“When you come back to your painting you’ll notice how the oil has become translucent overnight and won’t have the same coverage that you first thought.”
How to paint a portrait series. This is part 3 of a 5 part series of tutorials for beginners making the transition from drawing to oil painting.
Here is a quick review of what we have covered so far if you’d like to join in…
In this series of 5 posts, I am going to look at the process of how to tackle painting a black & white portrait using oil paints.
So when you come back to your painting the next day, it’s a good time to reassess the drawing and have another look at the tones…
Have you been practising your portrait drawing for years, yet making the jump to oil portrait painting always seems to end in an underwhelming finish?
Or do you walk around portrait galleries in awe with the question, ‘How do they do that?’
Maybe you’re frustrated by your process and don’t know how to change it.
But you don’t want to draw anymore, you want to paint.
So, where do you begin?
When you first start painting, the vision is to squeeze out bright, vivid paint colours, a handful of paintbrushes, or maybe a beret?
But often, this approach is an illusion, an artist myth.
To get professional results, you need a professional approach.
If you want freedom and expression on the canvas, a bit of premixing can help you achieve more pleasing results, especially if you try to achieve a more realistic effect.
If you spend a little extra time preparing, your actual time at the easel will be more efficient, quicker and rewarding.
Let’s enter the world of colour strings…
The first thing I do is to add some thicker paint to the main area of the cherry. This helps to reinforce the colour and is the time you can start to use thicker paint on top of the thinner underpainting we’ve already established.
I then glaze over parts of the cherry with the Alizarin Crimson & Burnt Umber mix. As both of these paints have a transparent nature – they are perfect for adjusting hues using thin layers of acrylics.
I then begin painting in the reflective light. This is the light that has bounced off the white of the table and is adding a subtle glow to the bottom edge of the cherry…
In this acrylic cherry still life painting series I am posting a weekly video on my YouTube channel that you can follow along at home. It’s free to subscribe to the channel so you can keep updated with the painting progress…
In this series, I will be posting a weekly video on my YouTube channel that you can follow along at home. It’s free to subscribe to the channel so you can keep updated with the painting progress…
Sketch by Will Kemp, whilst eating gelato in Rome
I’m developing a New Absolute Beginners Drawing Class to help aspiring artists to fulfill their creative potential.
If you’re here from Lateral Action – 7 ways learning to draw can improve your productivity then hello!
The reason I’m creating this easy to follow, on-line video course is to help frustrated artists find a way to express themselves by drawing with confidence.
With over 3 hours of tuition from Will, you can go on a creative journey to discover that you can pick up a pencil, wherever, whenever and actually start drawing…
Do you feel you should be using mediums?
You’ve probably brought a couple and had a play around, but are you using the right ones?
Or is the overuse of mediums doing more harm than good?
Acrylic mediums can change the consistency of acrylic paint and allow you more flexibility and creative freedom than any other type of paint.
The trick is to use the right ones for the right situation.
Gels are usually used thickly, to keep shapes and add texture.
Mediums are pourable and used to thin out paints and give the Acrylics extra working time for blending…
If you’re trying to paint in your spare time, it can seem impossible.
You’re already struggling just to find a clear space and get your paints set out and sometimes you can’t even manage that.
You want to work on your colour mixing, try a new paint colour, and definitely do some more sketchbook work, but you also have a job, family, friends — responsibilities that are just more important.
And so you wonder: should you just keep going, doing the best you can?
Or is there a strategy you can use that doesn’t require so much time and achieves better results?
This is the final stage of the painting. I now add some of the pure Ultramarine Blue and Alizarin Crimson to achieve the richer colours needed.
The pink in the sky is just a mix of Alizarin Crimson and White. Make sure you start with the white (Titanium White) and add the crimson to it, little by little.
You will only need a small amount to create the pink…
“With a limited palette, the older painters could do just as well as today… what they did was sounder.”
Pierre-Auguste Renoir
The first thing I do is block-in the bottom half of the sky with the pinky tone; I’m not worried about too much detail, just getting a general tone blocked in.
This helps you judge relative tones and assess the next layer of colours that need to be added.
The ‘block in’ is still using the same premixed colours that we used for the sky and the clouds.
By using a limited palette, it makes it easier to create a visual balance and harmony.
So have you started your painting?
Whoo-hoo! You are now ahead of 90% of aspiring creatives everywhere.
Often just starting is the hardest part of any creative endeavour.
Why?
We have too much choice and an over-excited imagination…
“Painting is very easy when you don’t know how, but very difficult when you do”
Edgar Degas
In this series, I will be posting a weekly video on my YouTube channel to follow along at home. It’s free to subscribe to the channel so you can keep updated with the painting progress.
An uneven finish in your painting, some parts matte, other parts glossy can be very off-putting to the viewer.
A unified finish enhances the colours and is a great way to add both a professional finish to your paintings and add dollars to the sale price.
No one technique for varnishing suits every situation. The texture of the paint surface, the desired finish, speed of completion, etc all affect which technique is best to use.
On a side note, it’s also the number 1 trick to making your acrylic paintings look like oils…