So by now, you’ve heard all about priming your canvas but it is also important to understand why we don’t use paper. You would be surprised at how many beginners waste their expensive oils on cheap painting materials such as paper.
Oil Painting on Canvas for Beginners
Novice artists, beginner painters, aspiring creators – starting out on your art journey is an exciting and educational time. As a fresh artist, it is important to set your creative hands out in the right direction and learning to paint with oil paint is a great introduction into the world of shapes and colours. Oil painting on canvas is a great way for beginners to adjust to painting and gain practice using two of the most classically used art tools of all time.
Don’t be fearful of this adored medium, oil paints have been widely used by artists for hundreds of years and its delicate composition offers various uses. Having oil paints in your tool box is the ultimate rite of passage in the art world and something all aspiring artists should try. What better way to experience Reeves oil paints than to pair them with the perfect partner – canvas. Our Reeves canvases are made from 100% cotton and come pre-stretched – ready to be transformed into your very own masterpiece.
With both tools, creative possibilities are endless. Let your inspiration flow from the tip of your brush to the fibres of your canvas with a medium that has evolved through the ages. Choose to perfect projects that represent times gone by or use your Reeves oil paint to create a modern masterpiece. Continue to read our guide for the best tips on oil painting on canvas for beginners.
Ideas for Oil Painting on Canvas for Beginners
Working with oil paints and canvas is a great way for novices to really get a feel for what it is to be a true artist. There is nothing more classic than setting up an easel, propping up your Reeves canvas and filling your palette with a medley of luminescent oil paint colours. Now, you are prepped with all the correct tools, it is time to pick a subject.
Don’t start off too big, with smaller paintings you can experiment with new oil paint techniques without spending too much time or material on the project, you can even practice on paper before moving on to canvas.
Flowers and Still Life
Why not give flowers a go – an easy to tackle subject, even if it is not as realistic as anticipated, it can still look like a great piece of art.
Still life is great for oil painting on canvas for beginners. A classic subject of the 19 th century which is particularly fitting for oil paints, still life suits fresh artists as you can start with a sketch of the object and build on the details as you go – a great way to master current skills and learn new ones.
Shapes and Forms
If you wish to start out with something simpler, try your hand at painting shapes. This easy to master subject is a great way to ease your arty self into the world of canvas techniques and oil paints. Shapes are a great way to learn how to form lines and discover the various uses of a multitude tones and shades.
Abstract Art
If you are looking to simply just get messy and put paint brush to canvas, then have a go at an abstract piece. There are no rules with abstract, you can let your imagination flow free and your creativity soar high and take it wherever you desire. It is an easy-going and fun form of creation where you can experiment with various methods, shapes and colours to make a unique piece – a perfect illustration of your ideas and skills. Abstract art is fantastic for oil painting on canvas for beginners.
Oil Painting on Canvas Techniques
Once you have the ideal subject, you can move on to mastering some techniques. Types of layering are good methods for beginner artists as they do not involve much fine detail. The practice of impasto involves applying thick layers of paint to create a three-dimensional look. It is a striking effect that will make any painting pop.
Be sure to let each layer dry before applying the next coat for optimal results. You can also start out with lighter shades and gradually move to darker with each layer or vice versa to create incredible effects of abstract tones.
Oil painting on canvas for beginners is a refreshing and exciting way for novices to get a feel for what it really means to be an artist. There is nothing more classical than sitting in front of a canvas with oil paints, prepped and ready to create a unique masterpiece. It is a fantastic way to discover the correct use of paint brushes and other tools as well as deepening your understanding of oil paints and how they pair with canvas.
Take your painting adventure to the next level as you learn how to adapt to new tools and a fresh new medium that can guide you to mastering your skills and become the colourful and brilliant artist you are destined to be.
Some oil paints, canvas and a big splash of creativity!
Oil Painting for Beginners
So, what do you need to know before you get cracking with your oil painting? That’s what we’re going to be answering here.
However, the answer depends on what exactly you want to be doing. Obviously, everyone has a few things in common. Yet, the amount of detail and the types of techniques you’ll want to learn to depend on the sort of painter you want to be and the level of seriousness you’ll want to put into learning to paint.
Here, we’re going to be looking at the very basics, for those who are totally new to painting on canvas. Because that is always the best place to start.
What is Oil Painting?
To begin with, then, what is oil painting?
Oil paint is a particular type of painting medium that is known for its viscosity, its slow drying time, and its use by some of the most important painters in history.
It’s made – as you can probably expect – from oil. From vegetable oils, primarily – including linseed oil, walnut oil, or the oil from poppy seeds. Oil is an excellent medium in which to suspend colour pigments because it has a very high saturation, meaning that oil paints can hold a lot of the colour, so they become incredibly bold on the canvas.
In comparison, watercolour – in which pigments are suspended in water – does not produce such vividness of colour.
The other characteristic thing about oil paint is that it is very slow drying, to the extent that some colours don’t dry fully even after months. This means that artists can retouch and correct their works after much time has passed.
The thicker the paste, the longer it takes to harden. This can take anywhere between several weeks, months, or even years for some of the thickest paints. In some instances, they never dry. It’s recommended that you paint fine layers. If you don’t, the previous layer won’t harden while the surface will. This is not a technique for impatient people! If you want to paint quickly, you’d be better with an acrylic painting.
Acrylic paint is incredibly fast drying, this feature of oil painting makes it ideal for beginners who shouldn’t need to rush.
Some Key Tools You’ll Need
To excel in oil painting – or, indeed, to get anywhere at all with it – you are going to need a certain number of practical tools with which to work.
You can imagine what most of these will be.
Paintbrushes are a pretty good place to start. But note the plural: you’ll probably need more than one of different sizes before you can get going. Flat brushes are good for larger-scale paint applications, whilst round brushes are good for detail.
Meanwhile, canvases – primed and sized – are going to be necessary too, as well as a colour palette in which you can mix your colours. The mixability of oil paints is one of the perks of the medium – so don’t neglect it.
If you think that just one brush will do the trick, you’re wrong. A brush’s quality depends on both its bristles and its handle. There are a lot of different types of brushes available and choosing the right one is almost as important as how well you can paint. You can get natural bristles, synthetic bristles, badger hair, camel hair, etc.
Start by testing out a few brushes with short bristles and long handles. This helps you to paint while taking a step back, which is really useful if you’re working with a large canvas. Don’t forget to get yourself a solvent (turpentine or white spirit) in order to dilute or remove the oil from the brush.
You need a white spirit of some kind. We’ve moved past the days of turpentine, however, so try an artist’s white spirit. Any art shop will sell it.
Beginner Techniques in Oil Painting – and Some More Advanced Ones
Once you have rushed out and bought all those things that you’ll need, it’s good to think about what techniques, skills, and knowledge you are going to need to make some progress in your painting.
Here’s where it all gets pretty serious because if you don’t nail some of the fundamental aspects of this, your painting might not last as a painting for too long. The canvas can rot, your paint can flake or fade, and the whole thing can crack if you do the wrong thing.
But enough of the scary stuff. Really, it is very difficult for it all to go that wrong. Just do as we suggest and it will all go swimmingly.
Preparatory Techniques in Oil Painting
So, what do you need to know before you start painting? There are three things really:
- How to prime a canvas or surface;
- How to thin your paint; and
- The laws of paint application.
You can see the details of all this in our article on oil painting techniques for beginners, but let’s run through some of the basics here.
In regards to the first point, if you paint in oil on a surface that has not been primed – such as an unprimed canvas – you are going to be exposing the threads of cotton or linen in the canvas to the oil. This will make the fibres in the canvas rot – and your paint will begin to flake off.
Secondly, you know that you are going to clean your brush with white spirit – because water and oil don’t mix. However, these spirits are also essential for thinning your paint too.
Why would you want to do that? Sometimes you don’t want your oil paint to be as thick as when it comes out of the tube (such as when you are doing underpainting). As such, you can add spirits – and oil too – to your paints to make them less thick.
Finally, there are two primary laws of oil painting: fat over lean and thick over thin. In both cases, you want the fast-drying paint to be applied first. Thick paint – and ‘fat’ paint, that paint that is oilier – needs to be applied later. As the thicker and fatter paints dry slower, the thin paint on top will just crack.
Use Different Oil Painting Techniques to Achieve Different Effects
More advanced techniques come in truckloads – and the different techniques you’ll want to learn will depend on the styles in which you want to paint.
If you are interested in traditional landscape painting, you might want to try your hand at blending – the technique in which you mix together the boundaries of adjacent colours on your canvas. The effect smoothens the whole scene.
If you are more of a Van Gogh fan, you’ll want to consider wet on-wet painting (or alla prima, as it is known), or impasto.
Handy Tutorials and Resources to Improve Your Oil Painting
Finally, if you are looking for guidance or inspiration in your oil painting, there are plenty of places to look.
From the newer forms of entertainment and instruction – such as podcasts and video tutorials – to blogs, books, and the original paintings of famous artists themselves. All of this can provide inspiration and motivation in your own work.
Oil Painting Podcasts and Videos
Podcasts and online videos are some of the most popular places for people to get their information these days. And this doesn’t exclude the world of art either.
In terms of oil painting tutorials via video, the best place to look is of course YouTube, where painters such as Florent Farges and Lena Danya give live demonstrations of their work.
If you want to just learn about the history of oil painting, or about ideas around the creative process, check out the podcasts of Tate Museums. They cover just about everything, with a quality that you would expect.
Learn more about resources and tutorials to help with your oil painting!
Find Inspiration from the History of Art
However, there is no better place to look for inspiration and guidance than in the history of art itself. From Da Vinci and Rembrandt to Van Gogh and Wassily Kandinsky, history is full of oil paint artists – who are probably the reason that you wanted to paint in the first place!
Find the best painting classes over on Superprof.
Choosing the Tools You Will Need to Begin
Oil paint has a long tradition within the history of art and exists as one of the most popular mediums that are still used today. However, before you can begin to learn the basic oil painting techniques, it is important to know what tools will be needed. If you are interested in starting to work with oil paints, it is important to have a selection of basic supplies at your disposal. This simply means that you should have specific tools that are used only for oil-based paints, as they should not mix with other kinds of paint.
Paint Sets and Canvases
In the beginning, a basic set of oil colors should be sufficient to get you going. Additionally, making use of a Masonite or birch wood canvas is preferable for beginners, as linen canvases can be costly. As you progress, you will find it in your best interest to spend money on professional-quality paint sets as opposed to expensive canvases. Basic canvases are ideal for beginners, as they work equally well as long as they are properly primed before painting.
Paint Brushes
When choosing which paintbrushes to use, you should look for brushes that are especially geared towards oil paints. Depending on what you will be painting, it will be beneficial to choose brushes that are different shapes and sizes to play around with, as they are all used for different techniques.
Paint Palette
Typically, plastic or melamine palettes are the most conventional and comfortable to use. However, if you are looking for the iconic curved palette, the wooden boards with the thumb hole are also a viable option. Just be sure to condition the surface by rubbing it with linseed oil to prevent your paint colors from seeping in.
Palette Knife
When it comes to mixing colors, it is best to use a palette knife. This tool will enable you to mix colors evenly and prevent you from getting too much pigment onto your brush as you mix. Palette knives can also be used to structurally apply paint, as this tool adds to the oil paint texture that is visible.
Brush Cleaners
Lastly, you will also need a cleaning solution to wash your brushes when you are finished painting. Solvents such as turpentine work wonderfully, as they can also be used to thin pigments while you are painting, but they should be used in a well-ventilated area due to their smell.
Tips and Tricks for Using Your Painting Tools
In addition to knowing which tools to use, it is also important to correctly understand how they should be used. Without knowing this, learning different basic oil painting techniques becomes difficult as the tools may stand in your way of succeeding.
Perfect the Position of Your Brush
While painting, it is important to remember that your brush has two sides, both of which should be used. Learning to orient your brush differently to control the lines you paint will help to improve your speed and adaptability within your oil art, as you will learn which sides are best suited for specific techniques. Additionally, turning your brush on its side will allow you to create finer lines than simply using the flatter part of your brush, which is ideal for wider strokes.
Vary the Pressure Used
The pressure you apply when painting will help determine the final result of your oil art and can make or break the look of an artwork. If you constantly apply heavy pressure, your paint colors could blend as a result and form bumps along the edges of your brushwork. Be sure to familiarize yourself with the differences between using soft, medium, and heavy strokes, as this will help to determine which would be the most suitable for whatever you are painting.
Use Your Thumb to Blend
Your fingers can also be the perfect tool to blend your paint, as the nerve endings can guide you to adjust the amount of pressure you apply. This can help you to smudge your lines as accurately as you want them. However, always be sure to consult the health labels on your paint tubes to see if the oils are harmful to the skin.
Hold the Paintbrush Properly
Knowing how to hold a paintbrush is essential, as this tool can influence how you paint. While there are a variety of grips that you can use when painting, it is suggested that you hold the brush handle as far back as possible when you are a beginner. While this may feel uncomfortable at first, this grip gives you the most control and allows for more sensitive and flexible strokes. Ultimately, gripping the paintbrush correctly allows you to paint with your entire arm as opposed to just your wrist.
Be Cautious of Over-Mixing
When combining colors, it is important to only mix them as much as needed before you can begin to use them. When colors are first blended, small irregularities sometimes appear in the mixture, which tends to add a sense of attraction and vibrancy to your work. If colors are overmixed, these qualities fall away and your color blend will look flatter and boring, which can affect the outcome of your painting.
Avoid Using Paint Sparingly
When deciding on how much paint to use, try not to limit yourself as this may influence the end result of your painting. If you find that you are continuously turning your paintbrush around a thin supply of paint, this is generally the time when you would need to remake the color mixture. However, this will all depend on the type of wash you want for your particular work. Some techniques will require a thinner wash, while others will need a denser wash to create the intended effect.
In essence, you need to make sure that you are using enough paint for the type of stroke you are attempting to create.
Maintain the Purity of Your Colors
Your paintbrushes must be clean when you dip them into different hues, as dirty brushes can spoil the colors you use. If this happens, the purity of your colors can be compromised, and cause you to paint with a shade not of your choosing. To maintain the intensity of the colors when they are used directly from the tube, it is important to make sure your brushes are washed regularly and in-between uses if needed.
Experiment With Two-Color Mixtures
As a beginner, it is suggested that you practice mixing paint using only two chosen colors and white. If you tend to select colors from every tube when mixing, you will create a blend that is bland and has a lower intensity. If you put in the time to improve your knowledge about colors and practice mixing concisely, you will be able to paint more effectively and create work that highlights your skill.
Top 10 Basic Oil Painting Techniques to Know
When it comes to learning basic oil painting techniques for beginners, many different techniques exist. While you do not necessarily need to use all of the oil painting styles mentioned below, it is important to have a basic understanding of them should you wish to incorporate them at a later stage.
Underpainting
Beginners to oil painting may find it daunting to apply color to a blank canvas when starting. Underpainting attempts to solve this by being the first layer of paint that is applied to a canvas before color is added. Underpainting acts as a guide of where you would like to paint the major parts of your composition, which removes the fear when you finally begin to paint.
To employ this technique, you will need to sketch out a rough idea of your composition by painting with a thin layer of paint, and then blocking off where you would like to place certain parts and color tones. This allows you to have a vague idea of where you would like to build your composition and provides you with a map to follow, which can calm you down when you are ready to start.
Blocking In
This technique refers to physically blocking in the different shapes and colors that are going to be used on your canvas before you can fully begin painting. The purpose of this is to create a plan that navigates you through the general composition and color choices and allows you to take care of smaller details, so you do not have to worry about them when painting.
Through using this technique, you can get a real feel for where your painting is headed. Beginners will start by painting a toned-down version of their main colors by using thinned paint and larger brushes. Once this is done, you will be able to increase the intensity of your colors and add additional layers as you go along.
Be careful of blocking with highly saturated colors, as you will spend the majority of your time trying to tone down the painting.
Blending
While this technique is possibly used the most by beginners, it is also one of the simpler methods. Blending describes two different colors that are slightly mixed together when wet, which allows a smoother transition between the hues to be created. However, this technique can only be done when the paints are wet and exists as a popular method within oil painting as the oils stay wet for a longer period.
Blending helps beginners in creating paintings that are smooth and lifelike, but can often be overdone as a result of this. This technique is more effective when used in moderation, as too much blending can create an inauthentic atmosphere in a painting as it takes on an excessively refined look.
Scumbling
Scumbling is a great technique that beginners can use to add more oil paint texture to their paintings. This essentially makes use of a dry and hardened brush and requires you to apply thin layers of paint onto your canvas. This then creates a textured effect as a cracked glaze appears, which is made noticeable by the underpainting that can then be seen through the glaze.
Scumbling differs from other techniques that work towards a smoother effect, as the aim is to leave areas exposed through an irregular application of paint. Thus, scumbling is ideal if you are wanting to create depth in your oil art.
Glazing
Glazing exists as a popular technique within oil painting and is a good one for beginners to learn. This method makes use of painting thin clear layers on top of a dry opaque base layer. As each additional layer of color is applied, it changes the hue of the previous layer and the finish takes on a glossy appearance. This also helps in creating a multidimensional look. Due to the polished finish that glazing provides, it is often added over a thin layer of paint to create a shiny look.
For glazing to be achieved, you will need to first create a monochrome underpainting using opaque colors, and then slowly build the layers of glaze on top. Since you need to wait for each layer of glaze to dry, it can be a very laborious method of painting. Depending on how many layers you intend to use, your oil painting could take an incredibly long time to be finished. Each additional layer should also have more oil than the previous layer so as to avoid cracking at a later stage.
It is suggested that you use oil paints that have a more transparent quality, as the multiple layers work together to visually blend into interesting color combinations. This works especially well for painting portraits.
Alla Prima
Also known as painting “wet-on-wet”, this method is possibly one of the more challenging ones to be learned when working with oil paints. This technique requires you to directly apply paint to a wet surface without letting any of the earlier layers dry completely. The benefit of using this technique is that paintings can often be completed in a single sitting.
This technique varies from the more traditional methods that allow each layer to dry before more paint is applied. However, given that it can take a few days for oil paint to properly dry, this method is preferable when painting quickly as it also allows you to mix your color layers directly on your canvas. This technique is ideal for painting evasive light as fast as possible, as well as for capturing landscapes at a specific time of day. Some famous artists who made use of this technique were Vincent van Gogh and Claude Monet.
Impasto
While this technique of being able to texturally paint may require additional practice and patience, impasto painting works especially well when you are attempting to add dimension to your artworks. The oil painting style of impasto involves painting strokes of thick paint to your canvas, which each mark being intentionally added. Painting in this style is often described as a bolder technique to employ, as your brushwork remains visible once the painting is complete.
An artist who was famous for using this technique in oil painting was Vincent van Gogh, as his brushwork emulates great activity and movement in his artworks.
A benefit of impasto is that your oil colors can be mixed directly on the canvas, which helps to draw attention to areas that are more striking than others. This thicker painting style can help to enhance the idea of three-dimensionality within your work, as you can change between using a brush or palette knife to create this depth.
The only trick to this is to liberally apply paint to your brushes and then freely spread it over your canvas. Those new to this technique should start by applying thicker paint in the foreground of their paintings, and then gradually thin out the paint as the background lessens. In doing this, impasto helps create the illusion of distance, which you can enhance by adding blobs of paint to close-up areas of the artwork.
Grisaille
Gris, which is the French term for “gray”, describes painting in a monochrome using only varying shades of black, white, and gray to demonstrate different areas of dark and light. However, due to the large assortment of colors that are at our disposal in the modern era, this technique of oil painting is slightly outdated.
Beginners to oil painting may find practicing with duller colors more reassuring before moving on to louder colors, as they can be unpredictable when put on the canvas. If you are wanting to try out this technique, it is ideal for underpainting before a painting is glazed over.
Chiaroscuro
Translated from Italian to mean “light-dark”, chiaroscuro refers to the balance that exists between areas of light and dark in a piece of art. This technique arose during the Renaissance as artists would create a noticeable contrast between light and dark in their work for a more three-dimensional look.
This technique can help to increase the drama present within an artwork, as it pushes the subject to the forefront of the painting. If you are interested in trying out this technique, it is suggested that you start with one light focus initially and work your way out from there.
Oiling Out
Of all the oil painting techniques for beginners, oiling out is not one to be concerned with immediately. This technique is quite advanced, and therefore not necessary to know when first learning about how to paint. However, as you progress, this technique becomes useful when using oils.
Oiling out is used when oils have sunk into the lower layers of the painting, which leaves the top layers looking dull. This can often happen in patches, as the drying time differs between different colors. To fix this, you would simply need to dab a sparse amount of a top-quality oil medium over the areas in question once the painting is dry.
While it may seem that oil painting is quite a technical skill, it is entirely possible to begin to refine and improve your abilities in order to become a better painter. We have listed some of the more basic and slightly easier techniques for you to start out with when you begin to start painting with oils. After practicing these skills, you can always move on to more complex techniques if you would like to expand your oil painting skills.
Charlene Lewis ( Content Creator and Creativity Writer )
In 2005, Charlene completed her Wellness Diplomas in Therapeutic Aromatherapy and Reflexology from the International School of Reflexology and Meridian Therapy. She worked for a company offering corporate wellness programs for a couple of years, before opening up her own therapy practice. It was in 2015 that a friend, who was a digital marketer, asked her to join her company as a content creator, and this is where she found her excitement for writing.
Since joining the content writing world, she has gained a lot of experience over the years writing on a diverse selection of topics, from beauty, health, wellness, travel, and more. Due to various circumstances, she had to close her therapy practice and is now a full-time freelance writer. Being a creative person, she could not pass up the opportunity to contribute to the Art in Context team, where is was in her element, writing about a variety of art and craft topics. Contributing articles for over three years now, her knowledge in this area has grown, and she has gotten to explore her creativity and improve her research and writing skills.
Charlene Lewis has been working for artincontext.org since the relaunch in 2020. She is an experienced writer and mainly focuses on the topics of color theory, painting and drawing.
Learn more about Charlene Lewis and the Art in Context Team.
