Become A Better Oil Painter By Focusing On One Thing At A Time.
Tips to improve your sense of color, understanding of values and drawing skills!
When you are new to oil paint you’ll soon discover that there are a few different components that need to work together to produce a good painting.
To know a little bit about drawing and to understand values and colors will help you convey a good sense of light, atmosphere, and form.
To focus on all these different components at the same time can be a bit overwhelming, at least if you are still in the process of learning about them.
What I did myself to improve my understanding of these different elements, and what I warmly suggest that you do if you want to strengthen your knowledge on these topics, is to take your time and focus on one topic on its own and don't worry so much about the other stuff.
Here are a few examples of exercises you can do to improve your skills in the different areas:
Drawing
Set aside some time to just improve your drawing.
After all, a lot of people say that painting is just drawing with paint!
To buy a sketchbook and practice drawing what you see is a great way to train your eye.
Examples of exercises:
1. Just focus on the lines of the larger shapes that you see.
E.g. Look for the contours of the Light shape and the Shadow shape of what you are drawing.
Don't get too caught up in adding values and smaller details. When you have a simple line drawing then look for variation within the lines.
Look for areas where the line is harder, softer, darker or brighter. This is called ''looking for line quality''.
To have good line quality in a painting or drawing will help your painting feel more alive!
2. Just focus on the different areas of value and draw these areas without using any line.
To begin with just focus on these 4 areas of value: The light shape, shadow shape, half-tone, and highlight.
To be able to see the different areas more clearly squint when you are looking at the object you are drawing. This will compress the different areas of value and help you see larger areas of unified value.
Values
You can practice your understanding of values by painting something called value scales.
To begin with I would suggest you focus on value scales going from black to white.
These are easier to create as you don't get the added element of color.
Examples of exercises:
Start with a couple of easy scales with 5 or 7 different value jumps and work your way towards a more complex value scale with 9– 12 different values.
If you practice seeing and separating the values from each other you will be able to bring this skill into your painting practice as well.
To be aware of the different values within a painting will help you create color mixes with clear jumps in values.
This will, in turn, help you convey stronger form and better sense of light in your paintings.
Colors
To improve your sense of colors I recommend painting something called a ''color wheel''.
To paint a color wheel you need 3 Colors: blue, red and yellow.
That's because all the colors on a color wheel are made up from these three colors, also called the Primary Colors.
These colors can't be made by any other colors.
In addition to blue, red and yellow I would suggest adding a white and a black. This will make it possible for you to brighten and darken the different colors as well.
Examples of exercises:
1. Paint a color wheel where you mix the Secondary Colors. Secondary colors are orange, green and purple.
Yellow + Red = Orange
Blue + Yellow = Green
Blue + Red = Purple
2. Paint a color wheel where you mix the Tertiary Colors.
Tertiary colors are the colors you get when you mix one part primary color with one part secondary color.
One part Blue + One part Green = A Bluish Green.
One part Yellow + One part Orange = A Yellow Orange
3. Use some of the color mixes you have made for the color wheels and try adding white and black to them and see how they change in color intensity and value.
(Color intensity is how strong a color is. E.g. A pure red has a strong color intensity.)
Now, depending on where you are on your oil painting journey, these exercises might seem hard, they might seem easy or they might be just the thing you need to move forward with your understanding and confidence with oil paint.
No matter where you are I hope you have some fun with these exercises and remember that when starting with oil paint, like with any new craft, simplicity really is key!
Happy Painting,