Oil painting tips for beginners

There is a lot of advice out there for painting for beginners by using oil paint. So, many artists encourage beginners to prime their own canvas, to utilize a medium, and thus to overcome the fat-over-lean rule, and so on. The majority of these tips are sufficient to put anyone off. Rather you can simplify many things in oil painting, and by doing that make it a lot more fun, and much quicker to learn in art Dubai classes as well. Many well advanced oil painters practice the advice below as well.

Paints: Purchase a widely known, well regarded brand, not an obscure one or an expert one. If you want to keep cost down stick to student paint, for example, Daler Rowney or Winton. If you are not new to painting (you may have utilized watercolor or acrylics previously) you could maybe begin with better paints such as Winsor and Newton Artists Oils.

Brushes: Get a basic set of brushes, you don’t need more than 4 – 10 brushes to start with. Get a variety of bristle brushes and synthetic ones and various shapes. Don’t buy specialist brushes such as fan or rigger brushes.

Colors: Get the primary colours, red, yellow, blue, and burnt umber, titanium white and burnt Sienna. Do not buy many more colours as it will only add complexity and difficulty to your painting.

Play around: Experiment with thick applications and very thin applications. Experiment with small paintings and big paintings. Experiment with different subject matter. Try a palette knife, try bigger brushes. Wipe it all off and start again.

Cleaning up: Use a brush soap or a low-odor solvent to clean your brushes at the end of your sessions. Do not clean during your painting sessions. Learn to wipe your brushes thoroughly on kitchen roll or rags while you work.

Keep it tidy: Oils are not the same as poster paints which are fine to get all over you. Oils won’t wash out, some are toxic and they are relatively expensive. So put the tops back on the tubes after squeezing out a little paint onto your palette. Keep your brushes away from any other surface except your painting and your palette area. Do not use fingers and don’t let the kids or the dog play with your paints.

Drying: Oil paint takes time to dry. It is part of the characteristics of oil paints. Don’t fight it but use it to its advantage. You have more time to work on a painting while still wet.