Can someone please help me with oils??? A mentor perhaps?...

[Jake Kobrin]

Hi,

I need some serious help in oil painting. I already posted this in the mentor thread but any general help I can get would be hugely appreciated!

I'm already privileged to have JL Alfaro as my digital arts mentor but I REALLY need a mentor that can help me out with oils. I'm awful with them!

They're my favorite medium (appearance wise) and I've been trying to learn for years but I really don't know how. Any takers?

My high school isn't going to be teaching them so until college I'm really a babe in the woods with this. I can't really find anything on the web. I'm hoping to rent Shawn Barbers DVD soon.

Heres a still life I painted of my skull model today. I'm not so happy with the out come.

[akonsu]

hello,

i am in position to be a mentor because i am a beginner in oils like you are, but the skull looks good and i am not sure what you mean when you say that you have been trying to learn it for years because just doing it persistently is what it usually takes. :)

cheers
konstantin

[Jake Kobrin]

What I mean is I don't know what direction to go in or how to do it. I'm jumping in blindly without education and I'd love to have some sort of teacher. Thanks for saying that you like it.
Jake

[akonsu]

well, are you talking about learning the medium or is it about having a clear direction in your art?

konstantin

[Jake Kobrin]

learning the medium

[akonsu]

learning the medium

paint a hundred more of these skulls and see what happens. i have nothing more to say. hope this helps.

konstantin

[panchosimpson]

Hi jake, i'm not sure that i could be a mentor because my knowledge is very limited since i'm a beginner too, but i think i can offer some general advice.

Beware though, i'm going to try to give you helpful, frank advice....and it might be somewhat harsh, but if you want to learn you have to suck it up, and use your current shortcomings as a source of motivation. Also, you have to think about yourself as a student, NOT as an artist...if you were an artist you would already know how to paint...so never disregard anything as too basic or not fitting your "style".....that's the mindset i try to put myself in and it helps a lot

anyway, here it goes.....as appealing as painting is, you simply have to learn how to draw...I know you've probably been drawing all your life and whatnot, but you still can't see things in proper relation to one another. Try to break things down to their basic angles, see the skull as composed of a variety of simple shapes like boxes, cylinders, etc.......if you take a break from painting and draw a lot....and use a good procedure...you'll find that you'll be much better.

The good thing is, absolutely anyone can learn to draw and there are many good ways.....try to look up Ron Lemen's excellent drawing tutorials under the tutorials section of this site, and look up Glenn Vilppu's articles at mag.awn.com....left hand column.

You have to learn to proceed from the largest shapes...or silhouettes, which are always the most important...and further break them down, adding detail only as needed. This goes for drawing AND painting. I once heard that painting is 3/4 drawing and this is very true.

When you feel more confident with your drawing (almost always from life)....start painting in monochrome.....then maybe start with a simple palette.....yellow ochre, ivory black, cadmium red and titanium white work very well.

Also, read the amazing resources you have available here, like seedling's threads on her signature, and other such things. If you can see if you can take classes at an atelier or something, i don't know where marin is but if you're somewhere close to LA there are plenty of classes available.

Hope your studies go well, if you have any questions you can email me, and i can try to help as best i can...although again, i'm only starting too.

-Ramon

[Seedling]

Thanks Pancho. :)

Jake, for other ideas of how to jump in with oils alla prima (all at once), check out the videos of Duane Keiser painting that he has posted on youtube:

http://www.youtube.com/results?search_query=Duane+Keiser

Another good source to look at is James Gurney’s book Dinotopia, because he has left the illustrations in various levels of finish, ranging from a drawing with paint washes, all the way through finished paintings – so you can clearly see his method of working.

Last but not least, there is Richard Schmidt’s book “Alla Prima; Everything I Know About Painting”. http://www.richardschmid.com/book.html

Happy painting!

[Jake Kobrin]

Pancho Simon, I draw like crazy. Like I said compared to other work I have done this is awful, it's basically the first time I've oil painted in over 2 years. I can draw that skull pretty exact and with some pretty accurate detail I just can't paint it and that is where I am asking for help.
Seedling thanks for the links!
Jake

[panchosimpson]

Jake, please don't take this as a flame, but when I made that comment after looking through your sketchbook thread. I know it's hard, but you really have to learn to see, so that you can draw accurately...based on your sketchbook studies and the general construction of that skull, I can tell you that you haven't learned to see yet. From your sketches I can see that you're not seeing the full form yet....in drawing mere practice doesn't make perfect, it's disciplined practice executed with a certain procedure, so that you learn things in order and aren't merely shooting in the dark.

Again, don't take this as an offense...it's better that you find this out now than when you're out in the real world looking for a job. I'm not trying to be rude or otherwise knock you personally, this is a frank assessment of where you are now and what you need to do.

Best,

Ramon

[Jake Kobrin]

My sketchbook has some older stuff in it. I'll post some newer stuff. I'm improving just not posting hehehe... I don't really know what you want me to do. I'll keep painting because I enjoy it. I think I stated this elsewhere but I'm just awful with oils. Do you have any tips on the medium itself?
Jake

[panchosimpson]

The sketches that I saw were from last month, some were dated in late august... please take a look at the tutorials I mentioned, Ron Lemen's head drawing (http://conceptart.org/forums/showthread.php?t=14119) and figure drawing (http://conceptart.org/forums/showthread.php?t=14035) tutorials.

Also look at Vilppu's articles (http://mag.awn.com/index.php?ltype=Columns&column=vilppu&offset=20). You have to begin to understand the logic behind the structure of things, for example, try drawing cubes and other basic shapes from all possible angles, until you can do it correctly, in perspective.

I think the misunderstanding is that you think you're "awful with oils" and that once you understand how oils work you'll be able to paint well. Unfortunately, that's not how things work....I understand the basic mechanics of oil paints, yet I can't paint as well as I would like because I'm still learning to see.....it's the same in other professions.....knowing how a hammer works will NOT automatically make you a good carpenter.

I was at the same place you are a few years ago, and once I became more methodical in my approach to drawing and painting I improved much faster than before....If you look at the last pages of my progress thread, you'll see that my drawings are more "simple" than before, and no longer deal extensively with value....I'm progressing backwards and trying to come to grips with structure now, and once I decide to go back to value, my wokr will be that much more solid....I haven't painted in over a month, but I can assure you that all the drawing I've been doing will pay off later.

Anyway, these are my thoughts, and you are welcome to take them or leave them at your discretion. I'm not trying to discourage you from painting, I'm trying to help you understand what you need to do to really learn and become competitive as you approach the time you apply to college.

-Ramon

[dose]

what about your skull painting aren't you happy with?

[dirtydiesel]

i definitely like the skull itself; however, the jaw seems to just be one loose swish compared to the 'tighter' rendering of the rest of the skull.

i'm not a realist artist by any stretch of the imagination, and i'm entirely self-taught, so i'm not in a position to be anyone's mentor, but i could probably share some things i've learned just from experience.

i always found it helpful to just 'block out' with a pencil your three major tones onto your surface. mix your three principal colors, dilute them a lot, and fill in your blocked-out areas. there's no need to get too specific with this, you just want to get an idea of your value masses. as you do this and look at your painting, you'll notice all the smaller bits that require tones other than your three principal ones, and as you put them in over your first layer, you'll notice more tones, and parts that you want to touch up, and where you want to blend.

sorry if this isn't helpful; it's just my method. it's all trial and error, man. the more you paint with oils, the easier it gets. i find oils to be a very intuitive medium; you just have to 'listen' to them. the value masses will tell you where they want to go.