How to use oil painting colours?

Why should you try oil paints?

Let's start with the main topic - what oil paints are all about. These are dry pigments with the addition of organic oil, which can dry well and form a thin film on the surface. So one can decide that there are only two basic components: a pigment and a binder, the role of which is usually played by linseed oil. Accordingly, oil painting is a kind of artistic technique using these paints.

Science claims that oil painting was discovered more than once, and this happened in different countries of the world. The oldest use of oil paints dates back to the seventh century BC. Such drawings have been found on the territory of modern Afghanistan. For a long time, the Dutch artist Jan van Eyck was considered the discoverer of this technique, thanks to whom oil painting became widespread in Western Europe at the beginning of the 15th century. In fact, the artist experimented with the chemical composition of paints to make the paint dry.

 

How to - oil paintings for beginners

 

Oil painting is a very versatile painting technique. Moreover, it is the most popular material among professional artists. If you want to know  how to start with oil paintings on canvas - let’s a have on some important properties: 

1. Oil paints adhere easily to the canvas. Due to the fact that oil paints dry for a long time, you can easily return to the picture in a few days or a week and make the necessary adjustments. To do this, just take a palette knife and remove the layer of paint that does not suit you.
2. Oil paints allow to make very subtle and graceful color transitions due to long-term work "on wet". In addition, you can apply painting layers one after another as the lower layer dries. This allows the paint not to mix and achieve the effect of translucent lower layers from under the upper ones.
3. Oil paints are very lightfast, which makes the painted paintings durable. For example, watercolor is incredibly sensitive to light. Watercolor works of old masters are rarely exhibited in museums so that they do not fade. As a rule, they appear before the audience at specialized exhibitions. But paintings painted with oil paints are not so susceptible to fading. All paint tubes have star marks that indicate the light sensitivity of the oil paint.
4. High quality oil paints do not change color after drying. This is very important for connoisseurs of color. In addition, oil paints are easily mixed with each other on a palette, which allows you to get the necessary shades of color.

 

How to - oil painting techniques

There are two basic techniques for working with oil paints and it depends only on your own choice.

• The first technique is more classic and says that mixing paints on a palette allows you to achieve the optimal shade. 
• The second technique came to us from the Impressionists. According to it, paints do not need to be mixed on the palette; strokes of pure color must be applied to the canvas so that they are mixed already in the viewer's eye.

So if you know how to make oil paintings on canvas - just try. This is not as difficult as it might seem at first. Just let your imagination run wild and the colors will begin to obey you. You will easy remember how to use oil paintings on canvas - and will be able to make your own masterpiece.