds gloss and transparency to paints and is available in several forms. It dries very thoroughly, making it ideal for underpainting and initial layers in a painting. Refined linseed oil is a popular, all-purpose, pale to light yellow oil which dries withing three to five days. Cold-pressed linseed oil dries slightly faster than refined linseed oil and is considered to be the best quality linseed oil.

Stand oil is a thicker processed form of linseed oil, with a slower drying time (about a week to be dry to the touch, though it’ll remain tacky for some time). It’s ideal for glazing (when mixed with a diluent or solvent such as turpentine) and produces a smooth, enamel-like finish without any visible brushmarks.
Sun-thickened linseed oil is a created by exposing the oil to the sun to create a thick, syrupy, somewhat bleached oil, with similar brushing qualities to stand oil. Pour some oil (about an inch) into a wide dish, cover it with a propped-up lid (i.e. to minimise debris getting in, but so that the air can flow through). Stir every day or so to prevent a skin from forming on the top. How long it takes for the oil to thicken will depend on how hot the climate is where you live. Test the thickness of the oil when it’s cool, not when it’s still hot from the day’s sun. Pour it through a sieve or cloth to remove debris before you bottle the oil.

As linseed oil has a tendency to yellow as it dries, avoid using it in whites, pale colours, and light blues (except in underpaintings or lower layers in an oil painting when painting wet on dry). Stand oil and sun-thickened oil yellows very little.

Sun-bleached linseed oil is created by exposing the oil to the sun but with the container’s lid on, so no evaporation occurs. The result is an oil that has less tendency to yellow.

Poppyseed oil is a very pale oil, more transparent and less likely to yellow than linseed oil, so it is often used for whites, pale colours, and blues. It gives oil paint a consistency similar to soft butter. Poppyseed oil takes longer to dry than linseed oil, from five to seven days, making it ideal for working wet on wet. Because it dries slowly and less thoroughly, avoid using poppyseed oil in lower layers of a painting when working wet on dry and when applying paint thickly, as the paint will be liable to crack when it finally dries completely. Poppy seeds naturally contain about 50 per cent oil.

Safflower oil has the same characteristics as poppyseed oil, but dries a bit faster. It’s made from safflower seeds. Sunflower oil also has similar characteristics to poppyseed oil. It’s made from sunflower seeds.

Walnut oil is a pale yellow-brown oil (when newly made it’s a pale oil with a greenish tinge) that has a distinctive smell. As it’s a thin oil, it’s used to make oil paint more fluid. As it yellows less than linseed oil (but more than safflower oil) it’s good for pale colors. Walnut oil dries in four or five days. It’s an expensive oil and must be stored correctly otherwise it goes rancid (off). Walnuts naturally contain about 65 per cent oil. (Read more on using walnut oil…)

Boiled oils are oils that have been heated and mixed with a dryer to create a faster-drying oil that gives a glossy finish. They tend to yellow and darken with age, so are best limited to lower layers in a painting and darker colours. If you’re not sure what effect an oil is going to have, rather take the time to do a test than ‘lose’ or ‘damage’ a whole painting.