William Whitaker
November 20th, 2006, 10:12 PM
If you have little or no oil painting experience, the best service I can provide is to show you things you can’t easily get from an instruction book or video. If you’re painting along with me at the workshop, I can check and make sure you’re getting what I’ll share on brush handling, paint mixing consistency, blending, glazing and scumbling.
A little hands on instruction, coupled with a lot of practice at home, and you’ll soon get the feel for the possibilities of this medium.
Other professionals and I have recently posted oil painting information and materials lists on this forum. After giving it more thought, I decided to post here an absolutely bare bones kit that won’t cost much and will do the job of basic oil instruction at Insomania, especially for those of you who are marginally interested but not dedicated to oil painting.
SUPPORT (meaning what you paint on)
You can actually paint on tracing paper! If you want to work on something a bit more permanent and with a slightly better feel, then do your exercises on sheets of frosted Mylar.
I recommend you tape your drawing pad shut, turn it over and using it as your backing board, tape your sheet Mylar to it. In my photo, I have gotten even fancier and taped a sheet of grey Canson paper to the back of the drawing board and then taped the Mylar on top of that. This gives you a lovely light grey surface to work on. You will like it!
BRUSH
Bring one good brush. I strongly suggest it be an oil filbert! The filbert is the most versatile bristle brush for variety of brush handling. I suggest a #2, 3 or 4. You can get by with just one brush!
PAINT
Bring two paints, Titanium White and a dark color. I strongly recommend your dark be Raw Umber because it is a fast dryer. You can use whatever color you wish, Black, Burnt Umber, Burnt Sienna, a Blue or a Green, it won’t matter much, just as long as it’s dark. Remember though that Raw Umber is a fast dryer and that will make it easier to get your painted sheets home without smearing everything else you’ll have along.
PAINTING MEDIUM
Buy a fast drying painting medium (just a small bottle) in your art supply store. Pretty much anything will do.
Go to your local fast photo store and see if they’ll give you three plastic film cans (you might be able to buy even smaller plastic containers at your art supply store.) Squeeze a nice load of white in one can, your color in the second can, and pour your medium in the third can. If you don’t need to save space, forget the cans and bring the tubes of paint.
Cut up some paper towels (I use Scott Rags – Bounty will do nicely too) or bring a paint rag you can leave behind at the end of the workshop.
You can scoop paint out of your cans with the handle end of your brush and lay it out on a sheet of Mylar or paper to use as your palette. You will dip your brush in your paint medium to get proper paint handling and consistency, and you can wipe your brush off with a rag and wash it with soap and water. No turpentine necessary!
That’s all you’ll need to get started.
If you have any questions, PM or email me through this site and I'll post the information here.
A little hands on instruction, coupled with a lot of practice at home, and you’ll soon get the feel for the possibilities of this medium.
Other professionals and I have recently posted oil painting information and materials lists on this forum. After giving it more thought, I decided to post here an absolutely bare bones kit that won’t cost much and will do the job of basic oil instruction at Insomania, especially for those of you who are marginally interested but not dedicated to oil painting.
SUPPORT (meaning what you paint on)
You can actually paint on tracing paper! If you want to work on something a bit more permanent and with a slightly better feel, then do your exercises on sheets of frosted Mylar.
I recommend you tape your drawing pad shut, turn it over and using it as your backing board, tape your sheet Mylar to it. In my photo, I have gotten even fancier and taped a sheet of grey Canson paper to the back of the drawing board and then taped the Mylar on top of that. This gives you a lovely light grey surface to work on. You will like it!
BRUSH
Bring one good brush. I strongly suggest it be an oil filbert! The filbert is the most versatile bristle brush for variety of brush handling. I suggest a #2, 3 or 4. You can get by with just one brush!
PAINT
Bring two paints, Titanium White and a dark color. I strongly recommend your dark be Raw Umber because it is a fast dryer. You can use whatever color you wish, Black, Burnt Umber, Burnt Sienna, a Blue or a Green, it won’t matter much, just as long as it’s dark. Remember though that Raw Umber is a fast dryer and that will make it easier to get your painted sheets home without smearing everything else you’ll have along.
PAINTING MEDIUM
Buy a fast drying painting medium (just a small bottle) in your art supply store. Pretty much anything will do.
Go to your local fast photo store and see if they’ll give you three plastic film cans (you might be able to buy even smaller plastic containers at your art supply store.) Squeeze a nice load of white in one can, your color in the second can, and pour your medium in the third can. If you don’t need to save space, forget the cans and bring the tubes of paint.
Cut up some paper towels (I use Scott Rags – Bounty will do nicely too) or bring a paint rag you can leave behind at the end of the workshop.
You can scoop paint out of your cans with the handle end of your brush and lay it out on a sheet of Mylar or paper to use as your palette. You will dip your brush in your paint medium to get proper paint handling and consistency, and you can wipe your brush off with a rag and wash it with soap and water. No turpentine necessary!
That’s all you’ll need to get started.
If you have any questions, PM or email me through this site and I'll post the information here.