Oil Painting For Beginners: 5 Expert Recommendations

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Introduction – Painting for Beginners – Oil

Oil paints are one of the most popular mediums for painting because they are extremely versatile, have a long history of use by master painters, are archival, and are easy to use.

To get you started, there are some things you need to know about and a few recommendations for how to get started painting in oils.

Oil paints have many advantages over other mediums such as acrylics and watercolors:

Why Is Oil Painting Good For Beginners?

• They are easy to change. When you are painting, you are constantly adjusting things. With oils you can easily scrape off a wrong color and re-apply new color to your painting. With acrylics this is much more difficult to do because they dry faster, and with watercolors, you have the problem that they are very difficult to change once you have put a color down.
• Oil paints are versatile because you can vary the drying time and consistency of your paint by using different mediums. This lets you to work with a wide range of painting techniques, such as blending to soften edges, glazing to create luminosity or to adjust the colors, and scumbling to create texture.
• They have been used for centuries by master painters, and so have stood the test of time.
• Oil paintings are also favored by art collectors compared to acrylic and watercolor paintings.

What Is Oil Paint?

Oil paint consists of ground-up colored pigment suspended in a drying oil, usually derived from seeds or crushed nuts, such as linseed oil, safflower oil, or walnut oil. Some oil paints also have additives to help add bulk (often the cheaper paints), as well as extenders to make them dry more slowly.

It forms a tough, colored film after exposure to air for a few days.

Oil Painting For Beginners: Recommendations

Recommendation 1: Give it a try

Some people think oil painting for beginners is difficult, but this is simply not true once you know a few basic techniques. In fact it is far easier than watercolor, and even easier than acrylics when you take into account the problems of fast drying acrylics. Oil painting is the best medium for beginners in spite of what is often repeated on the internet. (See my guide to choosing a painting medium for more information why).

Recommendation 2: Avoid solvents

Another misconception is that you have to use dangerous solvents. You can use them, but you do not have to. There are two ways to avoid using solvents:

1. Use water-soluble oils. See my article on water-soluble oil paints.
2. Clean up with soap instead of solvents, or use a non-toxic cleaner, such as Brush Flush (see below for where to get this).

In fact, it is best not to mix oil paint with solvents as it weakens the adhesion of the paint to the painting surface.

Recommendation 3: Start with inexpensive materials

Start simple and build up your skills one by one. Again, don’t believe that you need expensive brushes and the best quality oil paints. You will learn far more quickly by playing around freely with inexpensive materials. In this way, you will not worry about wasting paint, and this in the end will be far more important to your learning.

Recommendation 4: Start With Small Paintings

The fasted way to learn oil painting for beginners is to paint small. This encourages you to try out techniques and play with colors so you get familiar with how they work. You can buy some small 6×8 and 9×12 inch canvases or canvas boards, but I prefer painting with oils on paper for studies and learning. You can gesso the paper first using white acrylic gesso to stop the oil sinking into the paper, or more easily, just buy a pre-prepared paper such as Arches Paper for Oils.

All paintings in this article, I did plein air, and are very small.

Recommendation 5: Use a simple palette

If you are a beginning oil painting, you do not need many colors. You can select just one yellow, one red, and one blue, plus white. I like to add black so you can quickly make a cool gray. Otherwise it takes a long time to mix a neutral gray. Do not believe people who tell you never to use black! The secret is not to use it in your darks, but instead use it to make neutral grays. It is the neutral grays that are the secret to masterful color.

Take a look at my painting below, and notice how gray the background is.

One easy palette is:

• cadmium yellow
• alizarin crimson (good for still lifes, and man-made colors), or cadmium red dark (good for muted landscapes)
• ultramarine blue
• mars black
• titanium white

When you get more experienced, add a warm and cool version of each color. I suggest you add alizarin crimson, cadmium orange, and cobalt blue hue, or phthalo blue.

As you get more experience, add more colors as I do here. The secret to oil painting for beginners is to start simple. I have built a structured program of learning oil painting for beginners that starts simple, and builds up your skills one-by-one. This way you don’t get overwhelmed and will see steady progress. (see details on my online painting classes here)

Recommendation 6: Oil Painting safety guidelines

Safety Tips for Beginner Oil Painters

Here are some safety tips for oil painting for beginners

• Put discarded materials in the hazardous waste bins, particularly if you are using cadmium or cobalt based pigments.
• Put old oil painting rags that have linseed oil on them in a metal, not a plastic, bin. This is because rags with linseed oil in them can combust spontaneously. A metal bin will not burn and so it is safer.

Drying Oil Paintings

If you dilute the oil paint with turpentine or other thinning agents, your oil painting will dry relatively quickly, and be tack-free in a few days. Thicker layers, containing more oil, will take longer. Oil paint continues to dry, and get harder with age over the years. Some oil paints will dry faster than others, depending on which pigment is in them and if they contain extenders.

Oil Painting Supplies

Here is a basic set of oil painting supplies and equipment:

• A range of small to large paintbrushes designed for oil painting. Hog hair brushes are best for oil painting. Buy one big brush (around 1 inch wide) and one little brush to start with.
• An easel or pochade box.
• A palette – larger is better. You can buy any pieced of plexiglass for a good palette.
• A basic palette of oil paints (see below).
• A painting support (canvas or paper) to paint on (see below).
• Odorless solvent (optional). Gamsol is the best, but actually I don’t use it.
• Linseed, safflower, or walnut oil if you paints are too stiff.

Oil Painting For Beginners: A Step-by-Step Process

Supply:

• basic palette of oil colors

Tools:

• 2 brushes, one large, one small

Materials: canvas or paper for oil painting

Oil Painting Techniques

Here are some useful techniques for oil painting for beginners

• impasto
• contrast of temperature
• using thick paint

For More Information

• for more information on a non-toxic brush cleaner for oils, see Brush Flush.
• for more information about the technical side of oil painting, see: https://www.britannica.com/art/oil-painting

Thank You

Thank you for taking the time to read this article. If you are interested in a structured approach for learning how to paint, and want to learn more about my Visual Music & Poetry® model, take a look at my online painting classes.

Happy painting!

Barry John Raybould
Virtual Art Academy

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