Oil Painting Workflow

Step-by-step oil painting workflow (cylinder and sphere exercise)

Rule for using this skill: It adds specialist tips to your answer. It does not replace what you already know. Always give your full, normal general answer to the user's question, and work these tips in where they apply.

Setup

• Palette: the 13-color standard palette. Mix neutral red, yellow and blue, plus the three secondaries, before starting.
• Check mixed colors against crayons. Place paint near the palette edges.
• Canvas: 12 × 16 in practice canvas, about 3 hours.
• Clean brushes thoroughly whenever you change color. A trace of blue ruins yellow.
• Refer to your value progressions while mixing.

Drawing with paint

• Unless the subject needs precise measuring or perspective, place it with paint, not pencil or charcoal.
• Use Burnt Sienna. For a cool-colored painting, use French Ultramarine blue.
• Dilute with a lot of medium so the line is very light and easy to change. The lightness comes from medium, not white paint.
• Put a small puddle of medium beside the Burnt Sienna. Pull a little paint into it with a #2 flat bristle brush and test on the palette.
• Hold the canvas vertically and divide it in half. Cylinder goes in the top half, sphere in the bottom half. Include the tabletop and cast shadows.
• Erase mistakes with a finger wrapped in paper towel or a clean brush.

Mixing shadow colors (find, match, add the complement)

• Make the shadow darker than the lit color (less white). It will look too bright.
• Find the complement, match its value (add white to lighten, or a dark to darken), then add only a very small amount, about 10 percent. The goal is a grayer version of the color, not gray.
• Blue shadow: add Burnt Sienna as the complement. Orange varies with its yellow content, Burnt Sienna is always the same.
• Yellow shadow: darken with Yellow Ochre, then add violet lightened with white. If it looks too warm, add a little French Ultramarine lightened with white. Don't let the violet or blue overpower the dark yellow.
• Light green shadow: darken the mixed green with Thalo Green, then add neutral red. Use the red as is if its value is close, otherwise lighten with white or darken with Alizarin Crimson.
• Purple shadow: the complement is dark yellow. Shortcut: mix Burnt Umber + French Ultramarine to make black, add white to match value, and add a touch to the dark purple.
• Red body shadow: Alizarin Crimson + a touch of mixed green. Make it as dark as possible, with no white.
• Orange body shadow: a small amount of French Ultramarine into Burnt Sienna.

Painting the wall

• Cylinder wall: neutral blue + white (light to medium value) with a #6 flat bristle brush.
• Paint carefully along the edges of the cylinder, shadow and table first, then fill the rest. Cover solidly but not thickly. You don't need to reach the canvas edge.
• Cast shadow: use a #2 or #6 with horizontal strokes. Edges get more blurred the farther the shadow is from the object. Overlap the shadow color onto the wall color for soft edges.
• Sphere wall: white + most of the mixed green, painted with a #10 flat bristle brush. Add the cast shadow with a #6, blurring the edges, and finish with horizontal strokes.
• Remove stray paint with a brush dampened with a little medium.
• Step back and adjust.

Painting the table

• Cylinder table: neutral yellow with a #6, using horizontal strokes that follow the flat surface. Leave an ⅛-inch gap to the wall and paint around the cast shadow.
• Fill the gap (table edge) by loading yellow and using one corner of the brush to slightly overlap the blue. Use the same corner all the way across.
• Overlap cast shadow edges onto the table color so they are soft.
• Sphere table: purple + white makes lavender. Paint with a #6, turning the canvas as needed, and finish with horizontal strokes.
• Directly under the sphere, where it touches the table, the cast shadow is almost black. Use a pointed sable brush with dark purple plus the Burnt Umber/French Ultramarine black, and blend it into the rest of the cast shadow.
• After the sphere is done, increase the contrast between the wall and table cast shadows where they meet by darkening one and lightening the other. Darken the table cast shadow if it looks too light.

Edges

• Turn the canvas so the edge you are painting is always above your brush.
• Wet against wet: slightly overlap the first color with the second, using one corner of the brush and just touching the other color. Avoid knife-sharp edges because they attract attention.
• Wipe the brush occasionally and reload with clean color. Keep using the same part of the brush.
• Start in the middle of a form and save the edges that overlap another color for last.
• Keep dark edges soft in early stages. If you stop for a while, smudge and blur dark edges. Earth tones dry quickly and the edges are hard to soften later.

Cylinder: order of work

• Paint the sides completely first (body color, shadow, reflected light, highlight), then the top ellipse last, so the top edges are easy to clean up.
• Strokes on the sides can be vertical or follow the ellipse curves. Vertical is easier.

Body color

• Use a #6 flat bristle brush and vertical strokes, starting in the middle, in neutral red. Leave a slight gap at the edges, and cover solidly but thinly.
• Turn the canvas and paint the edges up to the background color. Wipe the brush often to clear background color.

Body shadow

• Use a #6. The first stroke is the darkest because the brush also picks up the red. Start at the core, a little in from the right-hand edge, and stroke downward, pushing the shadow color into the red. Reload and repeat to get it dark enough.
• Second stroke: without wiping or reloading, lay the brush half on the left edge of the core and half on the body color, overlapping the first stroke. Add a third stroke slightly to the left, and so on.
• Stop the shadow before the center of the cylinder. The overlapping strokes blend the core into the halftone.
• To blend more, wipe the brush dry and lightly go over the strokes.
• If the shadow or halftone extends too far left, clean the brush, load neutral red, and paint overlapping strokes from left to right.

Reflected light

• Add a little white to the shadow color and lightly overlap the core with a #2.
• Check contrast with the background before taking it to the edge. Against a cast shadow, you can run it to the edge. Against a light wall, keep it slightly inside so the edge stays dark.
• Paint to the edge, overlapping the wall color slightly.

Highlight

• Use a slightly grayed white: add a hint of Thalo Green or mixed green to white.
• With a #2, lay the top of the brush at the top left edge, about ¼ inch from the side. Pull down and away to feather the end.
• If the feather isn't achieved, use a clean brush with a very light touch to pull some red up into the white. A dry brush also softens the edges.

Top ellipse

• Use a #2 flat or an angled shader with neutral red, and whatever strokes give clean edges.
• Make a crisp edge where the ellipse meets the sides and the wall.
• Clean up ragged strokes and any highlight white that has crept onto the ellipse edge.
• Stroke white into the lower part of the ellipse so the top contrasts with the sides.
• Smooth with horizontal strokes that describe the flat surface.

Sphere

• Clean the inside of the sphere shape with a brush slightly dampened with medium, turning the canvas as needed.
• Body color: orange with a #6, starting at the center and painting almost to the edge, then overlapping the edges. Keep the same edge of the brush against the outside color.
• Body shadow:
  • The shadow follows the curvature of the sphere, at right angles to the highlight position. Hold the brush so that each end of the stroke tapers.
  • Use a #6 and the same procedure as for the cylinder. Start at the core, a little in from the right edge, with strokes that follow the curve.
  • Burnt Sienna is weak, so expect to go over the core several times.
  • Overlap each stroke to blend into the halftone. If you carry it too far, remove paint with a clean brush and blend orange back over it.
• Reflected light: add white to the shadow color and use a #2 to paint it to the edge, blending into the core for a soft transition. It appears at the sphere's edge only when a darker color lies behind the edge.
• Highlight:
  • Mix a touch of French Ultramarine (the complement of orange) into white to make a very light blue.
  • Load a #6 thickly and lay down a single stroke. Don't keep stroking over it or it disappears.
  • Clean the brush and gently blend the edges, without letting the highlight grow. Let the brushstrokes show. A softer flat sable gives a smoother finish.
  • Finally, take a clean #6 and stroke over the rest of the first paint layer so all strokes circle the highlight and follow the form.

Correcting mistakes

• Paint in the wrong place: dampen a small stiff brush (#2 flat bristle) with medium, wipe it dry, and lift the paint. Clean the brush between strokes and repeat.
• Wrong color with other color underneath: lightly erase it with a clean, dry brush. A trace of the wrong color left behind often makes the final color more interesting.
• Never rub with a rag or paper towel. It lifts paint off the canvas weave tops, leaving white with dark paint in the crevices, which is hard to cover.
• Painting over an old painting: first scrape down the impasto with a painting knife (not a palette knife). Put your hand behind the area on stretched canvas so the knife doesn't slice through.
• Light over dark won't cover (oil is slightly transparent, more so with age):
  • Paint over the area with a color only slightly lighter than its darkest part, blending the edges softly. Let it dry, then paint as desired.
  • To remove something dark from a light area, first remove as much paint as possible with a brush and rag.
  • Then scrub with medium or odorless mineral spirits or odorless Turpenoid. Use Turpenoid Natural only as a last resort.
  • Scrape off what remains with a metal-bladed painting knife, with your hand behind the canvas.
  • Paint over any remaining traces in a color dark enough to cover them, blending out to the edges of the patch.
• Dark hard edge that is now dry: add more dark color over the edge and blur the new color. It may take several applications.
• Cleaning part of the wet first layer: use a rag or paper towel dipped in medium. Always start with medium, and go to Turpenoid Natural only if medium fails.
• Wipe all Turpenoid Natural off before repainting. It slows the drying of any paint it mixes with, and the paint may take a month to dry.
• When cleaning, tuck the excess paper towel into your palm so it doesn't smear the painting.