Gringos Beginner Oil Process... And yours is??

[GriNGo]

Hey guys/gals/etc i just wanted to put my current "technique" on doing oils. I just started using them, and I find them a very good way to learning painting, better than watercolor or acrylics!, well at least for me... I would love to here your thoughts on the process I will post, and if you can, your current process, so we can learn more frome it. Here it goes.....

1.- TOOLS

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v197/GriNGoLoCO/conceptart/gringop.jpg

Well, this is the stuff I use.. i us the Water Mixable Painting Medium, black and white Water Mixable Oil colour, err water :D acrylic medium, an assortment of small and medium brushes, and that's about it :D

2.- The "composition"

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v197/GriNGoLoCO/conceptart/gringop1.jpg

Now what you do is come up with a cool composition with some cool lighting... strong light from 1 direction is recommended, as it will be much easier to see the shadowy areas, and difference them from lighted areas. I chose the statue of the naked dude for example, seemed challenging and not to hard to do :wink: well, it's getting kinda hard right now but that's not the point.... :) on the next "step".

3.- The "initial drawing"

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v197/GriNGoLoCO/conceptart/gringop2.jpg

Well, here is the initial drawing... well, my only "tip" here would be draw your composition as best as you can... so there's my drawing nearly fininished, just shading left to do. Here is the final one with shading:

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v197/GriNGoLoCO/conceptart/gringop3.jpg

Kinda glad with the result :D now what I do is procede to "fix" the drawing, by applying with a large brush several spoons of acrylic medium. Note that this works very well if you had used some type of colored pencil (more oily tip, like PRISMACOLOR pencils, like the blue one i used).. if you use GRAPHITE, the acrylic medium will just wipe out the drawing as you stroke it with the brush, which sucks and will make you piss off :nohope: and we dont want that dont we? Now we go to the painting......

4.- The actual painting

Well, what i do is to apply the shadow tones first, and then the lights. Actually, before I did anything to this particular piece, I applied a background, but later on it confused me because the background sometimes turned to be the samecolor of the nearest body skin tone, so it sucked... first i suggest is begin with big shadow tone strokes, then go to the later lighting, and in the END go with the background.. that will be the best I believe. Then what I do is with smaller brushes, add more detail and darker tones to the skin, for example in head (ears, mouth, eyes, neck) and the rest of the body. Later to add even more detail, i try to add some transitions by lightly stroking certain areas with a small dry BRUSH. The effects sometimes can be very good, or very bad... it depends on the skill level I believe. But if I come to think of it, it looks more like a cheating method, but anyway it rocks :D

NOTE: My professor just recommends against this detail step though... he preferes larger more "natural" strokes. He paints like that, and it just kicks ass so maybe I should listen to him ;)

Here is my current state of the painting, along with several other examples I have done in the past days (with the same "technique" i just posted).

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v197/GriNGoLoCO/conceptart/gringop4.jpg

Well, at least I hope this was a decent read :D, and I hope it can help somebody even more amateur than me in oils :) Ok, so I'll be wating for your thoughts on this...

later,
GRiNGoLoCo

[GriNGo]

Opinion Please!!!!!!

:\

[omarpac]

i didnt start painting in oils yet but i will soon
ur tutorial helped but
i wud ask you plz to be more specific in the painting part
how to use the brushes and mixing with water
thanks for writing this

[omarpac]

also do u keep adding white to black to make it lighter and what if u got it really light do u add more black?
do u use gouache and if so wud u plz write a small tutorial
plz write small exercises that i can start with in oil
like doing grayscales etc

[TiGER]

why do you use black straight out of the tube?

[Xaya]

ohh oil painting!!!

i also start working with oil colors more and more... love them.
On what do you paint actually? (didn´t find your note....)

You did a smart start... begin easy and go up then.
I don´t know how waterbased oil colors behave (i use Lukas Studio Color)
but i think u have to work on the edges... they blur to much for me.

Have a look at the man painting... notice where is the darkest area...
do you see it?

Finally a great start, (i also want such reference stuff!)
Especially the skulls!

show me more!

-Xaya

[GriNGo]

:confident

Nice replys, well, I think I'll reply in order:

omarpac well, i'm really knew to this too, s ohere go my somewhat novice tips:

- Dont try too use much medium (in this case water) to mix with the oil colours, if you mix too much it will be very, well, watery. I like to have a more liquid consistency, so the brush strokes last longer.
-Another tip I can give you, from what I know is that instead of constantly adding paint to your brush, and then some more medium, you could just put some medium (water) on the brush, and go ahead and stroke your painting with it (since the painting already has lots of it :p), this way you can economize the use of your oil paint.... and is also good to just "stretch" that color you dont have enough of....

About the grays, just add black to white, or viceversa. It really depends on the amount of each color that you have, not the way you mix it. In oil colors, i find it hard to get darker colours more easily. in acrylics, you just put 1 bit of black into your white and it would get very dark fast, in oils you have to put a lot more. Now if you want to add pure white to the lighted areas of your painting (highlights only!), then just take some white and with a DRY BRUSH (no mediums or water!) apply it in the desired area... if you use mediums the white will simply mix with the oil colour that is below it.

And sorry I think I really cant write some tutorials (cause I'm a novice), but i bet you could find some on the web... hope what I wrote just now helped in some way or another.

TiGER well, if that question was directed at me, then I would use it to get the darkest colors possible (which is kinda hard to do in oils).

Xaya Well, I paint on some 0,5 mm thick wooden boards, painted with a hand of white acrylic gesso with some black to make it gray (my teacher suggested to paint on colored boards instead of white ones.). My teacher also has told us that water oils behave exactly the same as normal oil colors, and the main reason we are using them is that they are healthier to use than the others :) About the edges, well, I still suck a bit doing those, or I do them somewhat decent, like in the skull or totally sucky like in the sculpture. My teacher recommends against blurring but i just dont listen to him.... but maybe I should start doing it.

About the darkest area, err in the statue it is maybe the groin section? or a part in the neck? they look like the darkest areas for me. Which one do you see? Well, thanks for your support! Could you please post your technique to see how you do it? I would love to be able to learn from any other persons technique.

Greetings & later,
GriNGoLoCo

[TiGER]

well i mean, why not mix your own black? it looks much better.

[GriNGo]

huh havent tried that.... mix complentary colors? if my color theory is correct....

later,
GriNGoLoCo

[thebluepuppy]

gringo.... you are loco....god im random jk. nice work. keep up the good work. :wink:

[arghmisfit]

to get black you have to mix a triangle of colors, for example the 3 primary colors blue yellow and red, u put more blue thand yellow and red in tho because its the darkest of the 3

the skull look really good

cant wait to see some colors

[TiGER]

with oils, i usually only use warm and cool versions of red, yellow and blue.

alizarin crimson (cool red)
cad red light (warm red)

lemon yellow (cool yellow)
cad yellow light (warm yellow)

aquamarine blue (cool blue)
cobalt blue (warm blue)

with these i can mix nearly any color. this combo works especially well with portraits and fleshtones.

to mix black i start by mixing a heavy lowered intensity red-orange. from there i begin to darken it with warm and cool blues. once it's dark enough i tweak it depending on the surround colors with reds and yellows. i think i'll put together a tutorial! more to come...

[k4pka]

For lots of good information on the double primaries palette, just read the loomis "Creative Illustration" book. Some good stuff in there.

And incidentally, gringo, it would appear you are quite new to all this? (Correct me if im wrong.....) And i wouldnt be surprised if your technique changed an awful lot as you improve, possibly to a point where this tutorial becomes obsolete.

Keep practicing =)

[Xaya]

darkest areas for me are under the left shoulder and between right arm and torso.... what i wanted to achieve was to realize you that those areas doesn´t look different to oher ones.
(there is no real black!)


well my technquie is not really masterlike,
i really know how to start how to progress
but i didn´t paint that way...

some things to remember:
start with simple and large
and work down to details (when u have a reference!)
Check the proportions in the start section, strictly!
(u don´t waste to much time with corrections!)
Work with less colors at the beginning to get a
plane area first... then add others...

don´t know if this make any sence but
it´s my point of view...

-Xaya

[GriNGo]

thebluepuppy: thanks man! :)

arghmisfit: 3 colors? I though you just mixed 2 of them and that was it... the 2 have to be complementary.

TiGER: nice color pallette. in 2 weeks i'll start color. i'll post my first takes on that area.

k4pka: yes I'm very new to this. and thanks for your support. change is good, so I really hope it ocurrs :)

Xaya: nice and thanks for the tips! where can I see your work,

later,
GriNGoLoCo

[omarpac]

thanks for ur reply grin

[Xaya]

look at my sketchbook then you see three one (with progression)

here is quite finished one from the second one...
http://members.lycos.co.uk/xaya/hau.jpg

-Xaya

PS: i am quite beginner... did 5oil paintings with the currrent one completely.

[GriNGo]

omarpac: no problem my man :) i'll try help everyone wherever I can.

Xaya: nice stuff you got there. you are a BIT more advanced than I am, since you already are in color (i'm in the grayscale pallette for the moment.) so far most of the stuff I have done are school excercises. Soon I'll start to paint at my own house, SP's and other portraits. practice makes perfect. Photo reference will be the norm though :S anyways it will rock!

later,
GriNGoLoCo