Who knows how to paint in oil ?

Question

I'm just started to paint in oil and I was wondering if anyone can tell me the steps of the creative process: how to treat the canvas, painting techniques...stuff like this...I've searched the net but most answers were vague...I painted before in oil but with my pallete knife, adding lots of colour, no turpentine, just landscapes...But now I truly wish to learn advanced painting styles...I don't even know what "fat over thin" means. Anyone ?

Answer 1

"Fat over Lean" is the concept of painting an oilier layer (fat) over a less oily layer (lean). An oil painting should be built on this principle from the first layer of paint, all the way to the last, getting oilier and oilier as you go.

Oil paints can be made leaner by using a solvent (such as turpentine and odorless mineral spirits) to thin the paint. Oil paints can be made fatter by adding more oil content to the paint. This is done in a very controlled manner and is usually used when glazing paintings. In addition, some pigments are very lean by nature (most earth tones such as umbers, siennas and ochres) and some are very fat by nature (alizarin crimson, ultramarine blue). This is the reason why earth tones and other lean pigments are used in underpainting or grisaille (monochromatic underpainting).

To prep a canvas, it needs to be stretched to a wooden stretcher or strainer frame: http://painting.about.com/library/weekly/aa012102a.htm

You then need to prime your canvas to protect the fibers from the acidic qualities of the oil paints and mediums. Gesso is used for this. Traditional gesso was made of a mixture of rabbit skin glue, gypsum and calcium carbonate and was actually developed for rigid painting supports like panel or canvas mounted on panel. Modern gesso is a white polymer based paint that is flexible and good for stretched canvas. Apply this polymer (acrylic) gesso to your stretched canvas, at least three coats, letting each coat dry and applying the next coat in a direction perpendicular to the previous coat. Sand afterward if desired.

Begin your painting by drawing with a hard charcoal pencil. Then use a earth tone paint thinned with solvent to further define your shapes, tone and composition. A monochromatic (commonly an earth tone or grey) underpainting like this is called a grisaille. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Grisaille

Begin filling in your color using the roadmap you have defined with your grisalle. Oil paints were designed for glazing and that is the traditional mode (but not the only way) of oil painting, Glazing involves making a medium (5:3:1 or 3:2:1 or 1:1:1 of solvent:damar varnish:oil), mixing your paints with the medium to make it flow, and then applying the loose paint on top or your grisalle. As you build more layers, each layer should have more and more medium in it to make it oilier as you go. Transparent or semi-transparent colors are good for glazing. Glazing with opaque paints is called scumbling.

Controlled glazing with oil paints is about as advanced as you can get. Many oil painters paint wet-in-wet and do not worry about letting glazing layers dry. Some use palette knives and other tools for texture. Some paint alla prima, or all in one sitting. There are many techniques you can learn. I am a proponent of learning control of the medium and the techinical side of painting to empower you to do what you want, when you want. What you do with that knowledge is always up the each individual artist. Check out a bunch of books from your library and dive in.

Answer 2

Well, I'll try to give you a few quick pointers.

You need to prime your canvas (coat it with gesso) before you paint on it to keep acidic oils away from the canvas fibers. If you are buying pre-stretched canvases, they are already primed.

Fat over thin refers to using paints with faster drying properties under those that take longer to dry so that your surface doesn't crack.

Painting with paints straight out of the tube applied with a palette knife is a perfectly acceptable technique. But, you might want to consider thinning your oils and experimenting with other methods.

You thin oils with a number of substances, but you can use straight turpentine, if you like. However, this will make the surface dull, and possibly more brittle.

The fluid you use to thin your paint is called a medium. I use two parts turpentine, one part stand oil and one part damar varnish. As the painting progresses, I decrease the turpentine until the composition is 1-1-1. Other artists have different formulas; some include exotic things like walnut oil, or cobalt siccative.

You can use anything you like to put the paint on the canvas. Most of us use brushes, and, incidentally, just because a brush is labeled "watercolor" doesn't mean it can't be used for oils. You can use sponges, rags, teaspoons, just about anything. But, it's best not to use your fingers, as some of the materials you're working with are not the best thing to get into your bloodstream (and, turpentine makes it possible to absorb these things directly through the skin!).

Sorry if I've gone on, a bit. Feel free to drop me a line if you have any questions, and I'll do my best to point you in the right direction.

Good luck!

Answer 3

I wish I had time to teach you. I really would like to teach oil painting and you sound like a keen student. You have asked the right question (About fat over thin) and that's a good start. It just means begin your canvas by covering it with thin (Turpentine thinned ) paint laying in the dark areas and the medium areas and the light areas first. Then build your work using thicker and thicker paint on top , all the while increasing the detail ,until it can stop at a good place. Good luck!

Answer 4

Please do not do this yourself from online research. If you have a local Community College or Park District that offers a short course start there. They may even start you on Acrylic to give you an idea of how it all works, which is a very good idea. You need the benefit of a teacher's presence to guide you along. If you have dirty brushes, you need to clean them. If they're cheapos you can use liquid hand soap. If they are expensive good brushes, go to your local art store and ask for a reasonably priced oil paint brush soap. Good luck, I love it and am getting an MFA in it. :) PS - It's cute how you said water won't mix it. Think -- oil and water... do they mix? ;)

Answer 5

Being a self taught artist i pretty much learned from many library books and the books i purchased, not to mention trial and error. I would suggest an art class, since most of your work was done useing the pallete knife, this may help in your transition to working with brushes and get you rolling sooner, as appose to doing it my way.
Now, i find it helps me to remember the phrase you mentioned as ''never paint lean over fat''. ''Fat'' is refered to as oil paint straight from the tube which when mixed with oils makes it even fatter and will take longer to dry. ''Lean'' refers to oil paints that has been mixed with more turpentine than oil thus will dry faster. So, if the top lean layer of paint drys faster than the fatter layer underneath, this difference in drying time will cause the top dry layer to crack as the bottom, slower drying, fatter layer dries and contracts. Most of my painting is done wet on wet with a limited use of glazeing. If you wish to check out my art go to hellosanantonio.com and look for artist name Guerro.

Answer 6

You can buy canvases already prepared with gesso - that's a great place to start as doing it yourself involves many steps.

One technique is to begin with a sketch on your canvas using paint watered down with turpentine (or odorless solvent). This will dry quickly and you can paint over it fairly soon. Your sketch will block in your main shapes and you can work out your composition and lights/darks at this time. If you make a mistake you can just wipe it off with a rag while it's wet, or scrub it off with thinner if it's dry.

Choose a limited number of colours - one each yellow, blue, red and maybe an earth tone, plus white. Many beginner painters make the mistake of using every colour in the box, and that's why their paintings often lack cohesiveness.

You can mix colours on your palette, or right on the canvas by dragging one colour through another you've already painted.

You can choose to mix your paint with turpentine to thin it, or linseed oil which will slow your drying time (days) but give you a nice transparent glaze, or a mixture of both. If you're impatient (like me) you can choose an alkyd medium such as Galkyd or Liquin to mix with your paint to speed your drying time to about 6 hours.

Knife painting gives you great texture but remember those layers will dry slowly. You can premix the colour on your palette, or pick up 2 colours with your knife and blend them right on the canvas.

Glazing give you a glowing transparent finish that seems as if you're looking into glass. Glazes dry slowly and you need to use transparent colours for this - check your paint tubes and that information should be on the label.

As for Fat over Lean - it means don't paint thick layers over wet paint... the bottom layers need to dry before you go over them. Your paint will crack otherwise. White titanium dries the slowest, keep this in mind and paint white as one of your final layers.

Experiment and have fun!

Answer 7

The "Gamblin " site has great advice. I refer to it often.