Journal of My Oil Painting Techniques

I practiced the direct oil painting techniques by painting my friend Meredith for couple of hours today.

She had been hanging out at the beach and looked good tanned. Yesterday, I asked her to bring me some of her pencils because I originally was planning on doing a drawing, and she brought a bunch of nice pencils for me to use, but at the last minute I changed my mind as I suddenly felt the need to practice my oil painting techniques.

First I used a large filbert brush and with the burnt umber wash, laid in the overall gesture and the placement of the figure, focusing on the composition. I did not worry about accuracies or likenesses at this point, but rather tried to figure out how I would like the portrait painting to look at the end. I used the large brush to easily and quickly block in any tones or large shapes.

After that, I began to throw on the colors. It is a good idea to start the colors only after you have established a solid drawing, and there is even a quote by Ingres saying that the drawing is 80% of painting, or something like that, but I felt a bit impatient today and just took my chances. A lot of old masters’ oil painting techniques involved vigorous drawing or monochrome under-painting before proceeding with the colors.
I mixed the average shadow-side flesh tone, with cadmium red, ultramarine blue, yellow ochre, cadmium yellow light, burnt umber, and titanium white. I still did not care about likenesses or accuracies but just proceeded as if i was a sculptor throwing on globs of clay to start a sculpture.

I then modelled the face a bit more, mixing the average light side of the head, indicating the light side to separate from the shadow side to create contrast. I also began thinking more about achieving the likeness and tried my best to have the paints fall onto right places.
Then I observed her figure and mixed up a good portion of its averaged flesh tone. There was a lot of different colors and other variations happening within the body, but I just averaged it all out and blocked it in with that paint. This averaging out method is one of the most valuable oil painting techniques I have learned while studying at the Art Students League. It’s really a great shortcut, as it simplifies things and focuses on less is more, making the painting progress a lot faster.

Then I went back to the face and started really working on it. I added the features and more color and value variations. I also modelled the forms and planes of the face more. I used the number 2 filbert brush now, and tried not to go any smaller than that, using the edges of the filbert to do the details instead of picking up a tiny pointed brush (even though it was tempting). I find that using the edges of large brush for the details actually create much more sculptural effect.
Since the light was a natural light coming in from the window, I used the ultramarine and cereulean blue mixed with lots of titanium white to hit the lightest accents on the light side of the face. I also mixed the darkest tone using burnt unber and ultramarine blue, to hit some dark accents along the eyes, and the edge of the face on the shadow side, to have the face come forward more. I never like using the black paints but always mix dark complementing colors to create the darks.

I added the hair with simple indications, then went back to the figure, to model it out some more. I added more colors, values and some alterings on the drawing as well. I liked the tanlines on her breast region and used contrasting colors to achieve the tanline effect. I also started indicating some background as well because I didn’t want the figure to seem like it’s foating.

Then I just started to render things out a lot more, blending areas, polishing and adding more crisp details, varying the edge softnesses, etc. This polishing up stage is always the most time consuming but also the most easy and fun stage as well, since everything has been laid down and now all you would have to do is just try and make it look good and have fun with it.

It was nice working on this alla-prima nude painting and experiment with the direct wet on wet oil painting techniques. Next time, I will continue and try to make this piece more realistic. My paintings always start out sort of impressionistic then proceed to becoming more and more realistic as I keep working on them. That’s because I paint as if sculpting, starting out with a glob of clay, modelling it from there. I think this sculptor-like approach produce more life-like paintings than other methods that focuses on 2-dimensional aspects. But the best way is to combine them both, so I am kind of trying to learn those 2-dimensional approaches, such as measuring techniques, or any oil painting techniques that focuses on the shapes rather than forms.

Today I went to meet my friend Jessica for lunch and did a quick acrylic painting of her at her dance studio. I saw her stretching on the mat and asked her if she would be able to hold that and she did. Since I was focused on working so fast I wasn’t able to take photos of the process.

It was great how Jessica was able to keep a smile through the whole sitting. She kind of had a natural smiley face. It’s rare to see a smiley portrait painting because most sitters cannot hold smiles. I think that is part of the reason why Mona Lisa makes such a great portrait because she is smiling and Da Vinci really captured the personality of the sitter. But personally I still dont think Mona Lisa is that great of a painting.

For this acrylic painting, I took a big brush and first did a wash with the burnt umber, kind of like doing a monochrome painting. I like laying it in with tones using the large brush instead of drawing the lay-ins with a pencil or a charcoal because with the large brush you can block in the values very fast, which is great for people who kind of draw with values.

I think humans see values first in nature, and it is a good practice to draw with the values and become sensitive to it.

After the lay-in was quickly established, I started to add the flesh tones of the face, chest, the arms and the lower leg to the feet, then went back to the face and worked mostly on that.

It was hard to render with acrylics because they dry very fast, and even if you put down a mark with correct value, it darkens as it dries. Definitely not my favorite media, but I had ran out of the titanium white oil paint and had to settle with doing an acrylics painting. I feel like I will continue experimenting with different medias even though the title of my blog is oil painting techniques.

But I have seen a lot of acrylic artists who do some great works. Acrylics have not been around for too long so nobody really knows how archival it is either.

After I felt I worked on the face enough to move on with this acrylic painting, I blocked in the whole clothing with the even tone of black. I didn’t actually use the black paint but mixed burnt umber and ultramarine blue to make the darkest dark. I never use black paint but always mix dark complementing colors to produce the darkest darks. Some artists complain that it does not get dark enough but I never felt the need to go any darker.

Then I blocked in the background of this acrylic painting with the blue of the mat, using cereaulean blue and ultramarine blue mixed with white. I treated it with washes instead of thick paints as I would with oil paints. Even though you CAN paint thick impastos with acrylics, I don’t think the media is really meant for painting so thick but more with a cream-like even consistency. I have tried painting very thick with the acrylics and I felt it became a bit too plasticky since they are made of plastic.

I think acrylic is great for practicing purposes for students because since you cannot blend or render, it forces you to mix up the correct tones and colors in between marks to have them blend together. I think this forces one to think more about the scientific aspects of paint mixing and be more methodical with the layering procedure.

Advantage of acrylic painting is that you can achieve complete colors in a single sitting, whereas with oils, I usually would need several sittings to get the colors completely right since thick wet paints prevents me from adding new layer of paint on top without having it being mixed with the wet previous layer. Also with acrylics, you can even do the glazing technique in the first sitting.

Acrylic is also a very forgiving media as you can keep painting over and over on top of any mistakes you make. All layers of paint will be new and fresh. Just need to avoid painting TOO thick as it will create plasticky textures.

This acrylic painting was an interesting experience because I did it fast in one sitting but I don’t know whether I should call it alla-prima because alla-prima refers to wet on wet oil painting techniques, but besides being wet on wet, I did use the same direct painting approach.

I wish i could have worked a lot more on this acrylic painting, define the hands,feet etc. but we were getting too hungry and had to call it a wrap.

But I am pretty happy how this acrylic painting came out. I am happy for its fresh spontaneous sketchy quality.