Tips that Can Improve Your Oil Painting Skills
Painting is an water paint that allows your dreams, imaginations, and thoughts to breathe. Artists use various tools, tips, and techniques to show their creativity and breath with a different kind of happiness. However, understanding basic art skills, different mediums, and paint surfaces are crucial to paint like a pro and amusing the world with your unique creations.
Different artists use different paint mediums like oil, acrylic paint , gouache paint, and water to draw according to their skills, practice, and desires. However, the use of oil paint is massively popular among professional artists. It’s hard to understand and earn experience in oil painting as it takes more time to dry and can easily mix with the inner layers.
What is Oil Painting?
It’s one of the most famous fluid paint mediums in which pigments are dissolved or suspended in drying oils. It is usually used by professional artists because beginners are unable to handle its consistency and flexibility. It is used to draw opaque, translucent, and transparent paintings. The use of oil colors is the most effective way to create texture variations and gives a realistic touch to paintings.
Oil Painting Rules
Everything in nature is created based on some rules and regulations. The same goes for oil painting. According to professional artists and oil painting experts, oil painting has three main rules. To go perfect or improve your oil painting skills, it’s crucial to understand these rules first.
- Fat over lean
- Thick over thin
- Slow drying over fast drying
In simple words, every new coat or layer of paint is more flexible, thicker, and slower drying than the previous one. It will protect your painting from cracks and mixing of layers.
Tips to Improve Your Oil Painting Skills
Painting with oil colors is a daunting task, especially for beginners. This painting medium takes more time to dry and slight mishandling or trying to draw over wet paint can ruin your whole work. Therefore, professional oil painters provide a set of easy tips and tricks to go easy with your oil paintings.
These effective tips are listed below;
1. Use a Primer
Oil paint has a high penetrating ability and can be easily absorbed by the painting surface. It not only results in excessive use of colors but also increases the drying time which results in irritation. Professional artists recommend using a primer or base on the surface before starting the paint. It provides a thick surface that minimizes absorption.
You can use gesso or lead-white as a primer to improve the final look of your oil painting.
2. Use of Fast-Drying White
One of the major challenges faced by oil paint artists is the time consumption and intermixing of layers. It can ruin the real image of the painting. To overcome this issue, the use of fast-drying white is an important oil paint tip. It allows you to create multiple layers, snow falling, scratches, and flowering impact in the painting.
3. Use Thick Paste To Create 3D Effect
The creation of 3D impact with oil colors is a difficult task that requires expert skills and techniques. However, the use of thick paste in the foreground and thin layers in the depth can help you to create a realistic or 3D impact in your painting.
4. Dry Brush Technique
The use of a dry brush is another simple but effective tip to create texture in your oil painting like a pro. Take a dry brush and place its tip over the surface of a dry painting, press it gently and move it in multiple directions to create the texture. It is simply used to create water bubbles, small leaves, and tree trunks.
5. Create Your Canvas
Linen is the most widely used surface to paint with oil color because of its flexibility and thickness. It’s highly expensive, which limits most artists’ use of it. You can create your canvas just like linen at home and save a lot of money. Base your painting surface with glue through a paint roller and let it dry.
Final Thought
Becoming an expert and learning professional oil painting skills is a time taking and expensive choice that not all artists can afford. However, practicing these professional tips can help you to draw with oil color like a pro and amaze the world with your amazing creations.
