Oil Painting Lessons
Learning to paint is a wonderful past time especially with oils. For many it becomes a serious hobby or even a vocation, a passion. Like anything worthwhile it is good to get lessons from a seasoned artist who is also a skilled instructor.
Following is a review of the Learn & Master Painting course with Gayle Levee. If you have decided you want oil painting for beginners or you are more advanced, whether you want oil painting lessons to learn the basics or you want to refine your oil painting techniques then you will find this really worthwhile to check out.
Click Here For More Information About The Learn and Master Painting Course
Here’s A Review Of What You Get
The course put together by Master Artist Gayle Levee consists of 20 DVD’s, 3 music DVD’s to listen to whilst you paint, a workbook and other supplementary information plus you get access to an online forum to ask all the questions you need as you work through these oil painting lessons. According to Learn And Master this is the most comprehensive oil painting course available today.
Gayle Levee will work you through everything you need from setting up your painting studio, your equipment, brushes, paints, palette, your easel and canvas. You will learn about composition, color, distance, perspective, brushwork and the oil painting techniques of the masters.
You Will Learn Oil Painting Lessons From A Master Painter
Gayle has a solid and impressive background as an artist and instructor having trained with the preeminent artist Robert Douglas Hunter of the Boston School Of Still Life Painting. She has lectured at schools like the Boston Museum School, and is a member of the Oil Painters Of America, and the Copley Society Of Art.
Gayle Levee goes through each lesson in detail step by step and then gives you plenty of time to try it for yourself and leaves you with an assignment to work through to perfect the days lesson.
Oil Painting Lesson Samples To Watch Below
Here are some examples of what you will learn. Take note of Gayle Levee’s easy teaching style.
Professional Instruction
Lesson On Composition
Still Life Lesson
Lesson On Perspective
Graphics
Finished Works Of Art
If you really want a quality course of oil painting lessons to help you to learn to paint through a highly qualified teacher and master artist in her own right, it is well worth checking out Gayle Levee in the Learn And Master Painting course.
By the way there is also a full 60 day money back guarantee as well. Check it out.
Click Here To Find Out More About These Oil Painting Lessons And The “Learn & Master Painting” Course With Gayle Levee
Oil Painting Techniques
Oil painting techniques when learned with a master painter can take your painting to a whole new level. Whether you are a beginner or a seasoned painter. It is not often that a master artist takes the time to create videos of them working let alone design a series of video workshops for you to follow and learn from.
Alexei Antonov is a Russian born artist now living in the United States who is a formally trained artist who has had a varied career and went on to study the oil painting techniques of old masters like Rubens, Van Dyke, and Snyders. Alexei studied the source of modern day oil painting techniques from the Flemish Masters and teaches the seven layer technique. Like music where there are seven notes, seven keys, and within each there are seven more. 7 days in a week, 7 layers of paint.
Alexei created the Flemish Masters Oil Painting Techniques Workshop on DVD.
There are five workshop DVD’s where you learn how to paint classical still life’s and portraits from beginning to the end, from priming the canvas to painting smallest details like water drops to the texture of the lemon skin, and more. The course explains the basic secrets of classical, traditional painting that intrigues many experienced artists from how the tiniest details are made and when you need to stop painting.
These are ideal whether you want oil painting for beginners or you want to improve your techniques and style with these in depth oil painting lessons.
Some of things that are covered are:
- Composition
- Priming the canvas
- Drawing
- Imprimatura
- Umbra underlayer
- Dead underlayer
- Color layers
- Texture finishing layer
Each DVD builds on the last one. You can work at your own pace and build as you go. Alexei even has a forum where you can go to ask him questions if needed. You can get one DVD at a time or get them all.
The five workshops include:
- Country Pitcher still life
- Portrait of Anna
- Claret Grapes
- Yellow Rose
- One layer shortcuts
The whole course covers everything you will need to learn the oil painting techniques of the old masters as taught by a master painter. Be sure to check out the Flemish Masters Oil Painting Techniques Workshop on DVD by Alexei Antonov.
I hope you get a lot of great learning and joy from this wonderful series. In reality this DVD series is a brilliant series of oil painting lessons including oil painting for beginners as well as more advanced painters.
Oil Painting For Beginners
Oil painting for beginners starts with getting the right tools and materials for you to work with from brushes, knives, palette, paints and thinners, and setting up your studio. This is before you even learn how to paint.
Over time you need to learn and decide on the method of your painting whether it is the traditional style also known as indirect painting where you use the 7 colors technique and paint one layer at a time allowing each layer time to dry. Or you go with the technique known as wet on wet or direct painting.
More experienced painters and certainly masters would paint in one sitting known as alla prima – at the first. Wet on wet simply means the artist is painting each layer whilst the painting is still wet in the previous layer.
Some artists will create a drawing on paper and then transfer it to the canvas, whilst others create their drawing straight onto the canvas itself. You have the choice of pencils or charcoal.
You will need a variety of brushes in varying sizes and plenty of them. Once you start working you want access to everything you need and will not want to lose your flow by having to stop to wash or clean brushes. Have a new brush for every new mix. Use round kolinsky brushes, number1 to number10 in size and for larger surfaces, you will need a few number 20 to number35 brushes. For final strokes a few very soft round and flat average size squirrel brushes is ideal. Treat your brushes with care. Once you finish a session clean your brushes by washing them in turpentine and then with warm water and soap.
The palette must be made of hard dark wood, best of all, of pear. After every session make sure you clean your palette with turpentine and scrape it too. A razor or knife is best. Before each session wipe the palette with linseed oil.
Every canvas needs priming. Once you have stretched your canvas on a frame you will need to prime the canvas and then The canvas should be primed additionally a few more times and in conclusion it should be ground with fine sandpaper. After that the canvas should be scraped with a razor to remove the canvas texture till it is smooth.
Work out where to source your materials and supplies.
Of course you will need your oil paints, turpentine and linseed oil. Originally, the masters made their own pigments and paints and many of them used egg as their base. The basic “Rembrandt” oil colors are Flake White, Yellow Ochre Light, Red Ochre, Burnt Umber, Raw Umber Ivory and Lamp Black. These are the7 Basic Colors. Four extra colors (when necessary) are Flake Yellow (instead of it also can be used Cadmium Yellow Deep), Madder Lake Deep, Chinese Vermilion, Prussian Blue.
Something to be aware of when using or mixing paints especially with a cadmium base are toxic so you to handle them with care and wear gloves.
Once you have your studio setup and your tools of trade then you need to choose what your subject is going to be. Landscapes, still lifes or portraits. Obviously, you will need to apprentice in some way with a master painter to get best results and learn oil painting techniques of master painters from over the last 400 years.
Oil Painting History
Oil painting history as we know it started to develop in the 1400′s with some of the early Flemish Masters like Jan Van Eyck before spreading to other parts of Europe. Up until the 19th century artists had to make their own oil paints and part of the craft was learning this under the tutelage of a master. You generally studied under a master artist in their workshop over many years.
As Van Eyck wanted to move from painting on boards to canvas he realised to get greater detail he had to change his oil painting technique and the qualities of the materials he painted with.
Pigments came from various plants and minerals and were added to a binder to create a paste. The most common binder that was used was egg. This lead to inconsistency in the oil paints created. Something more reliable was needed and this led to the use of oils.
Oil paint is basically a combination of pigment, binder and thinner. Pigment is the colour element, while the binder these days the most commonly used is linseed oil and the thinner is turpentine. As the oil paint is applied it dries by oxidation. Other oils can be used and each has different properties like drying time and sheen. Also, different pigments dry at different speeds.
Before the modern day tubes of paint were available a painter had to make fresh paints each day. Certainly from the 15th to 19th century a painter would work under the guidance of a master artist studying for many years the craft of making their own paints and learning the properties of each pigment. The included the art of grinding pigments to get the particle size right, as well as mastering the combination of pigment with binder.
Pigments could be expensive such as gold, ultramarine and red lac. This led to the use of extenders and fillers to get more for their money and reduce the overall cost of painting.
The beauty of working with oil paints is the wonderful depth of color and flexibility of the medium. Oil paints can be applied thick as impasto or lean by diluting it with a thinner such as turpentine. And, as it is slow to dry it can be worked over longer periods of time.
The Flemish Masters would paint in 7 layers allowing each layer up to 7 weeks to dry. Even the modern paints can take up to 3 days or motre to dry. This allows for blending, layering, a greater richness of colour as well as a wide range of tonal transitions and shades. The great advantage is that the oil colours do not change noticeably after drying, and in the hands of a master painter incredible effects of light and color can be created.
Other great painters who influenced the development and use of oil painting were masters like Rubens (1577-1640), Velazquez (1599-1660), Jan Vermeer (1632-75), and Rembrandt (1606-69).
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