Oil painting technology. Oil Painting Basics

Hello, dear friends and subscribers! I prepared for this topic for a long time, because I understood that it is generally very broad and multifaceted. Talk about technology oil painting maybe a week all the time, and not say everything that can and should be said.

And yet, it is simply necessary to say the most important things. Just try to find it somewhere on the Internet a complete selection of basic techniques with descriptions them, so that a person who has never painted before can understand what basic techniques exist, how they are characteristic and how they differ from each other.

You will see that it is difficult. And it turns out that a person learns that alla prima exists, exists multilayer technique, and that's all...

But in fact there are many techniques. And knowing their features, and even more so being able to apply them in practice exactly where they are really needed, is very important for a professional artist. After all, such mastery of them ensures professionalism and the ability to convey any details of the image on canvas.

Various writing techniques in oil painting

Each method (technique) of applying paint to canvas has its pros and cons. Sometimes the painting plays a significant role, but sometimes the complex paint layer and detailing of the painting is important.

The surface texture in your painting will depend on the method of applying the paint layer you used.

Therefore, a review of oil painting techniques takes place. If you are a beginner and just take your brushes in your hands, then this material will be especially useful to you. So let's begin. Let's start with the most popular ones...

Multilayer technique

This technique is the most traditional, and most of the world's masterpieces of oil painting are painted using it.

Its essence is that when painting a picture paints are applied on top of each other, and the next layer is superimposed after complete drying previous one.

The main feature of this technique is that it allows you to create “subtle” plots of paintings, indicate important accents in it and paint a picture for a long time, paying attention to every millimeter on the canvas, carefully working out its details.

It all starts with a light underpainting, which determines the tone of the painting.

The working principle in multi-layer painting is as follows: First, a sketch of the drawing and underpainting in dark tones is made, plus time for complete drying. The second layer is the main painting of the painting with a layer of paint, plus drying time. The third layer is detailing and clarification in the painting...

This technique itself is very diverse and, depending on how and with what the individual layers are formed, it is divided into other writing styles.… Read about this below⇓

Alla prima

This is a common and popular technique among professional artists as well as amateur artists. It is also called the raw technique or the fast technique.

The method of applying paint is completely opposite to multilayer: with it, paint is applied to the canvas in one session... And painting a picture is measured in one to three days, until the paints dry completely... And voila! The picture is ready!

An example of my landscapes in fast technique

It does not require very careful elaboration of details, but at the same time it is complex due to the need to work, which is called “raw in raw”. If you apply a new layer of paint on top of an existing wet layer, there is always a risk of mixing the paint layer and making the image more difficult to form.

That's why, the second layer of paint using the Alla Prima technique is applied immediately, which is not permissible in a multilayer one.

Paintings painted in this manner are usually do not always convey the accuracy of images and objects. Their task is not to document what the artist sees, but to capture on canvas his feelings from what he saw…. mood, atmosphere, feelings!

In other words, you won’t be able to paint a finely detailed landscape, still life or a detailed genre painting... since for detailing, you may need more than one more layer to refine the painting after drying. What does it mean to work in multilayer technique... But you can definitely paint an interesting picture!

Alla Prima technique is in great demand among professionals and painting enthusiasts

It is not surprising that the alla prima technique when working with oils has become widely known. It is this style that requires conveying the mood, capturing a quickly passing moment, and it is alla prima that is most suitable for these purposes.

It is interesting that alla prima, despite its popularity, remained an independent and self-sufficient technique. You can learn more about this technique. But the multi-layer technique, with a centuries-old history, like a lush, fertile tree, gave rise to many of its variations. They, in turn, have already become independent techniques. For example…

Seven-layer painting technique, old master technique and glazing technique

Many people assume that such complex techniques forgotten...But in fact, there are a lot of professional artists working in these subtle techniques. Write a complex work, revealing all the possibilities of oil paints Only a special approach to writing can.

For example, to copy the work of the old masters, we need exactly these methods of applying paints, as well as thin transparent glaze layers. Or, popular and in demand paintings in the style of hyperrealism, using glaze techniques to subtly convey the believability of the subject.

Although, to master the style of hyperrealism, they use everything: pencils, paints, airbrushes, markers... that is, works are created, which in turn opens up enormous opportunities for art and humanity in general.

Techniques of old Flemish and Italian masters

Perhaps, seven-layer technique- one of the most complex options for multilayer technology. It is this technique that provides the most reliable reproduction of colors and play of light. There is no single recipe or exact sequence. For example, some points may change places, but the essence of the work remains. In short, the sequence looks like this:

  1. The ground is tinted (imprimatura);
  2. The drawing is drawn with a pencil and secured with ink;
  3. The underpainting is done - translucent, watercolor grisaille;
  4. " dead layer» - registration of grisaille light and shadow;
  5. Colored writing is the main layer, taking into account the lower layers of imprimatura and registration;
  6. Glazes are thin tinting layers of transparent paint;
  7. Detailing, creating texture when necessary, for example in still lifes, finishing touches.

Eventually, working on one painting using this technique can last for months and requires the ability to work with different types paints

An example of a technique in multi-layer painting

There is also a name like glaze watercolor technique ... these are all the same multi-layer techniques with the application of transparent paints - 3-layer, 5-layer, and if necessary, then 9-layer.

Its essence is that translucent layers of paint are applied one on top of the other. As a result of this overlay, new shades appear and a play of colors is created, which is difficult (and sometimes impossible) to achieve by applying opaque strokes.

Glaze layers applied on top of each other are translucent, which makes the picture unusually complex in shades and effects!

For glaze technology you need to have a very smooth canvas surface so that the transparent layer can lie flat on the surface. Previously, they wrote on wood, its surface was smooth, but canvas appeared much later.

Tinted primer plays a big role when painting is done with glaze paints and the primer shines through the transparent layers, changing their color.

The color of the primer facilitates the transitions of tones and is often the main tone in certain places of the picture and sets the color of the work. If it is placed on a tinted primer s covering paints, its color will not matter for painting.

The technique of glazing in oil painting is very complex. and requires not only mastery of paints and brushes, but also an understanding of how they are combined in certain dilutions.

Specialists also share many of the more specialized techniques of oil painting. For example, the Italian technique, the Dutch technique, and various transitional techniques are known, which differ mainly in the individual nuances of applying different layers of paint.

And also Leonardo da Vinci’s favorite method of applying paints is Flemish (glaze). Knowing about the existence of such techniques is useful for general knowledge, but to create excellent paintings, using them is not necessary. Indeed, in the Renaissance, there was an important feature, this document the image as accurately as possible, for example, a portrait of a noble person, or a lush still life.

Now there is no such need, and with the advent of cameras in our world, painting has every right to develop in other directions and manners of writing!

Few people know that in addition to the particularly complex manner of painting, many painters and old masters used a camera obscura which transmitted exact proportions. What kind of miracle device is this, ⇐

Impasto, Pastose, or cabinet technique

This is the opposite of the glazing technique.

In principle, these are very similar techniques in meaning: pastose technique or body (pastoso), and impasto (impasto) , translated as dough... That is, the picture is “molded” like dough

Here thick opaque strokes overlap each other, and the overlying layer completely covers the underlying one. In this technique, the master can actively work with the relief of the painting.

The subject of the painting seems to be molded on the surface of the canvas

Moreover, you can apply paint using this technique not only with a brush, but also with a palette knife. You can also create various patterns with a palette knife or something else, for example, with an ordinary plastic brush from a building materials store.

The technique allows you to get a pleasant feeling of the materiality of objects. The good thing about this technique is that provides an opportunity to express creative energy with a brush, palette knife, or spatula, for example. Vincent Van Gogh I felt like an artist, it was with this painting technique that I applied thick paint to the canvas.

Grisaille

This is not so much an oil painting technique as a style of writing in general. And it is also one of the options for painting in oils. Its main principle- use only one color to paint a picture. Here, all borders and accents are formed by individual shades of the same color, rather than by different colors. WITH the name comes from the wordgris, which translates from French as gray.

Grisaille technique in oil painting

The grisaille technique is used in monumental and alfresco painting for painting walls and facades, and this technique also makes it possible to perfectly imitate sculptures and sculptural reliefs. But also in writing interesting paintings also occurs.

Dry brush technique

It's more likely graphic technique of applying paint in one color. Can be on canvas, paper, wood or metal. Has to painting weak attitude, but the image is applied with oil and brushes.

A rather rare manner in which the author uses slightly diluted, very thick paints. That is, it is written with an almost dry brush. As a rule, with such dilution of paints, they do not allow you to work with shades, but provide greater depth and saturation of the canvas.

Dry brush technique on paper

They say that this style of writing was brought with them by Chinese students who painted ink portraits on paper about 30 years ago for those who wanted it on the street. Well, our artists thought of it... and created their own version, no worse than the Chinese one!

And immediately a question for you, dear readers: what, in your opinion, is more important in a picture: to convey feelings, atmosphere, or details of a specific object or phenomenon? Which technique is closer to you - multi-layer or alla prima?

VIDEO FOR DESSERT: How artistic taste is formed

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Ask your questions below in the comments, I usually answer all questions quickly

Foreign artist and good art school teacher Johannes Vloothuis teaches thousands of students how to paint with oils (among other painting techniques). Johannes gave us the 10 best tips for oil painters. I think you will agree that every artist should know these basic painting techniques.
1. Use white underpainting or quick-drying white.
One of common problems What bothers oil painters is that when you add a layer of paint on top of another, they tend to blend together. For example, it is difficult to add snow on mountain tops when the first coat of paint has not yet dried.
When an artist gets into a rage and faces such a problem, he gets upset and puts the painting aside, and returns to work after a few days. There are special new whites that can solve this problem, unlike standard titanium whites. They are called quick-drying white or white underpainting.
2. Fine lines with oil.

Most, if not all, oil painters get frustrated when they try to paint fine lines with oil paint, especially over paint that has not yet dried. Even signing a painting is not so easy if the signature is small. Here are some ways to achieve this without waiting for the oil to dry out:

  • Use a plastic card instead of a spatula
  • Use acrylic paint over dry oils
  • Another innovative way is to use pastels. It usually doesn't dry, but you can seal it with a coat of varnish.
3. Underpainting on canvas.

If you visit an art gallery and look at oil paintings up close, you will see that there are voids in the brush strokes in the painting with the color of burnt sienna - this is underpainting. It provides the following benefits:
  • It is more difficult to evaluate and select a color on a white background
  • In plein air in sunny weather, a white canvas will be too bright. You can, of course, wear glasses, but there will be obvious problems with choosing the color
  • It is almost impossible to paint an entire white canvas in a quick, spontaneous plein air and you will be left with white gaps between the strokes.
  • Oil paint is not 100 percent opaque, so the gaps in the underpainting between strokes will play an important role in the perception of the painting. If you are painting a picture with warm colors, for example autumn, then it is better to make the underpainting in a cool color
In the image below you can see that a warm underpainting was used, then we added shadow, sky and foliage colours.

Underpainting of Johannes Canyon Vista


Completed landscape of Canyon Vista, Johannes Vloothuis
4. Apply oil in a thick layer

One big advantage of acrylic and oil paints is the ability to apply thick, thick layers that can convey a three-dimensional appearance. Other paints such as watercolors and pastels do not have this quality. My advice is to start with a thick layer of oil paint and work your way down to a thin layer. Add drops of paint only for small details - tree trunks, stones, flowers, leaves.
In the picture below you can see that the flowers and leaves are applied in a thick layer and therefore create a foreground effect.


Carmel Mission Johannes Vloothuis
5. Dry brush to create texture

To paint heaps of leaves, a lawn, foam in the crash of waves and waterfalls, use the “Dry Brush” technique. Dry brushing is a term used to describe the technique of applying paint by "stroking" small amounts of paint. The dry brush technique can be used to make wood look scuffed, paint lots of small leaves, paint foam near water, and add weeds to grass.
For a more visual representation, in the video below you will see how to draw a tree using the dry brush technique.


6. Drawing on already dry canvas

Alla Prima or wet on wet is a popular painting technique in oil painting. However, the time and size of the painting may not allow you to complete the artwork in one sitting. Working on dry painting does not give the desired blending effect. This can be a problem when doing reflections on water that require blending.
To work on dry painting, I recommend first adding a thin layer of Liquin oil paint thinner. The new paint will dissolve, but will not merge with the previous layer. This way you can soften the edges of the image!
7. Invest in professional quality paints and save on canvas.

Canvas is expensive and mostly an afterthought, however, many professional artists choose to use this high quality canvas in their paintings.
I will admit that there is some benefit when it comes to dry brushing on canvas in that it frames the painting beautifully, but I don't think the benefit is worth the high cost.
available in our online store.
You can prepare your paintings by simply applying super-heavy Liquitex gesso with a paint roller to the wood panel. This will leave random raised little bumps, simulating linen fabric. Use masonite or birch for the panel. And, instead of spending money on canvas, invest in professional paints from which you will reap the benefits.
8. Use different colors to create more interest in the painting.

Solid monochrome colors are boring, so top artists exaggerate and add multiple variations of similar shades in one area. Try this: Partially mix the colors on your palette until you've evened out the saturation (about 50 percent blended). Use more force when squeezing out the paint. You should be able to see subtle color variations in each stroke. It takes some practice, but once you get the hang of it, your paintings will look more alive.
You can also use a colorful mixture to paint foliage, grass and rocks. You will learn about this in the short artistic video below, which shows how to draw different kinds green realistic foliage.


Also watch the video to learn how to mix colors and what strokes you can use to paint thick spruce trees.


9. Draw fog for atmospheric depth

I think the fog is completely blown away landscape painting. Scenes where fog is beautifully painted can add deep atmosphere to your painting.
In an art gallery I once saw beautiful picture Upper Yellowstone Falls with a lot of fog, where falling down it reached the bottom. However, I could see through the fog and it looked very realistic. This was achieved through the use of white zinc, which has a characteristic translucency. You can also use it to add haze to distant mountains and other areas where fog can add atmosphere.


10. Use your fingers

There is an unfounded fear of using oil paint, especially if it comes into contact with skin. Please note that leading manufacturers list toxicity levels on their paint tubes.
I love mixing oil paints and want smooth strokes. With your fingers you can feel and apply the right pressure on the canvas, applying good strokes. You can't do that with a brush.
Well, buy high-quality spatulas and brushes in our online store in the appropriate section  and section

There is no more rewarding medium than oil painting. It is also undeniable that oil opens up endless possibilities for the artist. Since its inception, oil has enjoyed enormous popularity and most discoveries in the world of painting have been made using this technique.

Of all the painting techniques, oil painting is the most difficult. This difficulty especially arises when moving from watercolor. A completely different principle for composing shades appears. In watercolors, paper was used for illumination; when working with oil paints White color soil has almost no significance. Mixing of colors takes place with the constant presence of white.

There are seven primary colors in nature. If you start mixing these paints, you can easily see that some primary colors are obtained by mixing other primary colors. Only three colors - red, yellow and blue - cannot be made up by any mixtures, and they must be present on the palette in finished form. Knowing this, an experienced painter will not look for ready-made paint for each color of an object, but will think about how much red, yellow and blue will be included in the desired shade of color.

In oil painting, paints are lightened by adding white (zinc or lead). Therefore, the painter must learn in practice how to obtain shades of color by whitening the primary colors.

What is the best order to squeeze paints onto the palette? The order may be different, but constant. For example, you cannot apply ultramarine in the upper corner of the palette today, and in the lower left tomorrow. The painter becomes so firmly accustomed to the constant position of the colors that he selects mixtures of colors without looking at them. Everything is done mechanically. Similarly, knowledge of the location of paints, developed in practice, allows you to look more often at nature and the canvas than at the palette.

Paints mixed with one another often lose their saturation (brightness). It is difficult, for example, to obtain sufficiently bright orange, green and purple paints. That’s why sometimes bright orange, green, blue and violet paints in tubes, ready-made, wouldn’t be out of place on the palette. But this is optional. Only black paint may be necessary separately in a tube, since it, made up of three main paints, is not dark enough. Although black color is considered the result of almost complete absorption of all parts of the spectrum, in nature we almost never encounter pure black color, since there is no absolutely complete absorption in nature. In practice, white (reflecting all rays of light) and black have color shades. You should remember this when working and do not use white and black paint in their pure form. Black paint, skillfully used, allows you to create very beautiful and subtle mixtures with other paints. For example, mixed with cadmium orange, it produces a beautiful green with a warm tint. Black mixed with warm colors gives complex warm shades, mixed with cold colors gives cold shades.

Opaque paints apply thickly, so that the bottom layer is not visible. Transparent ones, on the contrary, can give a different shade to the bottom layer, which shines through them. This is glazing - a very powerful technique in classical painting. Nothing prevents you from diluting opaque paints thinner with a thinner and making them like transparent paints; there will be a glaze effect, but not as rich as with real transparent paints. Translucent ones will do this a little better. But still, transparent paints are unique. The secret is that if you put them on a bright White background, then they create a watercolor effect, as if they glow. The old masters used glaze, transparent paints to create soft transitions of flesh tones. They can “unite” a painting of different colors by covering it with a thin layer of transparent paint, this will give it a common shade.

The principle of any paint is the pigment and its binder. It can be different, the main thing is that it holds the pigment and remains strong when drying. The properties of binders allow them to dry quickly or slowly different techniques their use. In this sense, “oil” is universal. Oil paint allows you to imitate quick-drying paints if it is diluted with solvents. Or, if diluted with oil, it allows you to lay it out leisurely, blending it with other colors, which gives very smooth transitions. It is opaque, which allows you to write in several layers. By applying varnish on top, you can adjust the glossiness (richness) or dullness of the painting. Its disadvantages, for example, slow-drying white, can be “defeated” by using acrylic white in places, or adding driers to them (an additive to speed up drying). Acrylic paints can be applied over oil paints and vice versa.

You also need to know that individual paints (ultramarine, kraplak), laid on a white surface with a transparent layer, bear very little resemblance to the whiteness of these paints. Thus, in order to successfully write with oil paints, you need to have only five colors in your sketchbook: lead or zinc white, yellow (cadmium lemon), blue (cobalt blue or ultramarine), red (thioindigo pink, cadmium red, cinnabar), black in pure form (burnt bone, thioindigo). From these five colors you can create any color that exists in nature, any paint that is commercially available.

It is impossible to say in advance what colors need to be mixed to depict what is visible. You should not mix more than three colors, not counting white. When composing a color from two or three colors, you do not need to mix them on the palette for a long time. When pure colors are kept in the mixture, a variety of shades are produced on the canvas.

Stretching the canvas onto a stretcher is done as follows. It is advisable to wash new unprimed canvas in hot water to remove sizing agents from it. When washed, the canvas shrinks slightly, which subsequently has a positive effect on the preservation of the painting. The wet canvas needs to be straightened and hung to dry. It is better to stretch the canvas in a slightly damp state. Place the subframe horizontally on a table or shield, face up, remove the blades from the grooves, knock the subframe tighter, check for distortions. Then place and level the canvas on top of the stretcher, slightly stretching it diagonally and temporarily securing it with nails in the corners (drive nails approximately one-third of the way). Then, in the center of the sides of the stretcher, the canvas is stretched and secured with 2-3 nails every 3-5 cm, preferably also temporarily. As the canvas is stretched, you must carefully ensure that the sides of the stretcher and the threads of the canvas are strictly parallel. To do this, you need to mark one of the threads with a simple pencil at a distance of 5-6 cm from the edge of the canvas and make sure that when stretched it goes strictly along the edge of the stretcher bar. The same can be done when stretching the canvas on other sides.

The nails are driven not in a straight line, but somewhat randomly, like a snake. This is done so as not to split the subframe. The nails are driven in at an equal distance from each other, and each nail on one side must correspond to a nail on the opposite side of the subframe.

Gluing and priming the base is a very important and difficult stage in working on a sketch or painting. The quality of the painting, the preservation of the painting, as well as the course and method of conducting the painting process largely depend on the quality of the soil.

The practice of fine art knows many recipes for preparing various soils. Each artist, based on his creative needs, knowledge, manners, and temperament, experimentally develops his own recipe for soil. Of course, what is this experimental work should be carried out thoughtfully, taking into account technical and technological laws. You need to have a good knowledge of primer materials, priming methods, and techniques for working with paint materials.

By doing work of art the painter must set himself the task: to fulfill his plan not only creative method, but also in the most advanced technical ways, ensuring long-term preservation of your work.

There are many different systems for painting, but the most common of them, especially during long-term work, is multi-layered. With a multilayer system, the entire work process is divided into separate main phases, performed in a more or less specific sequence: 1) tinting the soil; 2) drawing; 3) underpainting; 4) registration; 5) glazing; 6) completion.

Ground tinting. The color of the ground is of great importance, because the coloristic effect of the painting largely depends on it. A ray of light, passing through layers of transparent paints and falling on a tinted ground, will be partially absorbed, and partially reflected and emerge on the surface of the painting painted in one color or another, depending on the shade of the ground and the transparency of the paints. In order to use the color of the primer most effectively, you should prepare it from highly opaque paints, and in further registrations use predominantly transparent paints, keeping the tone of the primer translucent, since body and thick paints will cover the color of the primer, and it will not matter. Transparent paints placed on a tinted primer give the painting depth, expressiveness and brightness of tone. Transparent paints, when exposed to light, produce a large number of different tones and shades, depending on the thickness of the layer and the intensity of the color. Thick and opaque paints give a very small number of shades, and when mixed with transparent ones, they reduce the purity of their tone. Covering paints are used mainly in pure form or as a base on which transparent paints are applied. True, with abundant mixing with varnishes or glaze fillers, you can get some transparency of the covering paints, but, in any case, with a very limited color range. The color shades of paints can be enriched by introducing transparent fillers into them: aluminum stearate, chalk, blancfix, kaolin, alumina, crushed glass, etc. In practice, artists usually use white. The advantage of the white pound is that it can be used with any method of writing, in addition, by almost completely reflecting light, it imparts intensity to the colors.

Dark primers give depth to the paints; when applying a pasty layer of zinc white, strong lights are obtained. For many artists, the color of the primer was the main halftone, and they subsequently kept the lights in colors complementary to the primer. Often the tinted ground was left completely unpainted in some places or lightly covered with transparent or translucent paints. Rembrandt preferred a slate-colored primer, Rubens preferred a red-brown and ombre primer, Levitsky preferred a neutral green primer, Borovikovsky used a neutral gray primer, Bryullov used light brown, Alexander Ivanov tinted the primer with light ocher. Compared to dark soils, light and white soils are less dangerous; if the color of the soil changes and the density of some paints decreases, the soil will not darken and color the painting with its tone.

Drawing. The drawing is prepared either separately on paper and then transferred to canvas, or directly on canvas. It is often recommended to draw on canvas with a brush. If the drawing is done with a brush, you need to ensure that the layer of paint is evenly distributed on the canvas, avoiding paint bleeding along the contours of the drawing.

Underpainting It is customary to call the first registration of a pictorial foundation a color. It is a preparatory stage of work on a painting or a long study using a multi-layer painting method. In contrast to imprimatura, underpainting, as a rule, performs three functions: compositional, plastic and coloristic. The underpainting in many ways predetermines the progress of the work and the final result of the painting.

Underpainting using white can also be multi-colored. The whitewash, taking into account further glaze, is slightly tinted with the desired color shades. In this case, the underpainting looks very light, the colors are very bleached. In both examples of underpainting using white, at this stage of work the main attention is paid to the texture of the paint surface. The surface of the underpainting paint layer can be smooth or, on the contrary, body-like, thick-layered with a strongly pronounced relief texture, up to an illusory transfer of the texture of the material of the object with a plastic solution to the form, a large mass of light and shadow.

When working on the underpainting, it is recommended to use well-drying paints, zinc white, etc., or add a binder that speeds up drying. Well-drying paints using varnishes ensure a strong bond between the paint layer and the ground and serve as a base or, as they say, a “bed for painting.”

A small amount of cobalt drier should be used as such a binder, and to dilute paints, a tee of the following composition should be used: mastic or dammar varnish 200 g, polymerized oil 20 g.

At the next stages - in registration - after a well-dried underpainting, with thin transparent glazes and translucent overlay of paints, the artist achieves the final pictorial, plastic, coloristic and figurative integrity of the work.

Do not apply paint strokes chaotically and haphazardly. This destroys the form, introduces diversity, disorder and does not contribute to the transfer of material, volume, space. The shape, direction and nature of the stroke in painting depend on the shape of the object, the nature of its surface and material. You should know that a brushstroke applied thickly (impasto) brings the image closer to the viewer, while a stroke applied thinly and smoothly moves it away. For this reason, it is advisable to make the background in a still life or landscape less pasty than the foreground objects. When depicting the sky, distance or the color of fog, you should not apply paint as heavily and thickly as we apply it when depicting the earth, dense or heavy objects. It is better to lay them in a thin and loose layer. The nature of the surface of the smear is different. It depends on the tool, how the stroke is applied, the thickness of the paint, and the base on which it is applied. All this, taken together, has a certain impact on the quality and beauty of color, the pictorial, plastic and emotional solution of the sketch, its integrity. In other words, the texture of the paint surface is an important means artistic expression. Textural constructions are constantly being modified, improved, and a new solution is being found.

It should be added to what has been said that the scale of color spots, strokes, and smears depends on the size of the pictorial plane. The size of the stroke must be adjusted to the size of the sketch or painting. In monumental painting, the scale of color spots is especially important.

You can paint with oil only on a wet or only on a dry layer of paint, but in no case on a semi-dry one. If you paint on wet paint, the painting will lose color and fade. When the paint begins to dry out and a film forms on its surface, an attempt to apply another layer on top of the dried layer may result in the work being completely ruined. If you need to rewrite a place, it is best to remove the paint with a palette knife without touching the canvas’s soil. If the place that needs to be rewritten is completely dry, to connect the new paint with the old, you need to wipe it with raw potatoes or onions, and when dry, write on the starchy surface.

The methods and techniques for applying a paint layer and, accordingly, the resulting textures of the paint surface of paintings and sketches are different. You can paint with paints in a thick or thin layer, in strokes or shade the paint with a brush, make mixtures with other paints, with white or put them in their pure form without mixtures, dilute the paints liquidly and apply transparent layers so that the lower paint layers or the color of the base are visible and thereby create new color tone, etc.

Among the variety of methods for applying a paint layer, leading ones can be distinguished, such as the vision of the painting process using the multi-layer painting method and the painting process using the alla prima method, in which paint is applied wet in one layer. Often the mentioned painting methods are combined in one work. Within each method it is possible various ways and paint application techniques.

The first method of multi-layer painting involves the obligatory division of the painting process into a number of successive stages - underpainting, registration, glazing (sometimes they are called the first, main and final painting layers). On top of all paint layers, when the work is completed and well dried, a protective coating layer of varnish or other compounds is applied. Completion of work at each stage should be accompanied by breaks to allow the paint to dry completely. The method of multilayer painting involves the widespread use of glaze and optical properties of paints. Thus, it is sometimes difficult for an artist to achieve the desired pictorial effect in one go. To do this, he can use two or three overlays of transparent and translucent paint layers on top of each other. The method of multi-layer painting remains leading for many centuries. It is indispensable when performing long-term works, genre thematic compositions, and large-sized paintings.

The completed painting or sketch, painted with oil and sometimes tempera paints, is coated with varnish and other compounds. The covering layer protects the paint layer from dampness, dust, dirt, soot, gases and at the same time increases the intensity of the sound of the colors of the painting or sketch. It is recommended to apply the topcoat no earlier than a year and a half after completion of the work. This is due to the need for the paint layer and the oil in it to dry completely. It should be borne in mind that if there is a lack of light or in a dark room, without an influx fresh air The drying of the oil slows down, it can turn brown and change the tone of the painting. Paintings exposed to light are better preserved in the future.

Varnishing and drying of the coating layer should also be done in a bright, dry, ventilated room at normal room temperature and humidity. It is not recommended to apply and dry the topcoat in damp rainy weather, as dampness has a negative effect on the strength and transparency of varnishes.

For work, you can use a flute or a wide squirrel brush. The varnish should be applied slowly, otherwise it will foam. Any brush hairs that get into the coating layer must be removed immediately.

A varnished painting, until the varnish has dried, must be protected from dust, dirt, mechanical and other damage to the varnish film.

How good it is to be an artist! After all, he can capture the beauty of the world around us in pastel drawings, and oil painting is actually some kind of miracle! Sometimes you look at a picture and you want to step over the border of the baguette and disappear into wonderful world, painted on canvas by the artist’s talented brush. Do you also want to be one of the lucky few who can freely use a brush and paints? If you are not afraid of difficulties, and determination and love for drawing overwhelm your heart and soul, then go ahead! We are confident that with your determination you will become a true master very soon.

Oil painting - where to start

Starting is always difficult. Painting on canvas with oil paints is a task that requires a lot of knowledge, skills and abilities. Of course, it is best to start getting involved in art as early as possible. Unfortunately, not everyone’s parents took them to art school as children.

But nowadays there are art studios for people of all ages, where anyone can study oil painting. Master classes in such schools are usually taught by experienced teacher-artists who are well versed in the subject and can fully reveal all the secrets of the craft. If for some reason you cannot or do not want to visit such an establishment, then this is not a problem. In the end, a persistent and purposeful person can learn to paint oil paintings on his own. And first you will need to go to the store and buy everything you need for painting.

What materials will be needed for work?

Oil painting is a business that requires not only talent and skill, but also significant financial costs, because in order to paint a picture you will need a lot of everything. Here is a list of what you will need for work:

1. Special oil paints in tubes.

2. Brushes different sizes made of natural bristles (flat) and (round) for the final finishing of your painting.

3. Sketchbook.

4. Solvent for oil paints.

5. Charcoal for applying a preliminary drawing to the canvas or a simple soft pencil.

6. Subframe. You can order it from a framing shop or buy it ready-made in a store.

7. Primed canvas.

Well, now you are practically fully armed and can begin creative process. But first listen to our short story about the properties of oil paints.

More about oil paints

The beautiful oil painting will take your breath away. But have you ever thought about how much time a master spends at an easel? Much depends on the quality of the paints the artist uses. It’s hard for us to imagine now, but once upon a time painters had no idea about oil paints. They were invented only in the 15th century by the Flemings, and the secret of their manufacture was kept in the strictest confidence for a long time. Can you imagine how lucky we are?! Nowadays, such paints can be bought completely freely, and of the most excellent quality!

You need to know that the color that is consumed the most when working is white. Therefore, if you buy paints in a set, then buy a few more lead tubes or you can also not use ready-made store kits, but assemble your own palette. Just don’t try to buy as many flowers as possible right away. Take only the basic ones: white paint, black paint (it is best to buy burnt bone), ocher (yellow and red), cadmium red, or cinnabar, kraplak, cadmium yellow, chrome green, ultramarine and cobalt blue, mars brown. This set will be quite sufficient at first.

Oil painting for beginners. Stages of work

As you know, an elephant is best eaten in parts, so let's find out what stages the work on an oil painting will consist of.

1. First you need to decide on the nature, i.e. decide what exactly you will paint: still life, landscape, or maybe even a portrait?

2. Let's say you chose a still life. As you know, it consists of several different objects that must be carefully drawn, in addition, it is necessary to carefully consider the lighting. The play of light and shadow is a very important point that should never be forgotten.

3. If you still have the primed canvas and the stretcher separately, then this needs to be corrected and the canvas stretched using a furniture stapler.

5. Now it's time to do the initial underpainting. Here your task comes down to understanding the primary colors, shadows and light in your painting. After this step, your oil painting should dry out a little. You can return to work on it the next day.

6. After the sketch has dried, you can begin further creativity. The time has come to clarify the contours and work out the details.

7. At the final stage, you need to put the wide brushes aside and pick up a round thin kolinsky brush. She applies the smallest finishing touches to the picture.

8. Well, the work is ready. After the painting has completely dried, you can coat it with a special varnish.

What is better to start with: a portrait, a landscape or a still life?

If you have never practiced oil painting on canvas before, then you should not start with a portrait, because this is the most difficult thing. And landscape is difficult for an inexperienced artist, especially if you want to paint it from life. The difficulty largely arises because the lighting in nature is constantly changing, the trees move from the wind, and there are too many different distractions: buzzing mosquitoes and flies, annoying passers-by, etc.

Another thing is a still life (dead nature): I composed it from different objects, and it will stand like a cute one for as long as you need it. Just don’t immediately try to imitate the “Little Dutch” and take on a complex composition consisting of many objects and colors. To begin with, it is better to be content with a modest still life of two or three things.

How to use the palette

You've probably seen in various films how venerable painters beautifully hold a palette with one hand and freely draw on the canvas with the other. You can do this too, for this there is a special hole in the palette: insert it there thumb, and with the rest you support it from below - very convenient, try it!

The paints are squeezed onto the upper left edge of the board, and the middle of it should remain free - you will mix the colors on it. Very important: after a painting session, do not forget to scrape off any unused paint, otherwise it will dry to the palette and interfere with subsequent work.

Oil painting technique

Learning to paint in oils can be hampered by the fact that the beginning artist may not understand the technique of such drawing well. Oil paints have a high density, and without experience it can be difficult to achieve imperceptible tonal transitions. Take a look at reproductions of ancient paintings - you will not see a trace of brush strokes on them. If you are attracted to this particular style, then first of all you will need to master the so-called glaze technique. In this case, the paints are diluted with a solvent quite liquidly, but they are practically applied to the surface of the canvas. This is difficult to explain in words, it is best to see how real artists do it.

Another technique that allows you to achieve beautiful effects in painting is shading paint with a brush on the canvas. In this case, one color seems to melt into another. And, of course, it is not at all necessary to try to write without strokes. Perhaps you want to imitate

Last parting words for a novice artist

Well, that’s the end of our short story about oil painting. The master class, although small, was very informative. Now it will depend only on you how soon you can please your loved ones with beautiful works. Start creating as soon as possible and don’t be afraid of anything. We wish you creative success!

One of the achievements of oil painting was the creation of improved rules of writing - a system of clear sequence and organization of work, consisting of three main parts: 1) preparing the drawing and transferring it to the base; 2) preliminary work with paints - underpainting; 3) final glazes.
Another, no less important, and perhaps the main advantage of this technique is the unique capabilities of oils and directly closely related resinous materials - varnishes, which allow paint to be spread over the surface in a very thin layer and significantly increase their optical properties. Of course, order in work and consistency existed in other technologies. However, neither encaustic, nor tempera, nor fresco had such glazing advantages, technical capabilities and optical properties that oil painting is distinguished by. Undoubtedly, many of the techniques of early technology carried over into oil painting.
Ground color
All stages of creation classic work are closely related to each other. Work can be started on a white primer, followed by modeling the forms with one paint, or on a colored lining - imprimatura, where the modeling is done with grisaille. As a rule, the previous stage is performed taking into account the next one. In the underpainting, the problem of “texture” is solved and partly of local color, but somewhat in a cooled (whitewash) manner of painting. The subsequent execution of glazes depends on the quality of the underpainting.

The Italians were familiar with oil painting techniques already at the beginning of the 14th century, but a clear organization of work came to Italy from the north, where Dutch artists at the end of the 14th century. for the first time they began to write on white ground on wooden bases with brown modeling of forms. This painting technique was later called the “Flemish method.” Gradually, white soils are replaced by colored imprimatures that are quite light at first. Subsequently, under the influence of the schools of Giorgione and Titian, the color of the soil changes from light gray to dark and to very dark brown and red-brown. The new method introduces the concept of “grisaille”. A distinctive feature of this method from the Flemish one is that the artists immediately began working on colored soils. The method was later called the “Italian method”. Comparing the methods, one can notice that the artists at the second stage in both cases continued to paint according to the dark preparation. The only difference was that in the first, the drawing was applied on a white primer, and then followed by brown modeling of the form, in the second, the drawing was applied on a colored primer.
When painting on white grounds, the old masters, after transferring the drawing, carefully shaded the forms with tempera or oil paint, always transparent, so that the white ground could be seen through it, which in some places was barely covered or remained white. The modeling color is golden brown. Sometimes transparent pink flesh-colored paint was added to the oil varnish and went over the entire picture or shaded individual areas. Already at this stage the picture could be very beautiful. In the earliest stages of the development of oil painting, work prepared in this way could be completed with multiple colored glazes or half-body glazes, each color of which was prepared separately. Another way of working on white soils is after brown-pink preparation with transparent paints, painting was continued with body and semi-body water or oil paints in anticipation of further glazing, or simply finishing the picture in one step. In all cases, separate colors of a certain shade were prepared. On light gray soils they painted with warm brown paint and they also laid shadows, dark draperies and other more or less dark places with it. This was often done with tempera or glue paints, which were then sealed with oil varnish. In bright areas, work was carried out on a drying oil varnish with regular or slightly colored grisaille, carefully working out the shapes. After such preparation, the painting was given a smooth, shiny character - scraped, sanded, and varnished. At the same time, hull (or half-hull) insulation of shadow areas was carried out and reflexes were prescribed. In halftones over the gray preparation, the grisaille paint was subtly shaded, combining it with the shadows. The undertones always remained cold. This coloristic structure - warm lights, cold midtones and more intense “hot” shadows - was characteristic of the underpainting of the naked body. The preparation was completed with thin multiple glazes and accents in the lightest and darkest places.
The system for painting on light brown and red-brown soils was approximately similar to working on light gray soils. But if on gray soils they started with shadows with brown paint, and cold highlights were left untouched, then on brown soils they started with light areas with grisaille, and the shadows were left warm. Then the work was carried out in approximately the same way as on light gray soils.
In the 16th century the soils gradually become darker. And in late XVI beginning of the 17th century artists, mainly of the southern schools, began to use very dark, almost black grounds, often adding charcoal to them. Painting on dark soils began by covering the entire surface of the painting with body underpainting. The speed of execution increased significantly, but in the future this led to the fact that the work was carried out with local paints without traditional underpainting and glazing, and was completed in one step.
Underpainting
If we consider the painting of the old masters, we will note that at all stages the painting was completed easily, without overloading the forms with tone and, if possible, at one time. Each session was followed by thorough drying.
While working on the highlighted underpainting and glazes, artists could return to the shadows and reflexes, the basis of which was laid in the beginning. But often the shadows and reflections remained in their original form even at the stages of the last glazing.
The technique of oil painting developed against the background of the established traditions of tempera painting. One important detail is that water-based paints have a dark, dense tone while they are wet, which after drying becomes whitish and light. This difference in tone depends on the optical properties of the wet material and the dry adhesive film. To consolidate the overall tone of the painting, the underpainting made with water paint was dried, scraped, and removed sharp knife excess paint so that its layer is as thin as possible, and covered with oil varnish or well-prepared oil. The work immediately took on a different look - it was greatly reduced in tone, acquiring elasticity, depth and a golden hue. The painting was allowed to dry and the result was an oil painting. Sometimes it was sanded with a fine abrasive material several more times, after varnishing, and always using oil.
The task of underpainting is to carefully work out all the lights in the picture in corpus, impasto painting, giving an enhanced, often significantly contrasting effect of light and shadow. It mainly involved tinted white. Underpainting with pure white is extremely rare. In its final form it always had a cooler and lighter tone than after the final glazing. This “coolness” intensified after drying. In the underpainting, the illuminated areas of the painting were prepared the more intensely and more carefully, the greater the role given to further glazes. Serious importance in the underpainting was attached to the texture of the brushstroke, which could be smooth, shaded or embossed, with obvious marks left by the brush, which were more evident in further glazing. To achieve the effect of a smooth stroke, they often used the method of fluting - shading the body of a stroke with a dry flute or shading paint applied liquidly. For this purpose, brushes of different textures, sizes and shapes were used. Dry shading at the final stage of underpainting gave the painting a smooth, shiny character. It was often used in working with nudes.
The painting of the old masters used a technique that gave strength to the illuminated places in the picture. If you apply a thin layer of light, opaque paint, it will be colder and darker than the same paint applied thickly. Thick body paint, reflecting rays of light, will be incomparably lighter and retain its true color than a liquid, whitened color.
But if the body of paints was always used in the illuminated areas of the picture and especially when expressing shine, then the shadows were painted very subtly. Often the color of the primer was visible through the layer of paint; a thin layer of paint imparted transparency, lightness and at the same time depth to the shadows, especially after glazing. If the underpainting is made in a whitewash, lightly colored or grisaille manner, but is strongly modeled and contrasted, the light is given in full force, and the halftones and shadows remain almost untouched, then the task of glazing (in addition to enhancing the color) is to weaken the contrast of the underpainting. Glaze applied to the light parts of the picture lowers their tone and enhances the color. She slightly tints the shadow areas, giving them more depth.
In the old painting technique, there are solutions when chiaroscuro is weakly expressed in the underpainting. In this case, the task of glazing is to enhance the contrast of light and shadow. This glaze is applied more intensely in the shadows and very thinly in the highlights. Often, at the glazing stage, it is necessary to re-introduce the illuminated areas of the picture and enhance them physically, using the retouching method.
Brushes were used in underpainting painting various forms and sizes: bristle, kolinsky, ear hair, ferret, squirrel and others, depending on the purpose. Long, flat, bristle brushes pick up a lot of paint and can be used for a long time. Large surfaces are the largest and organize the texture of the stroke, which can be wide and short or long and narrow. They can be used to draw lines or place strokes one next to the other, slightly overlapping one another. The thickness of the drawn lines depends on the rotation of the hand blade. They give the hardest textured stroke. Flat bristle brushes are convenient for blending paint - fluting. It is convenient to trim with round bristle and other brushes, applying small and frequent blows with the end of the brush to thickly or half-body applied paint. This is one of the types of leveling a layer of paint. Soft kolinsky, squirrel and other similar brushes give a delicate and gentle stroke. Thin brushes of all types are more suitable for finishing work. They are prescribed small parts: stones, earth, grass, foliage and in general everything that requires careful elaboration. For finishing strokes in the foreground, finishing the rough surface of the earth, stones and other details, frayed old bristle brushes and various palette knives are used.
Glaze
Third canon classic painting. In an exaggerated way, it can be imagined as dressing a naked body in colored transparent clothing. In oil technique, this is the final technique, painting or rubbing a thin layer of transparent paint on already completely dried parts in order to modify or enhance the underlying tone. Glazing always lowers the work in tone, generalizes or reveals individual areas in it, enhancing the color sound and depth of the picture. Glazing often generally insulates or cools the color of the painting. Transparent glazes do not change any of the worked out details, giving more strength to close plans, or heating or cooling other parts of the composition, striving to achieve a complete effect. Old masters always carried out glazing according to body preparation.
Valer
Translated from French it is “value”, and in painting it is a certain shade of tone that expresses a specific state of light and shadow. It is carried out by retouching a painting with liquid paint mixed with white. In this way it is similar to glaze and is often incorrectly called that. It is more related to the second hull stage of work, although it is often used in the glazing process. But if glazing is a method of writing only with transparent paints, applied, as a rule, repeatedly in a certain technological sequence, then valer is the writing itself with mixtures of paints, performed in one step - sometimes lightly in the shadow areas, sometimes more formally in the highlights.
The technique was often used by many old people and is used contemporary artists when writing the background of a picture, in depicting morning fog, in working with nudes, portraits, etc. This is about the same thing as what we call today aerial perspective. Leonardo da Vinci first used it in painting, calling it sfumato (lit., “disappeared like smoke”). With the finest glazes and virtuosity of working with very liquid and thinly applied half-body whitened paint, he achieved unsurpassed lightness, elegance and depth in the design of space. Rubens was also a prominent representative of this technique.
Retouching
A pictorial technique used in the final stages of work. It is to some extent akin to valer and glaze.
At the final stage of work, artists are not always able to fully express their plans and in this case retouching is required. Sometimes it consists of a more detailed elaboration of light and deepening of halftones and reflections; sometimes it is a combination of painting in tone, always liquid, which can be semi-corpus or transparent. In the first case it can be classified as valer, in the second - as glaze.
E. Berger writes about Rubens’ technique: “Overworked artists like Rubens often let students paint underpaintings for their paintings and then “retouched” them, that is, they went over the entire painting in such a way that it could be considered theirs. own work. Such retouches could be done partly by glazing, partly by half-body, and sometimes in a strong expressive manner in order to give the whole work a masterful style.”
Armenini, in his treatise, speaks with great approval of the retouching technique, saying that it can achieve great perfection: “In oil technique this is easy to do if the underpainting is very advanced; since the colors always fade or the shadows turn black, you need to return to them several times in order to make them lively, fresh, uniform, soft and pleasant again. To do this, wipe the area well with a piece of linen, lightly dipping it in light nut oil, making the piece appear smooth and shiny. This works better on wood than on canvas; as soon as the oil is carefully wiped off with a dry white cloth, they immediately go over the things already written where necessary, retouching, highlighting, softening, glazing, making body markings and never leaving even the smallest thing that could defile the eye.”
Thus, the concepts associated with the third stage - glazing, often found in modern everyday life, must be considered as the whole variety of work with liquid oil paint.
The finished work of the old masters, executed in oil painting technique, is like deep transparent, often bottomless, water. When you look into its depths, you see the color and texture of the bottom, sometimes clearly, sometimes barely noticeable: sand, stones, grass and living creatures in it. This is the whole essence of the expression - “deep painting”. The beauty of painting depends on this depth and color purity.
Deep color
This is the name of any basic, pure, unbleached color. Deep colors add great significance to the color of the picture and, given the purity of the tones, do not irritate the eye or disturb the harmony, even if other pure contrasting colors are placed nearby. The greatest depth of color is achieved by glazes, in which resin varnishes play a dominant role: the higher the melting point of the resins, the greater the depth of painting they contribute to. No matter how strong the contrasts the picture is painted, if it is covered with a thin transparent layer of one of the bright main colors with a general glaze, then all the colors of the picture will find harmony.
The paints used at the glaze stage are more or less transparent. Less transparent colors when combined with white become colder and lose their freshness; Transparent paints combined with white preserve the purity of color.
For glazes, the following paints and their mixtures are most often used: sienna - natural and burnt, umber - natural and burnt, natural vandik brown, transparent mars of all shades, red kraplak and other types of kraplak, as well as other varnish paints different shades: natural red transparent ocher, emerald green, volkonskoite, natural ultramarine, artificial ultramarine. This list does not limit the number of paints used. In other words, all types of transparent and translucent paints that are used in painting take part in glazing.
Some bright colors cannot be achieved except by working on a light background with transparent paints. The finest glazes with subtle transitions from one color to another are most conveniently carried out using well-prepared, purified, compacted and clarified linseed oil. Oil is not a solvent (like pinene, for example) and hardens slowly, for this reason, using it, you can work for a long time and slowly. They glaze over a well-dried paint surface, which is first finely wiped with a swab, or preferably with clean fingers, with very liquid oil. If the surface is dry, then before wiping it with oil, it must be lightly wiped with turpentine, pinene, purified turpentine or white spirit, but you need to be sure that these weak solvents will only soften the paint film without dissolving it.
Oil films have lower optical properties than varnishes, so varnishes add more depth to the painting and are always involved in the glaze process. Glazing on pure pinene or turpentine is meaningless, since pinene, diluting the oil in paints, quickly evaporates and a thin, weak, matte oil-paint film with low optical properties remains on the surface. In this case, the oil thickens and hardens faster, preventing the painting from being processed for a long time and finely.
Large surfaces that do not require subtle transitions from one color to another, so as not to create dirt, are best glazed in one step with retouching varnish without oil. Colorful varnish films dry faster than oil films due to the active volatilization of pinene, so when reapplying, the brush will get stuck in the half-dried varnish paint, forming dirty spots. But if there is a need to re-register on the varnish film, then you need to let it dry sufficiently and re-register with condensed oil. It will gently combine with the half-dried varnish and just as gently blend the paint. It is better to do fine shading with your fingers, and larger areas with the edge of your palm. At the same time, to prevent shrinkage of the oil, it is necessary to take as little as possible and blend it as dryly as possible.
In some cases, to enhance the texture of a relief brushstroke or to reveal the graininess of the canvas while working with glazes, the artist removes excess transparent paint with the palm of his hand, removing it from the bulges and leaving it only in the grooves.
There is an unconventional work in a way close to glazing, when individual pieces of the underpainting are thinly and easily covered with bleach, a very liquid, tinted paint. Such liquid white paint on a dark underpainting gives coolish-greenish shades, which after 2-3 hours are completed by strokes of the same, but thicker paint in light areas. So, for example, lace of white veils is painted in one step, this way you can “revive” naked parts of the body (face, hands) in the final stages of painting. Sometimes you have to return to this technique several times, repeating the instructions after drying and rubbing with retouch or retouching with oil the previous layer of paint.
There are cases of working with glazes at the underpainting stage, which consist in applying pure glaze, semi-glaze or even very liquid colored body paint to the half-dried underpainting the next day of work.
More often this technique is used by diluting paints with retouching varnishes. In this case, some clouding of the painting occurs when the paint is slightly mixed with the whitening part of the underpainting, literally “melting” into the still wet painting.
But it often happens that even after finishing the glazing, the painting is not completely completed; after a while the artist returns to work with the already dried layer of painting and, if necessary, goes through retouching, placing accents in the lightest parts of the painting, shading the forms and emphasizing the details.
One of the most unconventional cases of painting corrections during or at the end of a glaze work was used by Van Dyck, when he urgently made corrections to a seemingly finished work. He used garlic juice, which has surface-active properties of “degreasing” the dried surface of oil paints, rubbed the juice on the dried oil surface and, when the juice dried, forming a film, he made corrections in this place with water-based gum paints. After drying, the artist wiped them with oil varnish and finished painting. As a rule, after an almost finished piece has dried, it is covered with a unifying glaze using retouch varnish or turpentine-oil mixtures, after which the painting becomes completely complete.
A modern artist, working endlessly and using a large number of colors, tries to give each stroke a special status on the entire surface of the picture. old master
As a rule, he limited the number of colors and used each subsequent tone as widely and variedly in texture as possible, taking care of coloristic purity. As a result, his work always ended in glaze.
Characterizing the painting of the old masters, Erns Berger reports: “In my opinion, the main reason for the high flowering of the art of that time should be seen not in one or another master’s recipes (which, according to many, were lost over time), but in the conscious and purposeful method of using all available means of both optical-aesthetic and craft nature. Solves the issue correct understanding all mentioned
aids in the right place and in the right amount, and not individual recipes, no matter how good they may be.
The power of artistic expression based on knowledge of anatomy and perspective,
high culture in the understanding and depiction of forms and lines, light and color, space, etc. - all this taken together made it possible for the Renaissance masters to bring art to such a peak, which was subsequently achieved by very few.”
Dictionary:
Imprimatura (translated from Italian as “to begin”) is a colored top layer of soil, or the first (bottom) layer of painting, which plays the main coloristic role in the picture. Texture - laying the foundation for further glazing, relief underpainting with heavier paint in illuminated areas.
Whitewash painting, done with warm (or neutral brownish) or cooled paints, is a colored whitewash preparation in which a small number of paints were used. In the first case, paints could be used: white, black, yellow ocher, some dark brown (for example, burnt umber) and a little cinnabar. Cold-hued paints were called “dead colors” by the old masters, i.e. unnatural. They carried out underpainting, which included grayish, greenish, ocher-greenish, bluish, pink, etc.
Grisaille (French grisaille from gris - “gray”) is the second stage of working with paints, when, according to the imprimature, after transferring the design, a monochrome underpainting is applied in the usual local whitening manner. Trimming paints is a technique for leveling and creating a thin, barely noticeable texture of a paint surface. This technique was a preparation for the next stage - glazing.
Concepts: color, tint and tone must be distinguished. Color is a physical concept, the property of light to evoke certain visual sensations. You cannot cover this or that place in the picture with color, but only with color.
Color is a paint or mixture consisting of several colors.
Hue is one of the characteristics of a color - its “quality” or shade, due to which a given color is different from another.
The shrinkage of linseed oil refers to its property of forming a surface film when exposed to oxygen from the air. In this case, the upper layers of oil harden faster, and the lower ones, due to the lack of air access to them, slower. In a thick layer of oil (and paints), due to the difference in the rate of hardening of the oil in depth and on the surface, the film wrinkles in its upper parts, called “shrinkage”.
Gum (Latin) or gum (Greek) are natural plant glues, which are thick juices flowing from cuts in the bark of some bushes and trees, hardening in air and forming resins, soluble in water.
Garlic juice is prepared in the following way: squeeze the head of garlic into a small ceramic mortar, pour in a little warm water and grind the mass with a pestle. Then squeeze it through four layers of gauze into a separate bowl. Before this, prepare the oil surface for amendments: wipe it with dry sandpaper or fine abrasive, loosening the oil film and removing the excess layer of paint; carefully remove paint dust, covering the surface with garlic juice with the palm of your hand or fingers until the juice rolls into drops, forming an even film.

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